But, they don't seem to quite get that, and public perception is that diesels are dirty, so...
That's because most government in California is run based on public perception rather than sound, educated judgement and reasoned logic. That is exactly why most of the world looks at California with a queer look and a shrugged smile; often accompanied with a rolling of the eyes.
I've seen the source to several of these types of devices before. The code is typically NOT written by programmers. Typically a scientist writes very crude code which analyzes the data created by the hardware and spits out the results. The code quality is typically piss poor.
If anyone has ever seen large quantities of code written in VB by someone that does not have a background in coding, you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about.
*If* the code in these devices as on par with code I've seen for other devices, I imagine tons of bugs and coding errors will easily be identified.
They put on civilian clothing, kept their weapons, and blended right into the regular population. We didn't disband them!
They were told they would no longer be paid and should not bother to report. This makes them civilians. In that part of the world, carrying an assault rifle is normal. You have the details correctly but completely misunderstand the facts. The Iraqi military WAS disbanded. Even US officials acknowledge this fact.
The Katrina disaster was mainly the fault of the "chocolate" mayor and an indecisive pussy governor. The Feds are *always* the last to show up. Disaster response STARTS with LOCAL people, then state, then Federal. Got it? When you elect stupid Democrats for your local and state leadership, then you get what you deserve.
I agree with this. In fact, it is federal law they can not show up until requested by the state. If they do show up, they can be charged with federal invasion of a state. Using federal troops to invade a state is very serious. The Katrina issues were created at many levels and FEMA desires little of the public ire the press falsely framed.
Let me give you an example of the press lying to the public. In Iraq, after a bombing, it was common for the press to frame their report showing fires and black smoke in the background. They would then tell the public about the devastating fires and death tolls. In reality, these were trash fires which burn almost around the clock. Normally they had no idea how much, if any carnage actually took place. Fires were almost never a result of these bombings. Basically the press lied to the US public on a daily basis.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of lies to go around, but the US press is at the head of the pack. They'll say anything to meet their own political agendas.
The Taliban are a tribe with far more women and children than fighters, their fatal mistake as a "government" (I can't think of another term) was to stand in between AQ and the US.
Their final mistake was that as a religion they make it easy to kill other humans and treat them as garbage. It is this ideology that makes Westerners lack the desire to distinguish between Taliban and AQ. You need to remember, the Taliban are still fine with public stonings of women and children. Public executions of men, women, and children were common when they were in power in Afghanistan. These are people that believe killing humans who believe differently than they do, most likely everyone reading this, is on par with squashing an ant. They deserve to be treated in kind.
Because most "true" Talibans are completely worthless humans, there exists little reason to make the distinction between Taliban and AQ. Ultimately, it's a good thing they refused to surrender AQ to the US. Killing Talibans is as justified as killing German SS Officers during WWII.
Okay, just by chance I found the article in question. The cover calls it, "Engine Failure on Takeoff: You've Gotta PUSH". It was indexed as, "Technique: Push". The article title is "PUSH: Your first move when the engine fails."
About my only complaint with the magazine is they don't have a f-ing clue when it comes to understanding the purpose of an index.
The article specifically addresses that training rarely and likely never covers this situation. It details things can go south in only a couple of seconds during your departure climb.
That's why the top-line WWII aircraft had mostly gone to liquid-cooled engines.
Top of the line fighters used water cooling simply because air cooling cost far too much speed because of huge cowl openings. And frankly, I'm not sure air cooling along would address the heating issues. When you're pushing 2000+-hp, in combat maneuvers, where air flow is further compromised, air cooling is simply not an option. Water cooling was a cause of many mission abortions and early departure from combat. Water cooling was not a perk, it was a requirement.
Now, let's do some quick math. An F4U has a useful load of almost 5000lbs. Let's say radiator + pump + water weighs 80lbs (best guess on the heavy side - even at 100lbs, it's 2%, and roughly 1.5% of its gross). That means roughly 1.6% of its useful load goes to cooling. The added weight isn't worth discussion. Now let's talk about something like a 182. Useful load is likely something around 1000lbs (real world now). Let's add a cooling system which likely weighs something around 50lbs; with a gross total (less passive required) around 40lbs (that's being nice here). That's 4% of the total useful load. That's twice the negative effect. But wait. In order to fit that under the cowl, you now need to make the cowl larger. That will cost you some more weight. Not to mention, that will likely cost you some speed (more weight, more drag). You're now likely 5-6% heavier and 5-8 knots slower. In exchange for this "feature", you now have more maintenance, higher fuel bills, more expensive annuals. For GA, water cooling does not make sense. Easy math, conservative math easily indicates water cooling is not a feature for light GA.
