Dieselten

One comment I heard recently is if Jabiru offered a firewall-forward package and the Rotax 912 engine as an option for kit-builders they wouldn't be able to make enough airframes to keep up with demand. The issue seems to be one of "doing it all here" instead of sourcing the powerplant from a manufacturer with production-capacity and proven reliability. ieadave, 1. I'll find out. 2. New 2.2 engines $13900Aus. Factory-rebuilt solid-lifter engine $11500Aus. My zero-hour rebuild was $5500 and counting (will be extra cost for new cylinder and freight each way, perhaps a total of $6500Aus) 3. We ring the engine-shop at the Jabiru factory in Bundaberg and talk to the people there. We don't ring the engine manufacturer (a company called Camit) because they just build engines, they don't repair them. Jabiru do that themselves.

"Experience is a hard teacher; she gives you the test first and the lesson afterwards". New and rebuilt engines are run in at Jabiru for 5 hours, one at a time. They usually do 1 per day. When I informed the Jab engine people of the problem I asked why the oil-leak wasn't noticed at run in; no answer. I asked if the cylinders associated with the failed through-bolts received any dye-checking or other NDT before being re-used; again no answer. The impression I got was the people at Jabiru were not very pleased with the situation. They are not alone. There may be multiple reasons for their "winter of discontent". For me it resolves into a single issue. I have a non-performing asset which has failed to deliver any income for over 5 months to date and in all probability that will string out to the best part of 6 calendar months before the income-stream re-establishes itself...if it ever does. In that period it has been a pit into which I have poured money on a regular basis (hangarage, insurance, pre-paid landing-fees etc) and received nothing in return. There is a limit to how long I am prepared to continue with this. Pragmatically, I need to get this aircraft back in the air, and for that to happen Jabiru have to fix my engine and get it back to me, which they will do to the best of their ability. We will then re-install it, ground run it (checking very carefully as before), then test-fly it for some hours to ensure when it goes on-hire again it will perform as expected by people who hire aircraft in good faith. If the engine meets expectations then I will continue to utilise the aircraft. However, if the engine proves troublesome, then I reserve the right to actively and critically review the composition of my fleet. To blindly support a manufacturere simply because it is "all Australian" would be foolhardy. The product will rise - or fall - on its merits and nothing else.

Well, the story grows more interesting by the day. Engine ground-run a few days ago. Big oil-leak from oil-cooler adapter. Tightened it. Cleaned up spilt oil (the cowling will never rust!) Did 4 hours approx running-in. Found oil-leaks around one of the new through-bolts. Cleaned up and applied talcum-powder, then short engine run. Discovered no 4 cylinder has a crack at the base. This was original cylinder where the through-bolts failed; it was re-used for the overhaul. Engine is now back off aircraft, in the wooden box and will go back to Jabiru for work under rebuilt engine warranty. AOG again. AOG started 23/12/2010. Ended ??/??/????. If anyone can see the funny side of this will they please let me know where it is; I seem to have misplaced it somewhere.

1st Odyssy PC625 in my J160C lasted a bit over a year, then began to have issues with hard-starting. Replaced it and problem solved. Didn't bother with warranty because batteries are consumable items and if you are fed up with one brand you can vote with your wallet and buy a different brand. Still have the original PC625, we float-charge it and use it as an emergency standby for those who flatten their Jabiru batteries trying to start on cold winters's mornings. Quite useful for that actually.

Engine hung today. Talk about "The Sermon On The Mount"! If Jabiru just used engine mounting-bolts 1/4" longer a half-day job would have been done in half an hour.

