AVOCET

Go for it , ive been here 10 years , and wouldnt have it any other way , As they say, when the bug bites , theres no stopping !

Mike . V

I hope we hear what happened. I was dreaming of building a sonex on day but not so sure now

Im a member of both , its the principle of being involved and supportive ,

Mike

Doe

AVOCET ( in my humble opinion) If it needs an inspection, it would need it at the beginning of a cross Australia trip There's plenty of country out there where you wouldn't last a day without shade. If you have made a decision to do the trip, and the plane hasn't had much use for a while. inspect the bores for rust and do some flying locally where there is plenty of suitable landing places and you can pick your days to fly and monitor the engine. You can turn it over by hand if you know what you are looking for to get a feel for the compressions. If any of them deteriorate you make plans accordingly. Nev

Anyway , i could do with a visit .

Mike

Maybe the pilot could call in to Druidvale in the Flinders ranges on the way , about half way from WA to QLD .

Just to be on the safe side ,

L2 and experienced jab bloke ,

Mike 86484018

Have you tryed fresh oil , ?

Check also if theres any play ( slack ) in the rocker arms ,

On TDC there should be no gap at the tappet clearence .

If there is , they could need bleeding ,

Mike

Are they the push pull type ?

After rashly challenging dumb management and expecting some support from colleagues and union, I lost my career, my retirement savings and many friends. I learned a lot about the limitations of human decency.The good news is that I was lucky enough to spent the last few months working with a great team who restored my faith in people.

Mike

Also , doing run ups on a gravel or loose surface , can give you a chipped and damaged prop , and of its not you r aircraft , you might get a tounge lashing , or worse , a bill for repair .

Its good practice to start the take off roll and do a quick mag check ,

The jaby engine doesnt have mags as such , so you are only doing a " function " test of the coils .

Quickly . Left on / off , right on/ off ,

You dont need a long drawn out test ( cesnas ect)

On the jab engine , long " mag " checks only serve to fowl plugs , and if done while stationary , will create a small tornado on the ground in fromt of the prop and suck up stones and such .

Mike

I

How does a thread on a CASA conspiracy turn into one on Old Farts & Bushfires:crazy:

or a distraction from the conspiritors !

A christian scientist?.........an oxymoron if ever I saw one........

Now kidies !!!

Go eat some xmas cake , was your teeth

Go to bed , say your prayes , wake up tomorrow , and love one another .

You know , good will and all that .

Ornis, I (and I think many Jab. engine owners) agree that the numbers do not show that Jab. engines are equally as reliable as Rotax - certainly Rotax 912's. For that exact reason, we have also added most of the CAMit mods. to our 2200 and will be further upgrading it to 'full' CAE specs. in the near future (barrels and heads, once test flying of other mods that have been done to our aircraft is complete and we have, in particular, extensively revised the cooling arrangements and proven them by test flying). Once that is done, we confidently expect to have an engine that will, with due attention to all of the factors relevant to good engine management, provide us with reliability that is every bit as good as Rotax, even if it may require more routine maintenance.As you have said, CASA 'made a judgement'. The major bone of contention here - and the real subject of this thread - is whether that judgement and the resultant action by CASA:

 

a) was based on reliable data that had been properly analysed; and

 

b) represents an appropriate response to the 'situation'.

 

I'm not sure what your opinion is on a); you clearly believe that in the case of b) it was appropriate. The only people outside CASA who have actually seen the CASA data are a few members of the RAA Board - and they are unequivocal that they consider the answer to both a) and b), is NO. Until such time as CASA makes the data publicly available for review - and as we know, CASA has so far refused all requests to do that, which I believe raises serious questions about the transparency and fairness of the action - we have only the CASA judgement on one hand and the assessment by the RAA Board members who have seen it on the other, by which to be guided.

 

Therefore, we out 'here' who can only look on from the outside, can equally only make 'judgements' on judgements. We do not have the information by which to make any judgement from facts, other than those such as the ATSB and the RAA incident reports - and in both cases, there remains a real and significant question as to the rigour of any analysis that has/may have been undertaken.

 

That Rotax 912 engines are far more tolerant of a wider range of operating conditions than are Jabiru engines, I don't believe is in any way in issue. The form of Rotax 912s is without doubt, inherently more tolerant: water-cooled heads are, quite simply, protected far better than air-cooled heads and a great deal of the operating tolerance of Rotax 912s flows from that: tolerance to variations in fuel quality, a more consistent cooling installation in all operating conditions, almost no occurrence of thermal shock. All of that is good; there is an inevitable price to be paid, and that is reflected not just in direct purchase and operating cost but also in the weight penalty and the effect that has on the rest of the 'system' - especially airframe robustness - that makes up an aircraft. However, those issues are not part of this debate.

 

Jabiru engines are without question, far less tolerant of 'out of condition' engine management and I presume (since I don't know, as I have zero interest in Rotax engines) also of proper maintenance. They are also far less tolerant of fuel quality issues. Despite the at times almost comically ignorant utterances of some self-proclaimed 'expert' commentators regarding some of the design/ manufacturing /metallurgical features of Jabiru engines, the 'scatter factor' between operational experience indicates pretty conclusively that engine management is a major factor in getting satisfactory life and reliability from Jabiru engines.

 

We have FTFs with histories of repeated early-life engine failures / incidents, and FTFs that report thousands of trouble-free hours on engines that came off the same production line. Since the engine is a common factor, one has to look at the 'uncommon' factors - operation and maintenance (and to a lesser degree, installation). There is a lot of ground to cover there and it isn't appropriate to the core discussion of this thread; suffice it to say here that there is quite enough evidence of disparity in the patterns of reliability experience between various operators to suggest that serious investigation needs to be undertaken to determine what significant differences there are in operation and maintenance and how that affects reliability.