Auto engines do operate over a wider RPM range, but they're not generally built to run at near-full-power for 95% of their operational life.
It's well understood automotive engines get a cake walk compared to airplane engines. For a fair comparison, you can only look at automotive sports; and there you see engines constantly rebuilt. They are lucky to see hundreds of hours which is certainly a far, far cry from the thousands seen from GA pistons.
I do agree with you that automotive water cooling technology has drastically improved over the years but that hardly means it smoothly translates to light piston GA.
to "spend less to provide a cheaper product, get more customers, make more money" (the race to the bottom).
Which is exactly what has been fueling the drive to out source labor. Pay less for what is on average, a vastly inferior product, maintain your prices, and watch your customers be driven away with an eye of indifference. Next get a huge bonus by the other incompetent executives as they pat you on your back for a deal that is very bad for the company in the long term.
Notice the last part? This is the sickness that is ultimately broken. Until corporate America stops hiring losers, which is the defacto policy, followed by huge rewards in exchange for huge failures, things will continue to get worse. The only cure is to stop rewarding executive failures, stop hiring these loser executives, stop with the infinite executive raises, and start spreading the wealth to the people that actually do the work.
As is, few executives actually want to do better for the company. Rather, they simply want to do better for themselves regardless of what it ultimately does for the company. In general this means huge losses for the company down the road but at that point, the executive will have already moved on with a huge bonus, stock portfolio, and cash prize in his pocket; so what does (s)he care. In the mean time, they are single handedly destroying the US' economy.
So, which is it? Operate as a business, cutting costs at every turn, or operating responsibly, even if it means taking a loss?
It's a double edged sword for sure. With FAA inspectors doing their job, it's hard to cut costs on things that matter. With independent inspections, balance is maintained. Balance can be had and many operators find it. American Airlines is simply not one of those operators.
Eliminating the user mixture control would allow the pilot (student pilots especially) to focus more on flying the airplane than tuning mixture for best economy. It would also reduce the wear and tear on an engine from improperly leaning the mix.
It's only a $20,000 - $40,000+ option, depending on your engine and airframe. This assumes you're in the market for a retrofit. You can imagine owners are jumping right on that.;)
Modern ignition could allow for more power in a more reliable system than magnetos. CDI units are largely bulletproof anymore and will frequently run the life of the engine without maintenance. A backup magneto system can be present in case of electrical failure.
More and more modern aircraft are getting this feature but it has its downside. A DA-42's accident, which is a twin, was traced back to ignition failure. Seems the battery was not charging. When the pilot retracted the electric gear on departure, the voltage dropped below the required threshold to operate the electronic ignition. Both engines died simultaneously. The pilot died. I don't remember if he had passengers or not.
Needless to say, there is still room for the ultra reliable magneto, dual mag setup of conventional designs.
Liquid cooling would eliminate the need for concern about shock cooling (thermostats are good things) and would reduce the amount of worry about exhaust gas entering the cockpit through the muffler shroud for the heater.
Liquid cooling adds weight and load on the engine. A coolant leak means a scrubbed flight. A water pump is yet one more component which can fail. Many pilots already elect to remove their A/C. How many you think are willing to reduce their useful load and reduce their available HP in exchange for creating an additional, likely, and costly maintenance item? Not many. This is one of the reasons Rotax engines are considered to be a real mixed bag.
Also, shock cooling is a myth. If it were real, it would be a noteworthy statics for twins and especially for twins used for primary training. No such statistic exists. The myth of shock cooling is believed to be answered by pilots who rapidly adjust the mixture and throttle controls, causing large quantiles of very cold aviation fuel and air to be dumped into very hot cylinders. Ham-fisted pilots are to blame, not throttle pulls and descents.
Check out Deakin's Pelican Brief articles for more on the subject. Sorry, I don't remember the name of the article.
