Real stats on engine failures?

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
hlink.net...
What preventive maitenance is done on either crankshafts of connecting
rods?


Oil changes for one.

Mike
MU-2


"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
hlink.net...
Well there is no maitenance on connecting rods and crankshafts.


...other than .preventive


"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
link.net...
I don't have any personally but I have a friend that has had three
in
3500hrs. One connecting rod failure in a 210. A crankshaft
failure
in
an
Azetec and I forget the details of the third failure. It has been
estimated
that 10% of Malibus have had inflight engine failures of some
kind.


It'd be interesting to know the maintenance history of those birds
that
did
have failures (skimped maintenance, etc).

It's also be interesting to know the total operating hours of the
Malibu
fleet, Lycoming vs. Continental...

Oil changes do not affect the probability of crankshaft or connecting rod
failure..

Mike
MU-2


"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
hlink.net...
What preventive maitenance is done on either crankshafts of connecting
rods?


Oil changes for one.

Mike
MU-2


"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
hlink.net...
Well there is no maitenance on connecting rods and crankshafts.


...other than .preventive


"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
link.net...
I don't have any personally but I have a friend that has had
three
in
3500hrs. One connecting rod failure in a 210. A crankshaft
failure
in
an
Azetec and I forget the details of the third failure. It has
been
estimated
that 10% of Malibus have had inflight engine failures of some
kind.


It'd be interesting to know the maintenance history of those birds
that
did
have failures (skimped maintenance, etc).

It's also be interesting to know the total operating hours of the
Malibu
fleet, Lycoming vs. Continental...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
link.net...
Oil changes do not affect the probability of crankshaft or connecting rod
failure..

So having bad or inadequate oil to lubricate the crankshaft and connecting
rods don't make much difference? I must be working with different engines.

Presumably you have never worked on an engine at all.. Please describe how
changing engine oil keeps a connecting rod from breaking in half.

Mike
MU-2


"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
link.net...
Oil changes do not affect the probability of crankshaft or connecting
rod
failure..

So having bad or inadequate oil to lubricate the crankshaft and connecting
rods don't make much difference? I must be working with different engines.

"Mike Rapoport" writes:

Well there is no maitenance on connecting rods and crankshafts.

But do you agree that components that require maintenance (propeller,
cylinders, engine mounts, ...) can cause/accelerate crankshaft
failures?

--kyler

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
link.net...
Presumably you have never worked on an engine at all.. Please describe
how
changing engine oil keeps a connecting rod from breaking in half.


Please lose the patronizing tone that you came into this discussion with,
then I'll continue with my QUESTION. (No wonder that one guy said he came
into the group, then left after seeing the abuse some dole out.)

"Kyler Laird" wrote in message
...
"Mike Rapoport" writes:

Well there is no maitenance on connecting rods and crankshafts.

But do you agree that components that require maintenance (propeller,
cylinders, engine mounts, ...) can cause/accelerate crankshaft
failures?

Nah...Mike says you can completely neglect them.

(Captain Wubba) wrote in message . com...
(Snowbird) wrote in message . com...

(Captain Wubba) wrote in message . com...
Because I can control these problems. If I do a proper preflight, the
probability of fuel contamination is very, very low. If I do the
proper fuel calculations and check the fuel levels and carry proper
reserves, I'm not going to run out of gas.

When you fill the tanks after each cross country flight, do you
calculate the fuel you actually had remaining, and compare it
to your calculated fuel reserve?

Not after every one. But after some percentage...probably around 1/4
of the time. I've caught one FBO that didn't give me all the fuel I
asked for this way. They were not trying to cheat me, but it was a
miscomminication with their lineboy. Wasn't a serious problem...I
always carry at least a 2 hour reserve (60 gallon tanks on a Beech
Musketeer that drinks 9 GPH), so I got in with one and a half hour
reserve instead of 2.5. Hard to notice how 10 gallons looks in a tank.

Well, but I hope you can see here's the accident chain unfolding.
Now consider that you shot an instrument approach, went missed,
and flew to your alternate 1/2 hr away (you planned to land w/
your 2 hr reserve). Then you're asked to hold -- no problem,
you've got 2 hrs of fuel. Except more than an hour of it is actually
missing. Something similar was the big "white hair" moment
for me, except that we landed safely.