 

That said, it remains a fact that Jabiru engines are at the 'fragile' end of the air-cooled aero engine spectrum and that they certainly have 'weak links' that can too easily be broken unless scrupulous attention is paid to their operation and maintenance - and yes, I agree that Rotax 912s are more tolerant, by a fair margin. CAMit improvements are designed to improve the reliability of the basic Jabiru engine design by addressing each 'weak link', based on research and development and testing. I agree entirely with those who say that Jabiru should achieve that same thing, and that Jabiru management are being obdurate in not so doing.

 

Once CAE engines have passed both of JAR 22H certification and ASTM certified testing, Jabiru could - if it wished and had the sense to so do - commence to deliver engines for LSA 24-reg, 24 'C' reg, and 95.55 reg Jabirus and bypass the CASA injunction completely. The necessary testing is an expensive business; to do the 'full 9-yards' of both standards, the cost is likely to be of the order of $500K or possibly more and take several months. However, both the necessary facility and the expertise exist. If CASA were willing to be co-operative rather than obstructive, the time and cost could be somewhat shaved; however the standards are explicit and must be met.

 

The hurdles to be jumped through for an engine manufacturer are extensive. It is worth noting that - as far as I am aware - the only certificated /certified engines that are realistic propositions for 'light sport' aircraft are the Rotax 912, the Continental 0200D, and the Jabirus. Neither Ul Power nor d-Motor are certificated / certified - at least according to their websites as of today. You could put them in your 19-reg Jabiru, or equally, put in a CAE engine and save a lot of money, but they are NOT candidates for 24 'C'-reg, 24 'D'-reg or 95.55 reg. Nor will they ever be in their current form under the existing standards, because they rely on EFI for achieving performance. So far, only Rotax has done the very, very extensive work required to get an EFI system that meets the standards. Rotax has a US$9B annual turnover company behind it - and as we know, the 912 iSc has not been without problems!

 

So - while there are potential solutions available to meet the 'problems' nominated by CASA as the reason for its action, it is in no way as simple as 'just do 'X', FFS, and all this would go away'. There is no silver bullet.

 

And the question still remains: is the CASA action appropriate to and justified by the unreviewed and withheld data it claims validates the action? Why are not certain aircraft that have known and documented structural / aerodynamic /occupant safety deficiencies that have and do kill people not been subject to the same sort of limitation? If it is OK to slap a limitation on one manufacturer on the basis of 'probability' - that has not resulted in a corresponding spate of statistics of that 'potential' being realised in 25 years of operation - why has CASA not also similarly acted where there are known and documented problems?

If as you sugest , the J engines are the same and the problems are difference in operational handling and maintance , wont by that logic , those same operators trash and break the camit engines as well???

Aircooled is aircooled ,

Go liquid cooled !

If weights an issue , i lost 17 kgs by just not having enough money to buy food . ( joke)

Realy , i just started to eat smaller meals !

Mike

Ive woken up three times today and im still dreaming ?

Ive woken up three times today and im still dreaming ?

Ive woken up three times today and im still dreaming ?

This is part of the problem with self regulation, the bad players just use it as an opportunity to avoid following the rules, which puts pressure on the good players to break rules to stay price competitive. The day CASA shuts down the RAA and merges the 2 systems into one will probably be the single biggest step forward in aviation safety.

test, please ignore

SD

A simple EFI might make a big difference. Is anyone working on this?

What i dont get is what is a jab or any U/L doing in the approach paths of RPT .?

Sounds like Y BUD !

Does ot have duel freq. monitoring ?

Mike.

I can't remember what the thread on these flywheel bolts looks like.If it is a coarse thread, then the metal the bolts are going into is "soft", like aluminium, cast iron or alloy. When the were initially fitted and torqued up, there would have been damage to the threads into which the screw was going. That is the way screws/bolts work. They get tight by distorting the material they are screwing into. This also happens to the bolts as they tighten. If you take the bolts out, you are left with a minutely "stripped" thread, so that the next time a bolt is screwed in, it is going into an over-sized thread. That's why it would be a good idea to at least replace the bolts each time they come out.

 

This all begs the further question: Why are the flywheels being taken off? The only reason I can see for removing a flywheel is to replace a toothless ring gear.

 

Old Man Emu

During a visual check during a survive , i noticed at the back of the fly wheel a streak of oil radiating from the hub ,

It turned out to be one sheared bolt !

All the rest were ok , but just goes to show , if this sign was ignored , or worse , missed , would probably resulted in a flywheel failure ,

For the record , this early 2200 had been used in FTF and had a 44 in pitch prop . ( recomended 42 in pitch )

From memory engine hrs on rebuilt engine 480 hrs

Airframe 6750 hrs

LSA55 s/n 015 ( an early one )

Mike

Mike, have you done the 'dowel' mod on the flywheel attachment? I believe there is a drilling jig. Also if I were to do this I would fit the steel 'spider'. I have 620 and primer, a couple of weeks rec leave and a desire to visit some folks in SA.Laurie

Again with this type of work you have to be able and confident .

Be happy to help

Mile .

Yes thats about it , and also ide be reluctant to go against jabs recommendations ( regarding loctite )

Ive got the 620 , but no primer .

Give is a call when your ready .

Mike

Thanks Mike and Andy, sensible advice.There actually isn't a problem, I guess I have been influenced by all the stories about failures that you read on this site.

You'll have to order some new screws

Any exuse to come down

and have some aviation fellowship , and of course , your wine cellar !!

Mike .