Honestly nothing is more pathetic than the "heater" in a 172.
There are quite a lot of auto conversions running around in the homebuilt community and they typically have TBO's in the range of 1500-2000 hours.
This is true, with a caveat. Most engines are not used simply because they weigh far too much. The list of engines which are often put into home builds AND which have a good safety record is actually a pretty short list. In fact, these engines are both prized and hard to come by. If you look at the RV crowd, those that don't do Lyc 320 or 360s hunt for cores dating back to the 50s and 60s. At this late date, you can imagine they're getting scarce. These select few engines do not accurately reflect the huge variety of engines available to car manufacturers. And this should certainly come as no surprise as cars share little of the same constraints which airplane builders must address.
Honestly the whole "certified" engine issue is really holding GA back.
No argument from me on this. I completely agree.
A 40+ year old Conty design can run for 2000 hours while A modern automotive engine can run for 10,000 or so with very poor maintenance and in harder conditions. (how often do you put your ga engine through constant cycles of full throttle acceleration and sudden deceleration with no warmup time)
While the operating life your present is accurate, the operating conditions are not. GA aircraft must sustain far higher MPs, far widers spreads in temps, hot spots, large quantities of cold fuel pushed in from ham-fisted pilots (the true cause of mythical shock cooling), and high operating temps with limited cooling capacities. In the long run, car engines get a daily picnic compared to what GA engines go through; and doublely so if it is used for training.
Most automotive engines which are run as hard as GA aircraft engines either fail vastly premature or are rebuilt on a regular basis. In fact, about the only thing comparable here in treatment are race engines, which are often rebuilt after each race or after each race season, depending on the sport.
This is a common misnomer. Car engines typically spend > 80% of their engine life at 80% of their life at > 75% power. Few in the GA fleet are water cooled. Most are air cooled, which creates a far greater range of operating temperatures, most hot spots, and a much greater range of heat related expansion.
This should read: This is a common misnomer. Car engines typically spend greater than 80% of their engine life at less than 20% of their power. GA engines typically spend greater than 80% of their time at 75% power or more. Few in the GA fleet are water cooled. Most are air cooled, which creates a far greater range of operating temperatures. Most have hot spots, and a much greater range of heat related expansion.
You would think I was drunk when I wrote my original post. Seems the use of less than and greater than screwed over the post when it was submitted.
This kills a surprising number of qualified pilots. AOPA had an article on this some number of months back. The article was called something like, "Push, push, push." Seems most pilots fail to push forward enough in a timely enough manner to prevent a stall and the following onset of an unrecoverable spin into the ground.
If you're not a member of AOPA, please join. If you are a member, go see if you can locate the article. It's a surprising read.
I wish. I think you missed the part where I explained that was only the first multiple. I went on to say, "Remember, it's a question of cost and everything aviation related is inflated 4x-8x higher than it would be if free market forces and liability protection would be allowed to function." Sadly, I'm paying the same extortion prices you are.
Were these Rosemount styled pitot tubes by any chance?
The several articles I read on this story did not state the name of pitot tubes but did indicate the various pitots were each, well over a thousand or more. They stated the estimated damages but I don't recall it. I do recall it being a mind-numbing number.
You're confusing legal definition with common vernacular. Taking something to which you have no right is commonly called "stealing", or, "theft".
Obviously my post was not a legal brief so your dissertation out of place to say the least. To say, "Johhny stole that song", is an accurate statement despite the fact it's not legally representative of the facts.
Jesus Christ...nitpicking the phrase "fall out of the sky"? Seriously?
Yes seriously. It's statements like that why the vast majority of the public actually believe planes fall from the sky when an engine quits.
And to the ignorant mods, my statement is both educational and factual. It is not flamebait or trolling. Please learn the difference. Additionally, in the piloting community, correcting that statement is common for exactly the reasons stated above. Educating the public is a responsibility. This is a mistake that pilot won't likely make again.
People probably won't like my suggestion, which would be to regulate air travel again. Cut the routes, limit take off and landing slots, increase the seat and isle widths and let airlines raise prices to the market level of support.
