Jaba-who

Needs rapid assessment - rapid determination of respiratory effort and whether airway is blocked or not. Management is obviously dependent on what is found at assessment. First concern is always that an unconscious patient in an upright poisition will obstruct their airway - if it's not opened up they die. You consider risk of spinal injuries and try to minimise worsening them. Fixed position extraction methods, neck collars ( formal or improvised) etc But lots more to it. Neck injuries involving rapid whiplashing can injure spinal cord in neck. If it happens above Bone levels C4-5 the drive to breath will stop so even an open airway will be no good. Patient will then need external ventilation - mouth to mouth or bag and mask or intubation and ventilation. Can do that in upright position IF equipment and skilled operator available. If not you gotta get the them out and flat so can be ventilated by whatever is available. Facial injuries from smacking face onto dash can cause impaction injuries that can obstruct the airway at face, tongue or neck level. Depending on the obstruction simple positioning may fix it or if more complex then artificial airway either through mouth, nose or even emergency tracheotomy may be warranted. If patient is unconscious and low heart output - then sitting while low blood pressure is potentially fatal. Blood pools in legs and none goes to brain. So assessment requires rapid assessment of cardiac output - pulse and blood pressure. If they are low pressure then doesn't matter if they are ventilated or not the oxygen won't get to the brain. So in that case they have to be got out and flat. So complex mix of considerations.

I doubt there are 7000 either still in use or being used by people or entities that would contribute or are just going to replace them or even repair them if they fail. A lot got used in drones in the Middle East I believe. Then there are all the early ones that are probably replaced already. and probably some users who will be willing to junk theirs when it dies and move on to something else. Probably quite a lot of jabs or other airframes in sheds just collecting dust as well. So from a consumer cohort I would doubt very much there would be more than a few thousand potential customers for parts for the old engines. Jabiru appear to have sorted out their sources for the future so they will not be a customer. I get the feeling it's likely to be a constantly contracting market into the future. .

According to Rod's letter and this was also told to me about ten years ago , they did not put the pressure on Ian to increase the investment -the way Rod tells it they actively discouraged him to increase his debt. but he did so anyway.

Did you work out why it suddenly happened (at 250 hrs). Suddenly getting hot must have been result of something happening.

Has its own term "RAS Syndrome". Which itself is an RAS - redundant acronym syndrome syndrome! Toungue in cheek tautology within the name of the tautology.

As best I recall they had insoluble problems with cooling. They stopped making them some years go.

There's always two sides to any story. The consistent story that I have heard from close circles of Rods since about the gfc time is that Rod advised Ian on multiple occasions in the 2000's NOT to go into debt and NOT to expand their manufacturing capability. The high orders and the lag time of several months for orders was a catalyst for Ian to want to increase but Rod's opinion was that there was always a downturn potentially around the corner. The lag time for orders was an irrevocable consequence of maintaining a buffer against downturn. Then the gfc hit and that was way before the engine problems and CASA debacle. As far as I am aware those huge outputs of 90 + a month stopped at or about the 2009 mark and never peaked again. At the same time sales of airframes ( which Ian has no involvement in ) also dived. So it was not just jabiru making Camits a sacrificial lamb. I'm not saying for an instant that Ian should have listened to Stiffy etc etc. Ian's decision was to upgrade. A decision for him to assess and go with. Had it all worked we'd be saying how great the business was. That's Ian's decision. But whatever other decisions were/are made by Jabiru to avoid going down with the "Camit ship" they have to be looked at in that light. if as a result of a decision it goes pear shaped - then for the rest of us to weave a tale of deceit and foul play is probably less than fair.

The rumour floating around is that there have been a few people who having put them have had enough trouble that they have taken them off again. The problem of one or several people doing a mod and getting results is that often those results are not repeatable on other peoples engines. There is so much variation between set ups.

Yep thats what I said. As I said - I got a written list from Jabiru and a verbal list from Ian Bent.The written list had more changes than the verbal list. I made the assumption that the fact is was verbal gave leeway for there to be others he'd forgotten, so I stated " I make an assumption" they were probably about the same. This was said in response to someone who said said Jabiru have made few or no changes. So my answer was merely to point out the error in that original statement of Jabiru doing no development. Then someone else again said Camit made many changes and Jabiru made none. I responded I was given a list from both and the Jabiru list had more changes on it. I didn't think I'd have to go back and restate all the background and provisos again..... obviously I did.