Twisted-pairs for noise-cancellation work best on balanced lines with inputs to either coupling or impedance-matching transformers (noise cancels in the transformer input winding due to phase reversal from one end to the other) or inputs into differential amplifiers (op-amps), where noise-signals of equal aplitude and phase are cancelled by summing the inverting and non-inverting inputs. Twisted-pairs don't work very well on unbalanced lines (such as a single active wire with an earthed shield surrounding it). Ferrites on power input cables, good bonding and grounding of equipment chassis, correctly-terminated cables (using high-quality connectors) and careful choice of cable-runs (and antenna-positioning) can go along way to strangling the interference. Strobe-inverters are especially troublesome and may require multiple treatments to reduce the inverter-noise or whine to an acceptable level - if it can't be eliminated entirely. Sometimes you have to be highly creative and ingenious to reduce or eliminate RFI/EMI.

Shell says use W100 in Jabiru engines. Jabiru says use 15w50 multigrade in Jabiru engines. "Rock and Hard Place" seems to sum it up for me. The issue is degradation of the lubricant additives by lead in engines running Avgas and the multigrade oil. In large oil-capacity engines (Lycoming, Continental etc) this is not so much of a problem due to the sheer volume of oil on hand, but in a small capacity engine (Jabiru 2200 and 3300) the oil degrades the additives relatively quickly. Shell are saying this doesn't occur in the W100 oil, although it is still a dispersant oil. One option is to change the oil more frequently (say every 25 hours instead of every 50)...or go with the W100. The other option is not to use a Shell oil at all. There are others.

If it is a TSOd altimeter, any of the instrument workshops at Bankstown airport can handle it. Suggest look them up in Yellow Pages and get quotes. Alternatively, your nearest avionics/instrument workshop can help. If it is a Chinese altimeter, throw it away and buy a good overhauled TSOd American-made unit from a reputable instrument/avionics supplier. Chinese altimeters are not repairable and no workshop I know of will even try to fix them.

Well, my engine's back, sitting in a box at the airport. Full overhaul, both top and bottom end plus anything else. Zero-timed. Updated pushrods, rockers, oil-feed to the heads. New oil-cooler adapter. Slight change to idle-jet and main carby-needle. New, longer through-bolts and nuts as per the Service Bulletin recently released. Will hope to hang it tomorrow and maybe start running-in on Friday - maybe. Cost? About $5400 plus a few bucks and freight. For a complete overhaul to zero-time, and upgraded to the latest specs, I consider this very reasonable. Now we'll see how long this one lasts.

Heavy rain definitely not good for most props, metal excluded. Definitely a no-go for wooden (protected leading-edge, glassed, painted etc or not) and Woodcomp props. Very light rain not so much an issue, but throttle back to reduce impact on prop from water droplets. One school of thought has it that "if you can see through it you can fly through it". I prefer to think of raindrops as being as hard as gravel at the speed a prop hits them. Would you fly through a shower of fine gravel? I prefer to detour around rain wherever possible. Otherwise throttle back and get out of it ASAP.

Let us suppose for aminute that Jabiru offered a choice of engines; Rotax or Jabiru. Here are some possible scenarios:- Case 1: Jabiru is overwhelmed with orders for 912-powered aircraft; they cannot keep up with demand. Lengthy delays, resulting in frustrated customers. Not good, for anyone. Case 2: Customers overwhelmingly prefer the Rotax engine to the Jabiru 2200. The company that manufactures the 220, Camit, suffers a huge loss of business, affecting availability of the 3300 engine. Rotax sell lots of engines, Jabiru struggles to keep up with the demand. Not so good for Jabiru, great for Rotax, not good for Camit. Case 3: Customers prefer the Jabiru engine over the Rotax. Jabiru sell lots of aircraft and engines (good for them), Camit make lots of engines (good for them, too) and Rotax don't give a damn because they're so flat out making 912/914 engines for General Atomics to use on the smaller Predator UAVs a small customer like Jabiru doesn't matter anyway. Now, given that Camit needs Jabiru and Jabiru need Camit, is Jabiru likely to go down this road and offer a choice of engines? Unlikely. Each needs the other, each feeds the other. We could say both companies are (without prejudice) "co-dependent". From this we may infer that a choice of a different manufacturer's engine on the Jabiru airframes that currently use the 2200 engine is not in the forseeable future - unless shrimps learn to whistle. If you buy a Jabiru airframe, it will (99.9% probability) have a Jabiru engine bolted on the front. You just have to live with it, learn its strengths and weaknesses, and have a good contingency-fund in case it lets go prematurely.