This would naturally happen if the government would stop subsidizing air travel. As is, AA being the poster child and SWA being the notable exception, few airlines are actually line like a business. If the government would stop handing out money, AA would go out of business or be forced to operate responsibly. This would create a shakeup in the airline business, forcing exactly the changes you propose. After all, they would be forced to operate like a business, make a profit, and charge fair market rates where profits are required.
As is, business as usual is million dollar bonuses for bankrupting a business where you are further rewarded with government handouts.
ADS-B is not in flight radar. Few aircraft currently have it and the services is not universally available.
Furthermore, the FAA is working hard to f-up acceptance and universal value that ADS-B would provide for all aircraft. This is yet another example of the FAA working hard to keep modern technology out of the hands of pilots while keeping both costs and risks up.
It's actually well known that many of the tubes they require are no longer available and a replacement is no longer manufactured. In many cases, they have been forced to Ebay to obtain old equipment which does have the proper tubes and misc. other parts.
First let me say, I am no friend of the FAA. Everything in life is is a trade off between cost and risk. Everything. Period. In many cases, unless you're willing to pay $10,000 for your next coach plane ticket, many "fixes" are simply not cost effective given its low risk of occurrence.
Having said that, the FAA, as it relates to GA, is directly responsible for everything costing 2x or more than it should. They are also responsible for maintaining, if not elevating risk in many areas. Free market competition is vary rare for almost all aspects of GA aviation. Attorneys are directly responsible for all things GA aviation related costing a factor of 2 more than they should, in addition to the FAA's overhead.
If people really want to increase aviation safety, half the size of the FAA, require a pilot license to head the FAA, double the number of inspectors for commercial operators, and force a revamp of the certification process. As is, the FAA is directly responsible for keeping newer, safer, smaller, lighter technologies out of most cockpits and engine bays. Remember, it's a question of cost and everything aviation related is inflated 4x-8x higher than it would be if free market forces and liability protection would be allowed to function.
You are right about one thing, in many cases of aviation accidents, the FAA does have blood on its hands.
In more recent times, the spectre of the TSA has raised its head and is now starting to negatively impact aviation safety with no return on public safety. Does anyone remember the B2 bomber crash? Turns out some moister was the cause, inside some instrument pitot tubes. Now imagine TSA agents wilfully damaging the same types of instrumentation on commercial airliners in the name of public safety inspections; which are impossible to improve public safety. Recently, as many as 10 aircraft were ignorantly sabotaged by TSA inspectors in the name of public safety by climbing up onto the aircraft, on these very sensitive pitot tubes. Thankfully a pilot noticed some abnormalities and aborted his takeoff. Now keep in mind, it is impossible, regardless of the damage created, for these types of inspections to improve public safety.
Don't be fooled, the TSA is fighting hard to "get into the cockpit" and I have no doubt, public safety will continue to be compromised unless the public is educated on the dangers the TSA's well meaning yet ignorantly harmful involvement will cause. It's only a matter of time.
How often do you see a plane fall out of the sky because the engine died?
Well, first of all, for someone that just completed an aviation program, you should know better than to make statements like, "plane fall out of the sky", as related to engine failure. Planes glide, not "fall", when an engine quits. Second of all, engine failure in GA piston aircraft is far more common than you think. The causes range from fuel exhaustion to mechanical failure, but it does happen far more often than people hear on the news. In fact, it happens often enough, it is not considered an uncommon event. This is why twin engines are typically considered a requisite for ocean crossings.
Car engines are more reliable then aircraft engines.
This is a common misnomer. Car engines typically spend > 80% of their engine life at 80% of their life at > 75% power. Few in the GA fleet are water cooled. Most are air cooled, which creates a far greater range of operating temperatures, most hot spots, and a much greater range of heat related expansion.
Most car engines operated as an aircraft engine experience a very short life. In fact, most engines which are operated as an aircraft engine are typically torn down and rebuilt following the race or event.
Long story short, few engines outside of aviation have the longevity that GA piston engines do.
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And it gets worse. The US is working hard to use of the largest fresh water aquifer" which is used for 30% of the US' irrigation and 80% of the drinking water for those that live within its boundaries.
Continued use of corn for biofuels will only add additional pressures to use this aquifer for irrigation.
Why is it that VW claims 22-30 mpg for their S, SE, and SEL models? That's a far cry from the 50-70 others are claiming here.
