CASA - Draft Proposal for Jabiru Aircraft

[dmech]

Well why are vehicles on the road no giving similar problems to Jabiru engines. I'm afraid cars have never been so reliable and effient as they are now even with current fuels.

I agree!. computers!! and good design engineers ,competition, they have to get it right or they are history . computers look after the engines, if they knock, computer takes action in nano seconds to limit damage. ect. we recondition automotive engines ,since unleaded computer engine management , we hardly see cylinder head work and even after 400k klm it's hard to find wear in car engines , most of my work is now with heavy diesel and diesel fuel injection systems repair . jab have problems that could be easily solved , but they have a bit of a stiff problem to over come in the engineering department .

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Well why are vehicles on the road no giving similar problems to Jabiru engines. I'm afraid cars have never been so reliable and effient as they are now even with current fuels.

EFI cures many ills

 

 

[nong]

Jabiru have released a Service Letter JSL 014-1 . I have no faith in Jabiru and look forward to Camit making advances as they are proactive at resolving faults and improving poor designs.

Camit has S F A engines in service and can do no wrong.

Jabiru has thousands out there and , sure enough, there are service difficulties.

 

Now, just for fun, lets reverse that truth.

 

Lets say Camit has thousands in service. Guess what? Now Camit has service difficulties.

 

Lets also say that Jabiru have SFA units in use. Now guess who can do no wrong? !

 

Some of you are being just a little too religious about Camit, me thinks. :-)

 

 

[bexrbetter]

since unleaded computer engine management , we hardly see cylinder head work and even after 400k klm it's hard to find wear in car engines , .

Yup, modern EFI is just great, only the fuel that's needed to push the piston down and only when it's needed to push it down, no bore washing from excess fuel when not required so excellent bore oil retention and little carbon interference. I change my spark plugs at 50,000kms whether they need it or not. My 2nd last car in Oz was a RB30 Skyline wagon, bought it at 240,000kms, went to 400,000kms when I gave it away and had 3 or 4 oil changes and 1 shorted fuel injector replaced (ran around on 5 cylinders for a few weeks) and a battery - otherwise I didn't touch it for those 150,000kms. I had intended to drive it to it's death but it never died, not even a hint. Guy who got it off me changed the apparently putrid air filter and reckons he picked up 20 hp immediately! My Mazda 6 is 8 years old, 250,000 merciless kms, many times at 140+ for hours down the freeways and hasn't missed a beat besides 2 batteries (normal).

 

I got my licence in the 70's and of course owned 1960's/early 70's used cars, Triumph 2000, Datsun 1000, Datsun 1200, Alfa Alfetta and others and was always working on them for something and always carried tools and water with me. The last 20 years of cars has almost been surreal worrying about them when go long distance due to early experiences - but nothing ever happens, nothing, even punctures are rare nowadays. "Character" is something I do not miss.

 

but they have a bit of a stiff problem to over come in the engineering department .

I see what ya done there!

 

 

[jetjr]

Camit have many thousands of hours in flight, possibly similar numbers to " jabiru"

 

They are all the solid lifter engines, very few problems.

 

After this Jabiru started attempted to make them cheaper and easier to maintain.

 

 

[Camel]

Camit has S F A engines in service and can do no wrong.Jabiru has thousands out there and , sure enough, there are service difficulties.

Now, just for fun, lets reverse that truth.

 

Lets say Camit has thousands in service. Guess what? Now Camit has service difficulties.

 

Lets also say that Jabiru have SFA units in use. Now guess who can do no wrong? !