Not taken as a fight. No, I didn't say (or at least didn't mean it to sound as though i said it that way) that it was part of the rules. I meant that's what Rod Stiff said they did. Someone else here said there were lots of rules about running it through various parameters. So I said (or meant) apart from whatever rules they were obliged to do, Rod Stiff told us they had run it flat bikkies for 3 days. Whatever other RPMs and stuff they did, he did not elaborate.

That was my point. My small sample is distinctly different to your small so neither is valid.

I vaguely recall him mentioning the longer time. ( maybe it was 1000 hours I don't recall) the bit that I do recall was in whatever time they ran it for at whatever revs to satisfy the rules Rod Stiff definitely said they had a period where they ran it full open throttle for 3 Days. So I am left to surmise given the info added by others then it was probably much more with variable amounts but for some of it it was flat bikkies for 3 days. Bex - as I have said jabiru did develop their design. Just that their designs were in a different direct to Camits. As I said when I was given a list of changes in development made jabirus exceeded Camits changes in design. Always a bit faulty to look only at a small number in a small area as an indication of anything. We have about a dozen jabiru engines in our Area. i don't know of any of them that has had major problems early. Yep - One threw a valve and had a stoppage but at over 600 hours but the owner had been running it fairly hot for quite some time ( years). Others have run right up to the top end TBO.

I was at a meeting a few weeks back where rod stiff spoke about the new engines and he said the new engine or one of the new engines had been on a test bed run at full revs for 3 days non stop ( except for refuels and stops to do the required maintenance due to the hours clocking up) and another ( or perhaps same one at different time I don't recall which) had several hundred hours in flight in an airframe. Several staff had sore butts from flying all day every day!

I agree entirely ( from my own perspective anyway). One of the things I disagreed with Stiffy's approach to keeping costs down was to produce is basic aircraft. Things like a single CHT have proven to be a source of problems. I think that had he offered a well advertised range from "basic to deluxe" with more obviousness about the benefits etc I think he would have been surprised at how many people would have taken the deluxe aircraft. The entry level would still be there for the guy who wants to get flying on the budget but everyone would be aware there was a better option. Even though jabiru has sold Dynon with full CHT & EGT etc they haven't really pushed it. When I bought my kit in 2006 I really only found out about additional stuff tangentially. If a lot of the fleet took up multi sensors right from the start it may have been obvious earlier there are temp problems before the stappages etc.

Last year when I was looking at upgrading my jabiru engine (as it had reached the daunting 500 hours) I dld a lot of talking to both Ian and Rod to try to work out the direction to go with a replacement. I got a list in writing off jabiru of the upgrades and changes they had made and got a verbal list from Ian. Ian's list was actually shorter than the jabiru list but I took into account it was verbal so I figured they were probably about the same in number. The difference was the directions they went to address the same problems. In the end I am not an engineer and was not in any position to choose based on whose mods were likely to be actually useful and whose were merely conjecture ( or maybe they BOTH will work or neither will work) The tax man decided it for me as I got hit with an unexpected tax bill that was almost the same as the difference between the two. I'm not surprised jab are sourcing more parts from overseas. The sad reality of business is that if your product has less demand for whatever reason then you have to cut your costs or go under. Doesn't make business sense to pay more for something than you can get it elsewhere especially if the writing was on the wall that camit were in a tenuous position.

As I said it obviously must be legal so I am not suggesting anything is illegal. Im saying I remain surprised that a company would continue to provide income for another company who has developed a direct competitor product from their product. ( and Rod Stiff was the main designer but I have no idea how much input every one else made) My subtle point being that obviously there is much more to it than is available to us here. But none the less in remain astounded.

I did know that camit ramped up their output capacity in the late 2000s. I understand Ian acquired more cnc mills then. Then came the gfc. That hit both jabiru and camit. Whether in hindsight that was a good plan or not is a bit moot but it was done and regardless of the thought processes that lead to the ramping up camit paid dearly for that. Some sources have intimated to me that that was the prime catastrophe that has been the major catalyst for the whole saga. Big debt and less orders from jabiru due to gfc - lead to needing more work - lead to going into competition with the hand that feeds them - lead to antipathy from jabiru - lead to jabiru sourcing stuff from elsewhere ( at lower prices) -lead to less work for camit - lead to a self spiraling vortex to doom. In some ways I suspect ( with no particular evidence just speculation) that the writing was actually in the wall before CASA but that was the straw that broke the camels back. I still remain absolutely astounded that the jabiru vs camit situation even existed. I can imagine no other manufacturing industry where a contractor contracted to provide any finished product would be able to use the basic design of that company and make and sell a modified version of it in competition with the originator. Obviously was legal but I could imagine that most manufacturers in jabiru's position would have taken their orders and gone elsewhere as soon as camit even hinted at making a competitor engine.