But, they don't seem to quite get that, and public perception is that diesels are dirty, so...
That's because most government in California is run based on public perception rather than sound, educated judgement and reasoned logic. That is exactly why most of the world looks at California with a queer look and a shrugged smile; often accompanied with a rolling of the eyes.
I've seen the source to several of these types of devices before. The code is typically NOT written by programmers. Typically a scientist writes very crude code which analyzes the data created by the hardware and spits out the results. The code quality is typically piss poor.
If anyone has ever seen large quantities of code written in VB by someone that does not have a background in coding, you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about.
*If* the code in these devices as on par with code I've seen for other devices, I imagine tons of bugs and coding errors will easily be identified.
They put on civilian clothing, kept their weapons, and blended right into the regular population. We didn't disband them!
They were told they would no longer be paid and should not bother to report. This makes them civilians. In that part of the world, carrying an assault rifle is normal. You have the details correctly but completely misunderstand the facts. The Iraqi military WAS disbanded. Even US officials acknowledge this fact.
The Katrina disaster was mainly the fault of the "chocolate" mayor and an indecisive pussy governor. The Feds are *always* the last to show up. Disaster response STARTS with LOCAL people, then state, then Federal. Got it? When you elect stupid Democrats for your local and state leadership, then you get what you deserve.
I agree with this. In fact, it is federal law they can not show up until requested by the state. If they do show up, they can be charged with federal invasion of a state. Using federal troops to invade a state is very serious. The Katrina issues were created at many levels and FEMA desires little of the public ire the press falsely framed.
Let me give you an example of the press lying to the public. In Iraq, after a bombing, it was common for the press to frame their report showing fires and black smoke in the background. They would then tell the public about the devastating fires and death tolls. In reality, these were trash fires which burn almost around the clock. Normally they had no idea how much, if any carnage actually took place. Fires were almost never a result of these bombings. Basically the press lied to the US public on a daily basis.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of lies to go around, but the US press is at the head of the pack. They'll say anything to meet their own political agendas.
The Taliban are a tribe with far more women and children than fighters, their fatal mistake as a "government" (I can't think of another term) was to stand in between AQ and the US.
Their final mistake was that as a religion they make it easy to kill other humans and treat them as garbage. It is this ideology that makes Westerners lack the desire to distinguish between Taliban and AQ. You need to remember, the Taliban are still fine with public stonings of women and children. Public executions of men, women, and children were common when they were in power in Afghanistan. These are people that believe killing humans who believe differently than they do, most likely everyone reading this, is on par with squashing an ant. They deserve to be treated in kind.
Because most "true" Talibans are completely worthless humans, there exists little reason to make the distinction between Taliban and AQ. Ultimately, it's a good thing they refused to surrender AQ to the US. Killing Talibans is as justified as killing German SS Officers during WWII.
Okay, just by chance I found the article in question. The cover calls it, "Engine Failure on Takeoff: You've Gotta PUSH". It was indexed as, "Technique: Push". The article title is "PUSH: Your first move when the engine fails."
About my only complaint with the magazine is they don't have a f-ing clue when it comes to understanding the purpose of an index.
The article specifically addresses that training rarely and likely never covers this situation. It details things can go south in only a couple of seconds during your departure climb.
Hopefully you can find the article now.
Happy, Safe Flying!
F5hahhhhhhhh!
That's why the top-line WWII aircraft had mostly gone to liquid-cooled engines.
Top of the line fighters used water cooling simply because air cooling cost far too much speed because of huge cowl openings. And frankly, I'm not sure air cooling along would address the heating issues. When you're pushing 2000+-hp, in combat maneuvers, where air flow is further compromised, air cooling is simply not an option. Water cooling was a cause of many mission abortions and early departure from combat. Water cooling was not a perk, it was a requirement.