A practical suggestion though: buy a fuel stick, or simply tie a
lanyard to a paint stirrer. Start calibrating. You can do it as
a single step -- fly a tank dry, then fill it in 5 gallon increments
and measure. Or you can do it by sticking the tank, filling it, and
noting the stick reading and gallons. When you get enough data,
fit it (obviously care must be taken not to extrapolate outside the
data).

I can notice 10 missing gallons in my tank because we have a
calibrated fuel stick and unless the tanks are full to the brim,
it tells me what's in there to w/in a gallon or so.

Indeed. But I keep two hour reserves on cross country flights in my
Musketeer. No reason not to...it's almost always just me and my wife
(and soon our little one

Heh. Heh.

As the veteran of many XC trips with two adults and a little one,
let me predict you may shortly be asked to fit more stuff in the
plane than you've ever dreamed. You might even find it necessary
to leave some fuel behind -- unless your wife is a dedicated
Baby Minimalist who heads off for the weekend with a sling, a
diaperbag, and a bed rail. How is your W&B envelope? Might
want to start planning how much luggage you can take with your wife
and baby in the back seat....

I just feel that it's a mistake to conclude that no pilot
who runs out of fuel in flight did so, or that no pilot
who does so will ever run out of fuel in flight.

I didn't mean to imply that.

Good. I misunderstood you then. I thought you were singing another
refrain of the song "only stupid pilots run out of fuel, I'm a smart
pilot who always carries extra fuel so it'll never happen to me."

eat lunch at the airport almost every day, sitting in the GA lot
watching the planes. And you would be stunned by the number of pilots
I see who don't do *any* preflight.

I might well be. OTOH, is it also possible that the preflight took
place out-of-sight? For example, we preflight in the hangar..pull
over to the pumps and fuel up...park on the ramp. Now our pax arrive
and we go out on the ramp, help them in, and fly off. I suppose
it looks like we don't do *any* preflight.

From reviewing the NTSB database, it appears the majority of
fuel-exhaustion accidents are not the result of a simple
miscalculation. They tend to be a chain of bad decisions

I agree with the "chain of bad decisions" but I don't think
that excludes pilots who felt they were exercising due care
(and who maybe looked like they were, to a reasonable guy,
at the time -- the accident chain is always clearer w/
hindsight)

I know of two fuel exhaustion accidents personally. One
was eerily similar to the C152 accident you mention (pilot
flew 3 hrs in one direction with a tailwind and figured he
didn't need a fuel stop...overflew 3 airports selling fuel
at about 4 hrs flight time and ran out of gas 5 minutes
later. No accident...he did a perfect landing in a parking
lot).

The other involved a long chain, including an intermittant
problem with engine run-on, an oil change which masked signs
of a fuel leak, a high-wing plane with no convenient strut
or ladder, lack of a calibrated fuel stick, and a decision to
rely upon nearly 500 hrs of carefully documented past fuel
usage and buy partial fuel rather than fill the tanks at a
pricy fuel stop. The NTSB report places much more blame on
the pilot than I personally feel was merited, having been
there. The root cause of the accident was a trashy carburettor
overhaul.

I haven't personally reviewed the NTSB database on this topic,
so I have to defer to you there.

My only point is I think it's a lot easier to mismanage GA fuel
than some people appreciate, especially if you start needing
to make tradeoffs between fuel and load and/or you fly in IMC (I'll
leave the stupidity of flying IMC in a GA single for someone
else in another thread, *heh* *heh*)

Best,
Sydney

(Snowbird) wrote
say something to the effect of well, I've had a gyro failure in
actual and it was no big deal so contrary to popular opinion I
don't think it's something a proficient pilot needs to sweat
about. (I paraphrase here, and perhaps that wasn't the message
you intended to convey, but it's the message I and, I think,
others, have garnered from your posts)

No, that's basically the message. I don't think it's something a
proficient pilot needs to really sweat. Sure, it could get you - but
it probably won't. I consider it comparable to an engine failure in a
twin after reaching blue line and gear up - it's something you train
for, and if you've trained for it it's not going to be a big deal when
it happens. BTW, I've had that as well, and it wasn't a big deal
either.

That's why I think the distinction between a single instrument
failure, and vacuum failure (loss of two instruments) may be
relevant to point out.

Yes, I think it's VERY important. An analogous situation might be a
stuck valve vs. a total engine failure. In your average light single,
a stuck valve means you're not going to make enough power to climb -
but you will have enough to flatten your glideslope and increase the
options. Therefore, the situation is easier than a total failure. By
the same token, a vacuum failure when established in level cruise is
going to be easier to handle than one on climbout while getting an
amended clearance. No two situations are ever the same - we normally
practice for the worst case.