Aviation Salvage in Taren Point, Sydney, were able to supply me a very nice sensitive altimeter, formerly fitted to a Cessna, TSO'd and checked, when my factory-built J160 suffered a sticking altimeter. When in doubt, throw it out and get a decent, refurbished TSO'd unit from a reputable supplier. Ultimately it will cost less than replacing Chinese instruments with still more Chinese instruments.

The only outcome I want is an engine for which the manufacturer claims a 2000 hr TBO actually achieves it.

Evolution of the aircraft is killing the 2-stroke engine. Trike fliers want to go higher and faster - that needs a 4-stroke. 2-strokes are banned from sale in some jurisdictions - that doesn't help. 2-Strokes are fuel-thirsty - another strike against them. But the single most important factor in the extinction of the 2-stroke is the factory that produces the pre-eminent 2-stroke engines for trikes - Rotax - will not replace worn-out tooling used to make the 503 and the 582 engines. Ultimately this means no spare parts. The aircraft is out-evolving the powerplant. For those on a budget (most of us, myself included) a cheap 2-stroke trike is a great way to get started and to build those very important first 500 or so flying-hours. But when times comes to part with that much-loved 2-stroke trike, it won't be worth much, and you will have done a lot of maintenance and burnt a lot of fuel. If you stop flying at that point because a good used 4-stroke is out of your reach, then you will have had hours of enjoyment, learned a lot and been enriched by your experiences. On the other hand, if you move on to a 4-stroke trike, the difference will "chalk and cheese". The improvement in performance, maintenance and fuel-consumption comes at a price, which is paid up-front, rather than during the lifetime of the engine. There is no conspiracy to try and kill off the 2-stroke because none is needed. Time and progress are doing that, coupled with the pragmatism of the principal manufacturer of 2-stroke engines suitable for trikes. Instructors give students and pilots the best advice they can, outlining the pros and cons of each type of engine. A wise instructor then allows his student/pilot to make up their own mind, and does his best to see they acquire a good aircraft, regardless of which type of engine powers it.

Still AOG after 3 calendar months. Not happy. :(

Hi Ozzie, Haven't tried the bit of wool on the windscreen trick, after all these years I'm still checkin' the ball from time to time. Can't be holding my mouth right or something! When the littel Jab gets an engine back up front to make some noise perhaps I'll stick a piece on and see what happens. Wouldn't take more than a few minutes to find out.

Short piece of wool sticky-taped to the middle of the windscreen? Just keep it in the middle.

No vertical limit as far as I am aware. I have wondered about the wisdom of that, actually.

I have sourced 13.5X6 Deestone tyres from my local Bob Jane tyre shop, twenty at a time and with a dozen new tubes for about half what I would pay for twenty Trelleborgs, leave alone the additional tubes. The Deestone are slightly softer, but they last about 3/4 as long as the Trelleborgs, so we are coming out slightly ahead, in spite of changing tyres slightly more frequently.

In no particular order:- pencils for chart-work...2B or 4B (preferred) because HB are too hard, Some good pencil erasers, a Douglas protractor (the square one), a ruler (you can get them calibrated for VNC and VTC so you can read distances directly off the chart, a small electronic calculator and some spare batteries, a small whiz-wheel...you'll only use it for wind vector-triangle work, a kneeboard or clipboard to taste, some of those little wire springy things with a pocket-clip for holding pens and pencils. Used to buy them for $1 at barber-shops (in the previous century). Now they are about $14 at pilot-shops. Attach them some convenient areas in the cockpit. Alternatively, use self-adhesive Velcro, like NASA used to do, A pair of single-handed dividers (the marine style, from a yacht-shop or ship's chandler) if you want an instrument for rapidly stepping off distances on your chart(s), small, flattish Cordura bag for keeping all this stuff in (notebook computer bag) provided it is long enough to take a folded chart, a pencil-charpener that actually works, a couple of rubber-bands or spring-clips for securing folded chart to clipboard if you use one. after these...anything you feel is appropriate (ERSA, charts, flight plan, flight note form etc) and don't forget your 406Mhz beacon if you are travelling more than 50nm from your home airfield!