 

Some of you are being just a little too religious about Camit, me thinks. :-)

The problem with the statement is that Camit did build the Jabiru engines too, so they really built them all but Jabiru are built to Jabiru spec. I'm amazed at the amount of people that have shown other ways of making Jabiru engines reliable but these mods are not allowed to be done but Jabiru continue with their nonsense and from the latest service letter their seems to be no change to Jabiru attitude after CASA intervention ( blame fuel, pull heads off at service ) , I am a motor mechanic and originally worked on BMC, when Leyland Australia built their own designs they made a lot of mistakes but it was an early mistake they did not rectify properly that destroyed them, it was the Morris Nomad, a dud Oz design engine and a dud gearbox, the warranty work was huge, the Kimberly and Tasman were not as good as the Austin 1800 and the Nomad was a disaster after the successful Morris 1100, the Marina and P76 were also riddled with warranty problems but mainly outsourced parts switches, gauges and alternators which had been occurring since the Nomad, the Mini was the best but the early ones were better. All could have been so different if when mechanics told engineers what the problems were and how to fix them but they had reasons not to and continued the patch up. The problems were obvious to mechanics. The Jabiru story is unfolding and if they keep their head in the sand and don't listen and act they will loose all support and finish up like Leyland. The Leyland products were ahead of their time and potentially good vehicles, the originals were better than the improved version, sound familiar ! Leyland introduced a Buyer Protection Plan to improve their image but it caused more pain for dealers as the dealer had to provide a courtesy car during warranty work, this usually emptied the used car lot each day and at the dealers expense.

 

After that I worked on Datsun and Honda. Constant improvement was obvious and no hesitation to take on modification advice. Look at Honda now ! A far cry from the Zot, Scamp and the original Civic, which in its standard form could match a Mini Cooper S in performance with a smaller engine. Datsun copied the BMC engine and made it superior.

 

 

[dmech]

The problem with the statement is that Camit did build the Jabiru engines too, so they really built them all but Jabiru are built to Jabiru spec. I'm amazed at the amount of people that have shown other ways of making Jabiru engines reliable but these mods are not allowed to be done but Jabiru continue with their nonsense and from the latest service letter their seems to be no change to Jabiru attitude after CASA intervention ( blame fuel, pull heads off at service ) , I am a motor mechanic and originally worked on BMC, when Leyland Australia built their own designs they made a lot of mistakes but it was an early mistake they did not rectify properly that destroyed them, it was the Morris Nomad, a dud Oz design engine and a dud gearbox, the warranty work was huge, the Kimberly and Tasman were not as good as the Austin 1800 and the Nomad was a disaster after the successful Morris 1100, the Marina and P76 were also riddled with warranty problems but mainly outsourced parts switches, gauges and alternators which had been occurring since the Nomad, the Mini was the best but the early ones were better. All could have been so different if when mechanics told engineers what the problems were and how to fix them but they had reasons not to and continued the patch up. The problems were obvious to mechanics. The Jabiru story is unfolding and if they keep their head in the sand and don't listen and act they will loose all support and finish up like Leyland. The Leyland products were ahead of their time and potentially good vehicles, the originals were better than the improved version, sound familiar ! Leyland introduced a Buyer Protection Plan to improve their image but it caused more pain for dealers as the dealer had to provide a courtesy car during warranty work, this usually emptied the used car lot each day and at the dealers expense. After that I worked on Datsun and Honda. Constant improvement was obvious and no hesitation to take on modification advice. Look at Honda now ! A far cry from the Zot, Scamp and the original Civic, which in its standard form could match a Mini Cooper S in performance with a smaller engine. Datsun copied the BMC engine and made it superior.

Leyland trucks were the best in the world once, sold every where, we had two , comets , What happened ! Government , the biggest ostrich farm ,took over factory .other's invested in technology , listened to product owners, left Leyland for dead. Haven't seen a Leyland truck on the roads for yonk's . IF they were still operating , would be probably be consistently booked for going to slow

 

 

[Mike Borgelt]

You guys may want to consider that car engines run at 15 to 30% of rated full power a lot of the time. They are also fully liquid cooled so don't suffer the temperature variations that an air cooled motor does. I've had several cooling system failures in cars (burst hoses, one where the hose slipped off the heater join - that one 100km east of Norseman WA with glider trailer in tow - only reason I picked it was I had a manifold pressure gauge and was needing more MP to maintain speed on level road) that would have been forced landings in an aircraft.