Now, let's do some quick math. An F4U has a useful load of almost 5000lbs. Let's say radiator + pump + water weighs 80lbs (best guess on the heavy side - even at 100lbs, it's 2%, and roughly 1.5% of its gross). That means roughly 1.6% of its useful load goes to cooling. The added weight isn't worth discussion. Now let's talk about something like a 182. Useful load is likely something around 1000lbs (real world now). Let's add a cooling system which likely weighs something around 50lbs; with a gross total (less passive required) around 40lbs (that's being nice here). That's 4% of the total useful load. That's twice the negative effect. But wait. In order to fit that under the cowl, you now need to make the cowl larger. That will cost you some more weight. Not to mention, that will likely cost you some speed (more weight, more drag). You're now likely 5-6% heavier and 5-8 knots slower. In exchange for this "feature", you now have more maintenance, higher fuel bills, more expensive annuals. For GA, water cooling does not make sense. Easy math, conservative math easily indicates water cooling is not a feature for light GA.
Auto engines do operate over a wider RPM range, but they're not generally built to run at near-full-power for 95% of their operational life.
It's well understood automotive engines get a cake walk compared to airplane engines. For a fair comparison, you can only look at automotive sports; and there you see engines constantly rebuilt. They are lucky to see hundreds of hours which is certainly a far, far cry from the thousands seen from GA pistons.
I do agree with you that automotive water cooling technology has drastically improved over the years but that hardly means it smoothly translates to light piston GA.
to "spend less to provide a cheaper product, get more customers, make more money" (the race to the bottom).
Which is exactly what has been fueling the drive to out source labor. Pay less for what is on average, a vastly inferior product, maintain your prices, and watch your customers be driven away with an eye of indifference. Next get a huge bonus by the other incompetent executives as they pat you on your back for a deal that is very bad for the company in the long term.
Notice the last part? This is the sickness that is ultimately broken. Until corporate America stops hiring losers, which is the defacto policy, followed by huge rewards in exchange for huge failures, things will continue to get worse. The only cure is to stop rewarding executive failures, stop hiring these loser executives, stop with the infinite executive raises, and start spreading the wealth to the people that actually do the work.
As is, few executives actually want to do better for the company. Rather, they simply want to do better for themselves regardless of what it ultimately does for the company. In general this means huge losses for the company down the road but at that point, the executive will have already moved on with a huge bonus, stock portfolio, and cash prize in his pocket; so what does (s)he care. In the mean time, they are single handedly destroying the US' economy.
So, which is it? Operate as a business, cutting costs at every turn, or operating responsibly, even if it means taking a loss?
It's a double edged sword for sure. With FAA inspectors doing their job, it's hard to cut costs on things that matter. With independent inspections, balance is maintained. Balance can be had and many operators find it. American Airlines is simply not one of those operators.
Eliminating the user mixture control would allow the pilot (student pilots especially) to focus more on flying the airplane than tuning mixture for best economy. It would also reduce the wear and tear on an engine from improperly leaning the mix.
It's only a $20,000 - $40,000+ option, depending on your engine and airframe. This assumes you're in the market for a retrofit. You can imagine owners are jumping right on that. ;)
Modern ignition could allow for more power in a more reliable system than magnetos. CDI units are largely bulletproof anymore and will frequently run the life of the engine without maintenance. A backup magneto system can be present in case of electrical failure.
More and more modern aircraft are getting this feature but it has its downside. A DA-42's accident, which is a twin, was traced back to ignition failure. Seems the battery was not charging. When the pilot retracted the electric gear on departure, the voltage dropped below the required threshold to operate the electronic ignition. Both engines died simultaneously. The pilot died. I don't remember if he had passengers or not.
Needless to say, there is still room for the ultra reliable magneto, dual mag setup of conventional designs.
Liquid cooling would eliminate the need for concern about shock cooling (thermostats are good things) and would reduce the amount of worry about exhaust gas entering the cockpit through the muffler shroud for the heater.
Liquid cooling adds weight and load on the engine. A coolant leak means a scrubbed flight. A water pump is yet one more component which can fail. Many pilots already elect to remove their A/C. How many you think are willing to reduce their useful load and reduce their available HP in exchange for creating an additional, likely, and costly maintenance item? Not many. This is one of the reasons Rotax engines are considered to be a real mixed bag.
Also, shock cooling is a myth. If it were real, it would be a noteworthy statics for twins and especially for twins used for primary training. No such statistic exists. The myth of shock cooling is believed to be answered by pilots who rapidly adjust the mixture and throttle controls, causing large quantiles of very cold aviation fuel and air to be dumped into very hot cylinders. Ham-fisted pilots are to blame, not throttle pulls and descents.
