Future fuel sources

[Flightrite]

The 3 most basic agricultural donks I’ve driven have been the 0235/320/360, I’d rather sit behind the old clunkers than any of today’s complex ‘feel good’ donks any day!

[onetrack]

Excessive levels of electronics and electrical devices is a recipe for an increased level of failure. While electronics have progressed over the last 4 decades, their reliability is still suspect simply because they work on low levels of current, very thin layers of insulation, and a nasty tendency to fail from the impact of severe temperature extremes, and vibration.

 

Modern road vehicles still fail to progress on a regular basis - but they fail to do so, for far different reasons, as compared to the road vehicles of 40 years ago.

Todays road vehicles suffer from an increased amount of fire events, an increased amount of electrical, and particularly electronic failure, and shutdowns caused by ECU's going into "limp home mode" when sensors report measurements outside their set parameters. I would imagine it would be highly undesirable to set a "limp home mode" in an aircraft engine, simply due to one sensor reporting a fault, that may or may not impact engine operation. 

 

In addition, vastly increased levels of electronics and electrics increase weight - and weight is anathema to light aircraft - or most aircraft.

 

Reports are that vehicle manufacturers have managed to shave an average of 140kgs of weight from the average car over the last 30 years, due to the increased use of light alloys and thinner higher tensile steel sheet in panels and even major structural members.

However, a large proportion of this weight shaved from the primary build has been added back again, via the installation of a huge amount of electrical and electronic devices - which range from engine controls, through to CAN bus architecture, wiring and onboard diagnostics, through to entertainment and safety devices.

[turboplanner]

45 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Excessive levels of electronics and electrical devices is a recipe for an increased level of failure. While electronics have progressed over the last 4 decades, their reliability is still suspect simply because they work on low levels of current, very thin layers of insulation, and a nasty tendency to fail from the impact of severe temperature extremes, and vibration.

 

Modern road vehicles still fail to progress on a regular basis - but they fail to do so, for far different reasons, as compared to the road vehicles of 40 years ago.

Todays road vehicles suffer from an increased amount of fire events, an increased amount of electrical, and particularly electronic failure, and shutdowns caused by ECU's going into "limp home mode" when sensors report measurements outside their set parameters. I would imagine it would be highly undesirable to set a "limp home mode" in an aircraft engine, simply due to one sensor reporting a fault, that may or may not impact engine operation. 

 

In addition, vastly increased levels of electronics and electrics increase weight - and weight is anathema to light aircraft - or most aircraft.

 

Reports are that vehicle manufacturers have managed to shave an average of 140kgs of weight from the average car over the last 30 years, due to the increased use of light alloys and thinner higher tensile steel sheet in panels and even major structural members.

However, a large proportion of this weight shaved from the primary build has been added back again, via the installation of a huge amount of electrical and electronic devices - which range from engine controls, through to CAN bus architecture, wiring and onboard diagnostics, through to entertainment and safety devices.

I can endorse that having recently had to pull a head off, almost needing a gps to fin the engine. The number of sensor connections was mind boggling, everyone clicking apart in a different way which had to be learned and the looms burying the engine.

[facthunter]

In a modern car finding anything that LOOKS anything like a motor under the bonnet is difficult. Spray water around under the bonnet and many dollars and days later it MAY be running again. Aeroplanes fly through torrential rain often. High altitude flying makes HT  currents leak much more. Pressurised Pistons had remote HT Coils near each plug for reliability. Nev

[Flightrite]

We can thank the greenie nutters for now having such well dressed donks, ADR27 hit then it went down hill from there!

[turboplanner]

27 minutes ago, Flightrite said:

We can thank the greenie nutters for now having such well dressed donks, ADR27 hit then it went down hill from there!

It wasn't greenies, both NOx and Particulates cause cancer. A lot of lung cancer  was probably caused by smog in cities. Exhaust smoke had pretty much disappeared by 2012, and since then Particulates have been reduced by 97% and NOx by 98% on the improved 2012 levels. Cars and trucks are now cleaner than the urban air they move through and actually suck in dirty air and blow it out at the clean ADR standard.