AOG = Aircraft On Ground. The sort of thing nightmares are composed of for airline executives. We lesser mortals just grit our teeth and turn to the standby aircraft. At least with a small fleet there is usually something that is flyable on any given day.

Engine may be coming back next week. Have had AOG for 9 weeks so far. Will be my own engine zero-timed. We'll see how long it lasts.

I have seen one that failed due to the 12 volts supply that is sent from the display unit to the engine module failing, it dropped to 1.32 volts and the entire unit failed to light up. The failure was confirmed at the output of the main PCB of the dislay unit and the owner is currently working painstakingly through the components to try and localise the failure. There is a P-channel MOSFET, labelled Q4, which may be associated with this power-supply, but this is not yet confirmed. Both Source and Drain terminals have about 12.4 volts on them, the Gate terminal has 3.8 volts on it, which in theory should drive it to a very low forward resistance, so the equal voltages on Source and Drain tend to suggest the MOSFET is OK. Working through a double-sided PCB without a circuit-diagram is not the best way to fault-find, but if the failed component can be found and replaced it may save the time and expense of sending the entire unit back to the manufacturer in South Africa. Anecdotally the turnaround time for a repair is about a month or more. Not sure if there is anyone in Australia who is qualified to repair these units. Postscript: The problem was an open-circuit resistor, R1, a surface-mount 1-Ohm resistor which is immediately in series with the voltage regulator output. The resistor was replaced by a 1W 1-Ohm resistor with leads and the unit is now apparently "ops normal". Amptronics in South Africa emailed him the relevant portion of the circuit-diagram and were very helpful. I am told the most difficult part was removing the failed resistor due to its location and being coated with silicone sealant which stabilises a nearby toroid.

If I recall that course was run by Brian Churchill and his wife, they own Rainbow Aviation. I was on the first course and Brian demonstrated the technique of washing the filter and straining the residue, which I have also done on occasions when doing an oil-change on a Jabiru. Our local LAMEs use the visual inspection of the pleats without washing - unless there is significant metal. Then they wash, strain and examine the metal with a lens to determine if it is bearing-metal or aluminium, or chips scraped from cylinder-walls at startup etc. Seen plenty of metal from Lycomings and Contis (usually scrapings from cylinder-walls) but nothing yet from Jabiru or Rotax 912 filters. Either technique works, provided you know exactly what you are looking for and exactly what you are actually seeing...and how to interpret it.

I've flown the 170 a little and own a 160, so I can speak for both. The biggest difference I found was the 170 tends to yaw significantly in turbulence, the 160 far less so, if at all. I land both with half-flap only, and in a strong crosswind use progressively less flap as the crosswind component increases. Under normal conditions the 160 flies a very nice approach at 70KIAS, the 160 seems better-behaved at 65KIAS, similar to the 230. You can fly a J160 on at no flap and 80 knots if the crosswind is very strong. Interestingly, the 170 does cruise nicely at 100KIAS, in spite of the longer and therefore "draggier" wing. It will lift off when heavy quicker than any other Jabiru I know of. The only down-side I can think of is the longer wings may be a problem if you're in a shared hangar. You'll do all right with a 170, and it's quite a bit cheaper than the 230, but if the choice were mine and I wanted the longer wing I'd actually go for the 230. However, my 160 does everything I need it to do. The factory support and spares availability is excellent, and the airframes are very low maintenance. You'll be putting the spanners to the engine fairly frequently, but they are an easy engine to work on.