Check out Deakin's Pelican Brief articles for more on the subject. Sorry, I don't remember the name of the article.
Honestly nothing is more pathetic than the "heater" in a 172.
I couldn't agree with you more.
Happy flying.
There are quite a lot of auto conversions running around in the homebuilt community and they typically have TBO's in the range of 1500-2000 hours.
This is true, with a caveat. Most engines are not used simply because they weigh far too much. The list of engines which are often put into home builds AND which have a good safety record is actually a pretty short list. In fact, these engines are both prized and hard to come by. If you look at the RV crowd, those that don't do Lyc 320 or 360s hunt for cores dating back to the 50s and 60s. At this late date, you can imagine they're getting scarce. These select few engines do not accurately reflect the huge variety of engines available to car manufacturers. And this should certainly come as no surprise as cars share little of the same constraints which airplane builders must address.
Honestly the whole "certified" engine issue is really holding GA back.
No argument from me on this. I completely agree.
A 40+ year old Conty design can run for 2000 hours while A modern automotive engine can run for 10,000 or so with very poor maintenance and in harder conditions. (how often do you put your ga engine through constant cycles of full throttle acceleration and sudden deceleration with no warmup time)
While the operating life your present is accurate, the operating conditions are not. GA aircraft must sustain far higher MPs, far widers spreads in temps, hot spots, large quantities of cold fuel pushed in from ham-fisted pilots (the true cause of mythical shock cooling), and high operating temps with limited cooling capacities. In the long run, car engines get a daily picnic compared to what GA engines go through; and doublely so if it is used for training.
Most automotive engines which are run as hard as GA aircraft engines either fail vastly premature or are rebuilt on a regular basis. In fact, about the only thing comparable here in treatment are race engines, which are often rebuilt after each race or after each race season, depending on the sport.
This is a common misnomer. Car engines typically spend > 80% of their engine life at 80% of their life at > 75% power. Few in the GA fleet are water cooled. Most are air cooled, which creates a far greater range of operating temperatures, most hot spots, and a much greater range of heat related expansion.
This should read:
This is a common misnomer. Car engines typically spend greater than 80% of their engine life at less than 20% of their power. GA engines typically spend greater than 80% of their time at 75% power or more. Few in the GA fleet are water cooled. Most are air cooled, which creates a far greater range of operating temperatures. Most have hot spots, and a much greater range of heat related expansion.
You would think I was drunk when I wrote my original post. Seems the use of less than and greater than screwed over the post when it was submitted.
during takeoff
This kills a surprising number of qualified pilots. AOPA had an article on this some number of months back. The article was called something like, "Push, push, push." Seems most pilots fail to push forward enough in a timely enough manner to prevent a stall and the following onset of an unrecoverable spin into the ground.
If you're not a member of AOPA, please join. If you are a member, go see if you can locate the article. It's a surprising read.
Happy flying.
You're only paying 2x as much?
I wish. I think you missed the part where I explained that was only the first multiple. I went on to say, "Remember, it's a question of cost and everything aviation related is inflated 4x-8x higher than it would be if free market forces and liability protection would be allowed to function." Sadly, I'm paying the same extortion prices you are.
Were these Rosemount styled pitot tubes by any chance?
The several articles I read on this story did not state the name of pitot tubes but did indicate the various pitots were each, well over a thousand or more. They stated the estimated damages but I don't recall it. I do recall it being a mind-numbing number.
I seriously doubt you see the irony of your statement. Now that's douchebaggery. LOL. Hopefully you can laugh at yourself too.
You're confusing legal definition with common vernacular. Taking something to which you have no right is commonly called "stealing", or, "theft".
Obviously my post was not a legal brief so your dissertation out of place to say the least. To say, "Johhny stole that song", is an accurate statement despite the fact it's not legally representative of the facts.
Jesus Christ...nitpicking the phrase "fall out of the sky"? Seriously?
Yes seriously. It's statements like that why the vast majority of the public actually believe planes fall from the sky when an engine quits.
And to the ignorant mods, my statement is both educational and factual. It is not flamebait or trolling. Please learn the difference. Additionally, in the piloting community, correcting that statement is common for exactly the reasons stated above. Educating the public is a responsibility. This is a mistake that pilot won't likely make again.