[Ian]

14 hours ago, Geoff_H said:

The one car engine that was rebuilt as an aircraft engine was the Porsche. One control " how much power do you want".  Mooney fitted them to new aircraft as an option.  However as it needed two alternators for electronic reliability and a gearbox it was heavier than a Lycoming of same HP. The Porsche model was slower than the Lycoming model.  Who buys a slower Mooney... not many people.  So upon its failure to sell any great numbers Porsche refitted most aircraft with Lycoming engines.  I had an unconfirmed report that only 5 Mooney Porsche still exist.  I had the pleasure of flying one over the top of Melbourne.  Sheer delight.  Very quiet.  A great product failed by marketing problems.  I feel that we are in for a similar situation with having to go "green".

It actually looks like a nice engine. Basically endevours like this are to an extend upon peoples whims. According to wikipedia the engine was cancelled in the early 90s when credit was very expensive.

[spacesailor]

turboplanner

Now the ' burnoff smoke ' is killing us !.

Both my wife & I, had a bad time with that thick smoke over Sydney.

The hospital said pneumonia,  now they say partial collapsed lung, with scarring. 

The wife is having breathing problems even today.

And they keep the number that died very quiet.

spacesailor

Edited December 7, 2021 by spacesailor

[Ian]

7 hours ago, facthunter said:

In a modern car finding anything that LOOKS anything like a motor under the bonnet is difficult. Spray water around under the bonnet and many dollars and days later it MAY be running again. Aeroplanes fly through torrential rain often. High altitude flying makes HT  currents leak much more. Pressurised Pistons had remote HT Coils near each plug for reliability. Nev

I've seen people pressure hose modern engines and it does them no harm, the electronics generally well sealed. Repairs are very cheap compared to aviation repairs and you can ask ask the engine what's wrong and it will tell you. But you do need to be able to use a mobile phone or laptop. I remember driving old cars where you'd drive through some water an the engine would stop, I actually got stuck in a floodway after a thunderstorm in an old ford with 3 on the tree and had to ride the starter motor to get out. There used to cars broken down whenever there was a deluge, that doesn't happen anymore.

Modern cars use Coil on Plug so there aren't any HT leads and electrical leaks are actually less likely. Rather than two magnetos each plug has a coil, on Mazda's and Saabs this CoP also includes the electronics to detect detonation. Alternators still function at altitude, it's just old fashioned magnetos that need to be pressurized from the turbo to remain functional.

In general the tolerances in a modern engine are an order of magnitude better than on a plane engine. In terms of reliability people are generally happy when a plane engine starts and they don't notice when a car engine starts.

[onetrack]

Quote

Repairs are very cheap compared to aviation repairs......

Most mechanics charge $100-110 hr around here. It takes very little to run up $2000 bill, when vehicle repairs are undertaken. Hence the number of quite good condition, fairly late model vehicles, you regularly see heading to the scrap yard. They are deemed economically unrepairable, thanks to expensive repairs needed.

I recently purchased an ex-council 2011 Ford Ranger diesel ute (3.0L, 180,000 kms), that was a non-goer. I couldn't track down the reason for the non-goer problem/s, despite having a reasonably good OBD reader, and having downloaded the service manual (2,103 pages, no less!!). It needed a new battery which was duly installed.

I suspected the non-goer fault might lie in the fact the ute had been left sitting for possibly 9-12 mths with a flat battery, which often makes the ECU lose its memory. In this case, the ECU fired right up again with the new battery and displayed all the dash lights and the "engine fault" light.

 

I couldn't find any technician that had time available to work on it, for at least 3 weeks. They were all overwhelmed with work. So I took the Ranger to the local Ford dealer, who started on it 3 days later.

The first fault was a broken wire in the engine harness. Yet no fault codes had appeared on my OBD reader. Then they found the MAF sensor needed replacing (yet no MAF sensor fault appeared on my OBD reader, and the MAF sensor tested O.K. when I checked it).