What makes vacuum failure (as opposed to single gyro failure) ugly is
that two out of three gyros fail (in a typical setup). Of course
that's going to make the situation more difficult. Essentially you're
set up so that a single point failure takes out two important
instruments. I used to fly a TriPacer where it was worse - all three
gyros were vacuum powered. Believe it or not, this is legal - but I
doubt too many pilots could survive a vacuum failure in IMC in that
airplane. Of course it was a wet pump, which is, if my experience and
the experience of the people I know is any guide, more reliable than
the engine that drives it. That airplane, early in its history, was
IFR equipped (to 1950's standards) and was used as a cargo hauler. I
wonder if the pilot knew all his gyros were on one pump.

Anyway, my point is that dual simultaneous failures are more difficult
to handle than individual failures and a proper design won't allow
them to occur with any regularity. Two gyros driven by a single dry
pump does not constitute proper design. That doesn't make it
unflyable, even in IMC, but given the ready availability of wet pumps
for all the popular engines in use on light singles, it's pretty
stupid. Kind of like flying IFR without a handheld GPS - it's doable,
and it was done for years, but given how useful they are and how
little they cost, it's pretty dumb not to have one.

My gyro failure situation included only the AI, but on the other hand
it happened during the highest workload phase of flight. Would it
have been more difficult had I lost the DG as well? Certainly.
Dangerous? I doubt it. Handling the AI loss was just too easy, and
doing night hood work with both out isn't all that difficult either.

I've already made my feelings about flying IMC with a single
dry pump and no backups well known, but in case anyone missed it -
it's stooopid.

Actually, I'm glad to hear you say this. The impression that
I've received from your previous posts is that you believed a
vacuum failure should be no big deal at all to a proficient pilot.

An engine failure over an airport should also be no big deal at all to
a proficient pilot. That doesn't mean I'm willing to take off when
the oil pressure at idle is well above top redline - even if I'm never
going to be out of glide range of the field (and yes, this was a real
situation).

If the cause of accidents
following vacuum or gyro failure is lack of proper, recurrant
training, why not just invest in training instead of redundant
instrumentation or vacuum sources--isn't that what you've
suggested in the past when the point has been raised?

Well, in my opinion the sensible thing to do is to replace the dry
pump with a wet one - given that it's probably more reliable than the
engine that drives it, that's certainly the reasonable and
cost-effective solution in a single engine airplane. But over and
above that - yes, I think recurrent training is preferable to
redundant instrumentation for this.

The reason I say it's somewhat valid is this - my (admittedly somewhat
limited) experience as an instrument instructor is that most people
miss having the DG a lot more than they miss having the AI.

That's certainly true for me.

And that has a lot to do with the kind of airplanes you've flown and
the way they were equipped. In my airplane, I miss the AI more than I
miss the DG. My understanding is that in a jet, loss of all attitude
indicators in IMC is certain death.

No, but that's the way to bet. It's certainly how my insurance
company is betting - I'm now required to take a full IPC with engine
cuts every year in make and model, regardless of recency of
experience, if I want to keep my relatively low rates.

Apples and oranges to the topic under discussion here, which was
whether the "ugly outcomes" of vacuum failure are entirely due
to improper training.

Unless I'm missing something, there is no requirement that an
IPC necessarily include partial panel work,

You're missing something. What you say used to be true, but no longer
is. These days, an ICC must consist of "a representative number of
tasks required by the instrument rating practical test" and when you
look at the instrument rating PTS, those tasks are spelled out.
Partial panel approaches (and single engine approaches for twins) are
required.

Michael

I suppose that I agree to a limited extent, but virtually all
crankshaft/connecting rod failures are caused by a flaw/fault in
design/manufacture or installation. Once the crank or connecting rod is
installed, nothing is done to it and it is unseen until overhaul time. A
failure of either of these components is not going to put much, if any,
metal into the oil until the bitter end either..

Mike
MU-2

"Kyler Laird" wrote in message
...
"Mike Rapoport" writes:

Well there is no maitenance on connecting rods and crankshafts.

But do you agree that components that require maintenance (propeller,
cylinders, engine mounts, ...) can cause/accelerate crankshaft
failures?

--kyler