 

Interesting that Cessna had a Rotax 912S in the prototype 162 and changed to an O-200D Continental for production.

 

I don't have a dog in this hunt (except that CAMIT make parts for our variometers and I'd hate for them to go out of business) as my aircraft has a Lycoming O-320 A2B (the Super Cub engine) but I've flown behind every model jab engine including the original 1600 (in a VH registered jab owned by RACWA) and the 8 cylinder in a RV7A.

 

Must say that they all seemed very smooth. The RV7A later had a through bolt failure though. I wasn't in it. Partial power loss. FWIW.

 

 

[skeptic36]

They are also fully liquid cooled so don't suffer the temperature variations that an air cooled motor does. I've had several cooling system failures in cars

You might be more likely to maintain them a little better if said cooling systems where fitted to your aircraft........

 

 

[facthunter]

You are making an assumption there, that the maintenance was poor.. You can have a pump seal or drive go or a faulty hose filler cap or a seeping head joint. All critical to a liquid cooled system. There's hoses everywhere on a Rotax. I don't even like running oil to a cooler in them. Nev

 

 

[skeptic36]

Correct, but you would have to agree well maintained modern systems are unlikely to have the problems you mention. If you want to drag the poor old Rotax into it again, they will still get you home with no coolant left ( I'm told)

 

 

[facthunter]

NO THEY WON'T. I can categorically state that the engine is fairly quickly damaged with coolant loss. This misinformation should not be out there as it could lead people to continue flying when they shouldn't. Nev

 

 

[dazza 38]

You guys may want to consider that car engines run at 15 to 30% of rated full power a lot of the time. They are also fully liquid cooled so don't suffer the temperature variations that an air cooled motor does. I've had several cooling system failures in cars (burst hoses, one where the hose slipped off the heater join - that one 100km east of Norseman WA with glider trailer in tow - only reason I picked it was I had a manifold pressure gauge and was needing more MP to maintain speed on level road) that would have been forced landings in an aircraft.Interesting that Cessna had a Rotax 912S in the prototype 162 and changed to an O-200D Continental for production.

I don't have a dog in this hunt (except that CAMIT make parts for our variometers and I'd hate for them to go out of business) as my aircraft has a Lycoming O-320 A2B (the Super Cub engine) but I've flown behind every model jab engine including the original 1600 (in a VH registered jab owned by RACWA) and the 8 cylinder in a RV7A.

 

Must say that they all seemed very smooth. The RV7A later had a through bolt failure though. I wasn't in it. Partial power loss. FWIW.

The only reason Cessna went to the O-200 Continental instead of the Rotax was purely because they did a customer survey in North America and the majority of customers wanted the American made, old school engine. Which is fine as the 0-200 is a lovely engine. If they did the survey in Europe for instance, I reckon the 912 would have came out on top.

 

 

[facthunter]

It's quite likely the plane was designed to "grow" a little, in the future.

 

Those who would consider a 152 ( 50 year old) as an alternate Engine rebuild 25K.

 

Easy spend 30K on airframe plus tart up 20K? . + purchase 25-40K . Your first 100 hourly /annual could be 50K.. Nev

 

 

[Mike Borgelt]

Well, I'd be a little more paranoid about it anyway. Two burst top hoses, one bad water pump seal, one radiator cap failure, one hose slipped off fitting. Was an HR Holden and I used to check these things. The hose slipped off fitting one was specifically checked before the trip. I could have failed to check the hose clamp was tight enough but that is a maintenance error that could occur on an aircraft installation too.

 

I really was trying to make the thing reliable as it was my retrieve system when I was competing in sailplanes. Didn't ever want to spend the night in the cockpit while my wife was trying to get the car repaired. (I've landed out lots - 62 times and that's just in farmers' fields, not other aerodromes/strips.)