Then it started and ran, but it took ages to start again. Their testing revealed a high-pressure common rail solenoid was faulty - that was replaced. The very slow starting problem remained.

 

The Ford dealer then said they suspected a leaky seal on the fuel priming pump, or plugged fuel filters. I told them to replace all the filters, and they said they'd do a leakdown test on the priming pump, which required the vehicle to sit overnight. They did this, and found no leakage from the priming pump.

Then they tested the injectors, and deemed them all faulty. Fair enough, with 180,000 kms use. New injectors from Ford are $800 each, but I knew I could get genuine Bosch (aftermarket) for $495.

I ended up sourcing good used, fully tested, low km injectors for $200 each. I duly acquired these, and the Ford dealer was happy enough to fit them. 

They then gave the ute back to me, telling me it was fully repaired. The Ford dealer bill came to $2750 alone - without the injectors cost.

 

However, the motor still took 30 seconds to start when cold, and 15 seconds when hot, which I deemed unacceptable. I revisited the injector man, and he advised me the common problem with common rail diesels, was a faulty relief valve on the rear of the common rail. The relief valve retains the rail pressure when stopped, for instant starting.

I duly acquired a genuine Bosch relief valve, and installed it myself, and it cost me $85 off eBay, and it took me all of 5 mins to install it. The ute then started like it should, almost instantly.

 

I have no idea why the Ford dealer couldn't find the relief valve fault, they have a large amount of Ford-issued or approved diagnostic and repair equipment - and all the Ford Service Bulletins, which I cannot access. 

After I ran the ute for a short while, my OBD reader showed up 2 faults related to EGR valve operation. EGR valves are notorious for plugging with oily carbon deposits, and are such a PIA, there's a roaring aftermarket trade in blank-off plates for EGR systems.

 

I purchased a can of Penrite P26 Foaming Intake Cleaner, and gave the engine the full can as instructed, and then ran the engine at 2500-3000RPM for a short time, to run it right through the intake, intercooler, turbocharger, and engine.

I then took the ute for a 20 min drive, and the performance had definitely improved, and upon reconnecting my OBD reader and deleting the EGR fault codes, they did not return. 

I haven't got much change out of $4000, just to get a poorly maintained, non-goer of an ex-council ute, operational - and that doesn't include my labour time spent on it.

 

Quote

and you can ask ask the engine what's wrong and it will tell you.....

Not true, unfortunately. The engine ECU will only supply fault information that it has gathered from its sensors and CAN bus. If the fault is a broken wire in the harness, the ECU often does not record it, as with my Ford Ranger.

A mate has a late-model Hino 5 tonne truck. It stopped, and the fault was traced to a broken wire in the centre of the main wiring harness, that ran across a chassis cross-member under the radiator. How did a single wire, central in a harness holding about 20 wires, fracture? God only knows, the harness showed no signs of being struck by anything. It took the Hino dealer 3 days to find it, such is the array of electronic controls on modern engines, that are all interlinked, and interdependent.

 

Another problem area is if a microprocessor fails. The microprocessor is what gathers the fault information. If the microprocessor is faulty itself, you get "no fault codes found".

I had this problem with a previously-owned Falcon Stn Wgn that had Climate Control. The Climate Control simply stopped working (no A/C) and the Ford dealer service manager took great delight in showing me the correct sequence of CC buttons to push, to initiate Fault Finding Mode. The system was even programmed to partition the CC circuitry into 10 different sections, and test each one separately. But there was no fault, according to the screen on the unit.

 

It took the Ford dealer another 2 days to find out the microprocessor that controlled the Climate Control was faulty, thus the reason for the screen stating, "no fault found".

Luckily, this repair was under warranty (right on the 20,000km warranty limit), or the microprocessor would have cost me $947 alone - without labour. This was around 30 yrs ago, too.

 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by onetrack

[turboplanner]

4 hours ago, spacesailor said:

turboplanner

Now the ' burnoff smoke ' is killing us !.