People probably won't like my suggestion, which would be to regulate air travel again. Cut the routes, limit take off and landing slots, increase the seat and isle widths and let airlines raise prices to the market level of support.
This would naturally happen if the government would stop subsidizing air travel. As is, AA being the poster child and SWA being the notable exception, few airlines are actually line like a business. If the government would stop handing out money, AA would go out of business or be forced to operate responsibly. This would create a shakeup in the airline business, forcing exactly the changes you propose. After all, they would be forced to operate like a business, make a profit, and charge fair market rates where profits are required.
As is, business as usual is million dollar bonuses for bankrupting a business where you are further rewarded with government handouts.
ADS-B is not in flight radar. Few aircraft currently have it and the services is not universally available.
Furthermore, the FAA is working hard to f-up acceptance and universal value that ADS-B would provide for all aircraft. This is yet another example of the FAA working hard to keep modern technology out of the hands of pilots while keeping both costs and risks up.
It's actually well known that many of the tubes they require are no longer available and a replacement is no longer manufactured. In many cases, they have been forced to Ebay to obtain old equipment which does have the proper tubes and misc. other parts.
First let me say, I am no friend of the FAA. Everything in life is is a trade off between cost and risk. Everything. Period. In many cases, unless you're willing to pay $10,000 for your next coach plane ticket, many "fixes" are simply not cost effective given its low risk of occurrence.
Having said that, the FAA, as it relates to GA, is directly responsible for everything costing 2x or more than it should. They are also responsible for maintaining, if not elevating risk in many areas. Free market competition is vary rare for almost all aspects of GA aviation. Attorneys are directly responsible for all things GA aviation related costing a factor of 2 more than they should, in addition to the FAA's overhead.
If people really want to increase aviation safety, half the size of the FAA, require a pilot license to head the FAA, double the number of inspectors for commercial operators, and force a revamp of the certification process. As is, the FAA is directly responsible for keeping newer, safer, smaller, lighter technologies out of most cockpits and engine bays. Remember, it's a question of cost and everything aviation related is inflated 4x-8x higher than it would be if free market forces and liability protection would be allowed to function.
You are right about one thing, in many cases of aviation accidents, the FAA does have blood on its hands.
In more recent times, the spectre of the TSA has raised its head and is now starting to negatively impact aviation safety with no return on public safety. Does anyone remember the B2 bomber crash? Turns out some moister was the cause, inside some instrument pitot tubes. Now imagine TSA agents wilfully damaging the same types of instrumentation on commercial airliners in the name of public safety inspections; which are impossible to improve public safety. Recently, as many as 10 aircraft were ignorantly sabotaged by TSA inspectors in the name of public safety by climbing up onto the aircraft, on these very sensitive pitot tubes. Thankfully a pilot noticed some abnormalities and aborted his takeoff. Now keep in mind, it is impossible, regardless of the damage created, for these types of inspections to improve public safety.
Don't be fooled, the TSA is fighting hard to "get into the cockpit" and I have no doubt, public safety will continue to be compromised unless the public is educated on the dangers the TSA's well meaning yet ignorantly harmful involvement will cause. It's only a matter of time.
How often do you see a plane fall out of the sky because the engine died?
Well, first of all, for someone that just completed an aviation program, you should know better than to make statements like, "plane fall out of the sky", as related to engine failure. Planes glide, not "fall", when an engine quits. Second of all, engine failure in GA piston aircraft is far more common than you think. The causes range from fuel exhaustion to mechanical failure, but it does happen far more often than people hear on the news. In fact, it happens often enough, it is not considered an uncommon event. This is why twin engines are typically considered a requisite for ocean crossings.
Car engines are more reliable then aircraft engines.
This is a common misnomer. Car engines typically spend > 80% of their engine life at 80% of their life at > 75% power. Few in the GA fleet are water cooled. Most are air cooled, which creates a far greater range of operating temperatures, most hot spots, and a much greater range of heat related expansion.
Most car engines operated as an aircraft engine experience a very short life. In fact, most engines which are operated as an aircraft engine are typically torn down and rebuilt following the race or event.
Long story short, few engines outside of aviation have the longevity that GA piston engines do.