Struggling to climb

The airplane just came out of maintenance, and after a test flight I deemed everything to be working correctly. I decided to take a trip to visit family and took off from Pearson Field (VUO) in Vancouver, Washington, planning to land at Joe Foss Field (FSD) in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with a stop at Billings Logan International Airport (BIL) in Billings, Montana, for fuel.

The first leg of the trip was uneventful and the airplane seemed to be working great. After lunch and fueling for the last leg I started the engine and noticed it was running rougher than it had when I took off, but in my ignorance I chalked it up to being at a higher elevation. VUO is at sea level, and Billings is at 3,662 feet.

During the runup the airplane seemed to be running as expected. I was cleared for takeoff and started the takeoff roll. With a 20-knot headwind I was able to get up to 60 knots quickly; however, this is when I noticed things weren’t right. My airplane’s rotation speed is 70 to 75 knots depending on weight, and it was struggling to get to rotation speed. In hindsight I should have aborted the takeoff, but I tried to justify it as an elevation issue even though my airplane is turbocharged. I eventually got to VR and got off the ground, but I was seeing a poor performance climb of 400 to 500 feet per minute. Tower had me turn to 330 degrees and handed me over to Approach. As I checked in with them things started to go from not ideal to bad.

I was mid-turn and still climbing when the engine experienced a hiccup and power loss. I knew the engine was no longer trustworthy and I needed to get back on the ground as soon as possible.

I turned back to the airport and contacted Approach saying we needed to come back to the airport. Approach cleared me back to Billings and had me switch back to the tower. They had declared an emergency on my behalf and cleared me to land on Runway 28L. They shut down the airport for me and even rolled out the emergency equipment. Luckily, I was able to get the airplane on the ground safely. The engine stayed alive the whole way to the ground even while not performing at its best.

Once on the ground, I asked to go to an area to troubleshoot the issue. They gave me Taxiway J, and after some testing I determined that the engine was not getting enough fuel at full rich for takeoff. I should see from 23 to 26 gph, but the airplane was only getting 14 to 15 gph.

Part of the maintenance was upgrading the airplane’s Continental TSIO-360 FB engine to a KB and bumping the horsepower from 200 to 220. This required replacing the entire fuel system. Turns out the engine fuel pump, which had less than six hours on it, partially failed and caused the issue. Lucky for me I was able to get back safely. I never should have taken off.

The signs were there that the airplane wasn’t performing, and I ignored them. I won’t make the same mistake again.