Both my wife & I, had a bad time with that thick smoke over Sydney.

The hospital said pneumonia,  now they say partial collapsed lung, with scarring. 

The wife is having breathing problems even today.

And they keep the number that died very quiet.

spacesailor

Yes bushfires turn grass and foliage into particulates, and particulates in the soil can get uplifted and drift. The smoke you can see doesn't cause lung cancer, but particles of 10 microns (PM10) can drift up to 50 km, get into the lungs and cause lung cancer as does 2.5 micron particles, which can drift for hundreds of kilometres and lodge deep in the lungs, and are the more dangerous. People die from lung cancer and other respiratory complications after a major fire. The numbers are not kept secret; local GPs have a reporting system to the State Health Department which retains all the figures. University students, or any of us, can access these figures to do studies which show increased cancer clusters downwind following a fire, or industrial suburbs with increased cancer clusters.

[turboplanner]

4 hours ago, Ian said:

I've seen people pressure hose modern engines and it does them no harm, the electronics generally well sealed. Repairs are very cheap compared to aviation repairs and you can ask ask the engine what's wrong and it will tell you. But you do need to be able to use a mobile phone or laptop. I remember driving old cars where you'd drive through some water an the engine would stop, I actually got stuck in a floodway after a thunderstorm in an old ford with 3 on the tree and had to ride the starter motor to get out. There used to cars broken down whenever there was a deluge, that doesn't happen anymore.

Modern cars use Coil on Plug so there aren't any HT leads and electrical leaks are actually less likely. Rather than two magnetos each plug has a coil, on Mazda's and Saabs this CoP also includes the electronics to detect detonation. Alternators still function at altitude, it's just old fashioned magnetos that need to be pressurized from the turbo to remain functional.

In general the tolerances in a modern engine are an order of magnitude better than on a plane engine. In terms of reliability people are generally happy when a plane engine starts and they don't notice when a car engine starts.

You need to decide whether to talk about aero engine (and RA engines at that to be relevant) rather than conflate car issues with aero issues in one post to suit an argument and then deny any car relationships in another. Repairs are certainly not cheap in modern cars; I was quoted a possible head gasket replacement starting at $1,000.00 for inspection recently and going up from there. You only have to look at recent TV News stories to see new cars immodilised by floodwaters as they always were, and the low position of some 4WD starter motors can be a $600 surprise to people fording muddy streams. Towing a heavy trailer and caravan with a 4WD without any training on turbocharger use has starting costs starting at around $2,500.00 and can get to $3500.00 with people usually condemning the engine on social media.

 

There is no crossover between watercooled car engines and air cooled aero engines, so, as I said, you need to decided what you're trying to portray.

[Flightrite]

I miss the old clunkers of the 70’s, basic donks that you could fix with fencing wire yourself. I wouldn't own a late model car if ya gave it to me, never had a new car! 
Going back to future fuel sources I often see on the various sale site those EP mowers for sale used, now I wonder why?😂

Got some junk mail the other day from the local hardware store, mostly Stihl  EP garden tools, talk about expensive and that was for ‘skin’ only crap! 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Flightrite

[Geoff_H]

9 hours ago, Ian said:

It actually looks like a nice engine. Basically endevours like this are to an extend upon peoples whims. According to wikipedia the engine was cancelled in the early 90s when credit was very expensive.

I  am not sure that I agree with whoever wrote that.  Porsche guaranteed the cost the same as Lycoming and 10 year fixed price overhauling.  I remember their advertising before they were introduced.  Mooney sell because they are fast.  Slowing down a Mooney is its death nell.  

Mooney were going broke in the 70's by stripping down their aircraft to compete with Cessna Piper.  They were losing money. A Mooney owner bought the company designed the J model with the instruction that any engineer that made a design that lost 1 mph was fired.  Cost increment did not matter.

[Ian]

2 hours ago, Flightrite said:

I miss the old clunkers of the 70’s, basic donks that you could fix with fencing wire yourself. I wouldn't own a late model car if ya gave it to me, never had a new car! 