I agree entirely about the backward step but disagree about hanging our heads in shame. I am confident that a significant part of this problem came from the Jariru engine debacle since that's where a lot of Camits income came from. I think many of this group ( myself included) wrote letters, made representations and did what we could to try to have casa see sense and change their ruling. I think of that we can be quite proud. I'm sure there were multiple factors which have led to this outcome but those of which we as a group have had any ability to change were handled in a way we don't need to hang our heads.

Oh, that is bad news. That is terrible for them. And probably terrible for Jab as well, and all of us in recreational aviation here in Australia. I guess that the next question then is where does everyone go from here?

I'm not sure on the numbers but as best i recall the serial number block that does comply according to the CASA publication ( and is removed from the restrictions) is from about s/n 2450 onwards for the 3300 models and I bought one with serial Number about 120 higher than that a few months before the restrictions came in. Assuming no skipped s/n I'd be happy to accept a couple of hundred 3300s by now and ???probably a similar number of 2200s.

I'm not being a biased responder here but that's an interesting response. It does bely the very common but poor understanding of what has transpired with jabiru. There is a pervading impression that jabiru have not addressed problems and have not made advances while camit are the only ones who have done any. Its a very unfortunate thought process that exists widely. Jabiru also have lots of mods and upgrades tried, included or abandoned. I've been to the factory for an engine course and there were prototypes of multiple different components all around the place. There were several complete new model engines there as well. There is no limitation on development because the one that is in use is licenced. New engines can be sold as unlicensed to experimental owners etc and new development is necessary before new supplications for licensing. The fact that New mods have been made is what has led CASA to remove those restrictions from the generation engines. The mods made by both jabiru and by camit are mods that each stand by and both essentially dismiss the mods made by the other. I did a lot of questioning last year and when you talk to both, their ideas sound right then you talk to the other and their ideas sound right. Their refuting of the other, sounds right at the time too. In the end it falls down to an opinion that can only be evaluated when enough engines with enough time on them are in the field. The other process that's exists frequently is the bias posted several times on this forum that essentially says "jabiru have problems therefore if it is not a jabiru it is better than a jabiru." Its a common human mistake. At present the very low number of camit engines means that if you have a sense of security in using the engine then statistically it is possibly misplaced. I'm not saying jabiru is better or worse but as a statistician the low numbers and limited hours in the field means that asserting increased reliability at this stage is not valid. Any feeling of increased reliability is as yet opinion only and while I haven't worked out the actual numbers yet, loosely to get reliable statistics we are probably a few years off.

My understanding is there are about 200 jab engines of the most recent generation but I have no idea what the breakdown of 3300 to 2200 are. ( most were in the field before the restrictions came into place. The big problem as said above is the there are hybrids as well and I know if one which was a jab basic engine which had camit parts added and then there was a failure - and it's even hard to work out from the ATSB report and from the scuttlebutt I have been told which bits were which, and then whose bits that failed. So as soon as you get a hybridisation its hard to say whose engine type was the failure.

It would be really useful to know how many new jab engines and how many camits there are in the field since if there are very low numbers of either or both then it's really hard to know whether any or either of their improvements are actually of any benefit.

My understanding is that there are relatively few CAMit engines in the field. I have heard that there have been some problems with Pistons. Something about the beefed up barrels not expanding and the skirt of the Pistons becoming tight. But it was just a murmuring from a jabiru employee. Anyone heard anything about that?

That's good news. I had a fairly lack lustre experience with my attempt. However, I did as Jabiru suggested and covered the NACA inlet with a big piece of cardboard and cut a 2 1/4 inch hole in it. I then ran it at varied RPMs and plotted it out in a graph. I also did the same with the normal NACA duct. Essentially it was fairly unchanged (with my 3300 engine). One cylinder (forget which at present). One cylinder EGTs was about 5 or so degrees hotter at lower RPMs (2700 - 2800) and the overall EGT spread was about (5 degrees C) closer at the normal operating end (2800 - 2900). But the temps are all about reasonable anyway. The CHTs were essentially unchanged. All in all, a minimal better change but not enough to justify the considerable workload in cutting off the old NACA inlet, turning it into a flush circular inlet. I guess I may try the trick of leaving the loose end in the engine bay. But that sounds basically just like leaving the carb heat on ( since you have to be sucking in warmed air from around the air that passes the engine. ) . Which I already know drops the EGTs ...But that drops the power as well. I also made some side plates and blocked off the spaces between the rocker covers. Again. As good as no change in the CHTs when I did.