 

There is a reason why most aircraft engines are direct drive, air cooled. Less to go wrong but you do have to do the installation correctly and test it.

 

 

[kaz3g]

It's quite likely the plane was designed to "grow" a little, in the future.Those who would consider a 152 ( 50 year old) as an alternate Engine rebuild 25K.

Easy spend 30K on airframe plus tart up 20K? . + purchase 25-40K . Your first 100 hourly /annual could be 50K.. Nev

Get an Auster

 

 

[fly_tornado]

The only reason Cessna went to the O-200 Continental instead of the Rotax was purely because they did a customer survey in North America and the majority of customers wanted the American made, old school engine. Which is fine as the 0-200 is a lovely engine. If they did the survey in Europe for instance, I reckon the 912 would have came out on top.

the reason they didn't sell real well is none of the patriots have any money, one of Cessna's real blunders was not offering both engines. Flying schools would have grabbed hundreds

 

 

[RKW]

the reason they didn't sell real well is none of the patriots have any money, one of Cessna's real blunders was not offering both engines. Flying schools would have grabbed hundreds

Not at $150,000.

 

 

[facthunter]

The Auster HAS to be VH, Kaz. The two seater re-engined with a "FLAT motor is almost a Cub in concept. If you run a wooden prop and remove the starter and replace the generator with a small alternator and use a small battery you save a heap of weight. You can keep an Auster type of aircraft in the air forever. Flyable I mean. .Nev

 

 

[Mike Borgelt]

The problem with the Flycatcher was the 222 Kg disposable load. Couple of large people and a few bags and there is no fuel. Needed 650 -700 Kg Gross.

 

Yep, I don't like arbitrary weight limits either. This was a problem on an RV6 I helped test quite a while ago. It had 221 Kg disposable. Was a nice legal single seater with full tanks and they were the normal ones, not the extra tip tanks. It wasn't particularly loaded with gear either. O-360 CS prop and nice VFR instruments.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Get an Auster

Or on a windy day just run into the wind - about the same speed but you get to feel the wind in your hair and there's no tappet noise.

 

 

[skeptic36]

NO THEY WON'T. Nev

No need to yell.

I guess it depends on the situation. While I'm sure you risk reducing the life of your engine, if you are over marginal territory, it is nice to know the thing will keep going. And I'm reliably told (like from the horses mouth) that they will keep going. In this case the motor was still going when sold, and there is another case that I know of ( third hand info) that is still flying many hours after getting home dry.

 

 

[rankamateur]

Skeptic, there was a 20 minutes at reduced revs proviso too, but still better than crash landing in the trees. It relies on using the engine itself as a heat sink, so obviously can't go on all day at 75% power.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

I am a motor mechanic and originally worked on BMC,.

I'm so sorry, can we donate somehow?

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

NO THEY WON'T. I can categorically state that the engine is fairly quickly damaged with coolant loss. This misinformation should not be out there as it could lead people to continue flying when they shouldn't. Nev

YES THEY WILL !.........temps will be higher but still in range at the top end, as proven in several incidents over the years. Rotax 912s only have water- cooled heads with only 2 Lts of coolant total. they are still oil and air-cooled with a loss of coolant, and yes they will get you home as long as the coolant doesn't get injested by an air cleaner or filter.

 

They still are left with a very efficient oil-cooler and finned heads. Brilliant design in my opinion. Please let me know when another engine even gets close to that cooling efficiency a d quality well thought out design. Rotaxs run so cool most of the time anyway I run most of the year with both radiators 50% covered, just to keep the temps at the bottom of the range !....and that's in the tropics folks !!....In fact I just removed the oil cooler one two weeks ago after seeing a rise in oil temp whilst flying in 70 deg F OAT. It's a 900 hour engine that's never had the heads off, and just keeps getting sweeter.