I don't mind playing with modern engines however you do need to understand and be comfortable with the technology, it actually makes a lot of things simpler due to the precision that you get. Compared to timing lights it's chalk and cheese.

If it really floats your boat you can buy a broken "V12" dual plug BMW engine and completely replace the wiring harness and build your own ECU for a little over a hundred dollars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGf8IMwRuIY

Not really my thing but you get my drift.

 

Nostalgia's not what it used to be.

 

4 hours ago, turboplanner said:

You need to decide whether to talk about aero engine (and RA engines at that to be relevant) rather than conflate car issues with aero issues in one post to suit an argument and then deny any car relationships in another. Repairs are certainly not cheap in modern cars; I was quoted a possible head gasket replacement starting at $1,000.00 for inspection recently and going up from there.

Engines are engines are engines, to believe otherwise isn't engineering, power, weight, efficiency etc. The turbines for planes are used by power station with a few modifications. Car engines are used in boats, there's really nothing special about any of them. Of course some people like to believe that aviation engines are special however they're just engines. Theilert repurposed Mercedes engines, Austro repurposed Steyr engines for the Diamond DA50.

 

Some cars are expensive to service, some not so much however even the most expensive pale in comparison to aviation stuff. An entire new 1VD-FTV (280HP) engine is about $20000 inc GST, it's a lot of engine for that price compared to an 8 Cylinder io720 Lycoming (375HP) for about $110000 US.

 

 

[Flightrite]

I used to drive behind 2x IO 720’s, you could almost count on one hand the amount of those still operating! 

[Old Koreelah]

48 minutes ago, Ian said:

Nostalgia's not what it used to be.

Gold!

[turboplanner]

1 hour ago, Ian said:

Engines are engines are engines, to believe otherwise isn't engineering, power, weight, efficiency etc. The turbines for planes are used by power station with a few modifications. Car engines are used in boats, there's really nothing special about any of them. Of course some people like to believe that aviation engines are special however they're just engines.

Always good to have a comedian around.

[Ian]

13 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

Always good to have a comedian around.

Not really sure what you mean by this. Care to elaborate? It's just a statement of facts.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Ian

[Ian]

1 hour ago, Flightrite said:

I used to drive behind 2x IO 720’s, you could almost count on one hand the amount of those still operating! 

The fact that you can still buy them certainly says something about the industry. What were you flying?

[turboplanner]

1 hour ago, Ian said:

Not really sure what you mean by this. Care to elaborate? It's just a statement of facts.

They're not facts if you've worked for an engine manufacturer.

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by turboplanner

[Ian]

6 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

They're not facts if you've worked for an engine manufacturer.

OK they're magic then. Special engines made from unobtainium.

[Flightrite]

1 hour ago, Ian said:

The fact that you can still buy them certainly says something about the industry. What were you flying?

DH104’s, Riley conversion. Upon T/off the FF needles would go hard over to the stop, had no idea what the FF was other than high!👍800 ponies all pulling together (if you where lucky) was challenging!

Edited December 8, 2021 by Flightrite

[Geoff_H]

5 hours ago, Ian said:

The turbines for planes are used by power station with a few modifications

I worked on designing a 185MW gas turbine in Florida.  Highest aircraft jet/ turbine is 70 MW.  I must admit that our blade technology was from Pratt and Whitney under licence. We had many more stages and ran at 3600rpm with a single shaft.  Big external burners.  Well the principles are the same.  Worked on an A380 Rolls Royce in the outback, gt part fantastic, the way rolls Royce converted it was an absolute shambles.  Every install in the world had big problems. Aircraft GT's use the same principles, but the ones over approx 70MW are very different.  Below 70MW much similar.

[Ian]

7 hours ago, Flightrite said:

DH104’s, Riley conversion. Upon T/off the FF needles would go hard over to the stop, had no idea what the FF was other than high!👍800 ponies all pulling together (if you where lucky) was challenging!

Interesting looking plane, was the front freight loading the reason for the canopy bulge?