How reliable are engines?

[facthunter]

Wood chisels have Handles originally of wood and later often Plastic.  Cold chisels are all steel either round or with many small flats. All of them need to be made of pretty good tool steel and hardened and tempered correctly. Stainless will not take a sharp edge.  Nev

[spacesailor]

From the forties  , till the latest motor off the production line .

The chance of a breakdown has Allmost disappeared. 

How many here Still carry tools & spares. 

I DON'T.  Routine maintenance beats waiting for the stoppage,  every time .

BUT I still have problems,! , with 25 year old battery terminals failing to charge , one of a dual battery system .

Another dead flat battery to adorn the garden . Until I need more lead for something or other .

spacesailor

[facthunter]

You should replace  dual (in parallel) batteries in Pairs.   Nev

[Area-51]

6 hours ago, facthunter said:

You  use a hammer on a cold chisel   The machine barbarian's tool kit. Knock a few fins off so the shifter works on the spark plugs. I'd better cease now or some will pick up too many clues. Nev

Extremely disappointed to hear this from such experience when house bricks are always closer at hand 😞

[facthunter]

Not so much these days.   Nev

[pmccarthy]

Survey result so far - no one on this forum has experienced failure of a normally aspirated Rotax 912, Lycoming or Continental engine. Interesting.

[RFguy]

I know of a few 912 failures, nothing related to the crankcase- majority all fuel delivery issues  (carb or fuel supply) (complete stop)  - and a couple of ignition module issues which were not complete stop..

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Thanks RF, I also know of 912 stoppages due to fuel supply, fortunately with a safe outcome.

[onetrack]

The data set is seriously out of kilter, because the question is only answered by pilots still living. To get an accurate data set, there should be answers from deceased pilots who were killed by engine failure.

[skippydiesel]

Fuel supply (blockage/empty tank) issues are pilot issues,  nothing to do with the engine.

[turboplanner]

55 minutes ago, onetrack said:

The data set is seriously out of kilter, because the question is only answered by pilots still living. To get an accurate data set, there should be answers from deceased pilots who were killed by engine failure.

.....and they are probably going to be unwiilling to supply the data.

OME's question is a how long is a piece of string one, and leaving Jabiru out of it takes out half the RA market.

To have any meaning GA etc needs to be taken out of the discussion for RA, ALL RA engines need to be  included, and no BS fairy stories of fuel stoppages etc allowed.

The engines also need to be grouped, e.g. 80 * 100 hp four strokes as one group.

Two strokes as a second group.

and maybe even finer grading.

The Manufacturer's benchmark needs to be known for a reasonable target.

The normal assessment of an engine is failures per 100 engines, and all manufacturers have failures. (failures per 1000 hours is a bit ambitious, since lots of engines are not making 1,000 hours. Probably better just to log hours to failure.

You have to define failure; my definition would be any issue where the aircraft cannot safely take off again immediately after touch down. 

 

 

 

[Area-51]

Safety Investigation Findings:

100% of engine failures have occurred after starting the engine.

 

New Regulation:

Engines shall not be started.

 

 

[Thruster88]

Anyone really interested in aircraft engine reliability should check out the findings of the ATSB 

https://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation-investigation-reports in regarding the Van's RV fleet in Australia. About 600 aircraft that owners love and fly regularly. Most lycoming and some Rotax 912. Just search Van's and Vans at the ATSB site. My take is these engines are very reliable when operated correctly.  

 

The other accidents listed not involving engine failure are a good insight into why planes crash.  

Edited July 2, 2023 by Thruster88

[facthunter]

 The standard ones usually rate as the best but it depends on the treatment of it in the long run, Nev