Light aircraft crash at Heck Field 27/01/26

[cscotthendry]

1 hour ago, Ian said:

Hopefully the investigation will provided information which hopefully can assist others in understand what went wrong so there can be some positive outcomes from this trajedy.
 

The old chestnut that auto engines aren't designed for full power loadings simply isn't true. The testing associated with auto engines includes extended operations at full power.
An example of how robust these engines are is in this example.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a60787517/subaru-legacy-still-holds-this-incredible-speed-record-from-1989/

Auto engines in aeroplanes do have a much higher failure rate however the vast majority of issues associated with these failures relates to installation and PSRU issues, not fundamental issues with the engine.

• Modern car engines are built to higher tolerances using better engineering that any of the aero manufacturer engines.
• Modern car engines are far more reliable than Lycoming engines and their brethren.
• Start a modern car engine, they're better balanced, faster starting and use less oil, they're far better.

However these engines are far harder to install in aircraft and maintain that reliability, they're invariably bespoke engineering, often with unanticipated failure modes and innocent looking decision can have fatal consequences.

These installation issues makes them less safe, but pretending that it's an engine design issue isn't helping. 
 

Yes, modern car engines are built to closer tolerances … and that is a problem for using them in aircraft. Recently there has been a multi-manufacturer spate of auto engine failures due to closer tolerances and resulting lighter weight oils that make these engines very critical of manufacturing debris. They are failing due to debris that requires microscopic inspection to find, that is left as a result of the manufacturing process. These are new engines failing with as little as 30,000 miles in use in cars.

But I'll repeat: Car engines are NOT designed with any consideration for use in aircraft and IMO have no business in any airplane. From what I have seen, people use car engines in airplanes to save money.

How much is your life (or your passenger's life) worth?

Again, just sayin' but if you have to pinch pennies to fly, you can't really afford to own an airplane.

[BurnieM]

Maintenance is also an issue with all engine types.

The Piper that crashed on Mona Vale golf course was purchased 6 months earlier for $60k.

You do not have to be a rocket scientist to realise you get what you pay for.

 

Penny pinching is not limited to experimentals.

 

Edited Monday at 12:56 AM by BurnieM

[facthunter]

Those engines won't go to TBO without a TOP. Everyone knew that when those Planes were New. Looked after they are One of the Most reliable engines Made.  Nev

[danny_galaga]

2 hours ago, Ian said:

Hopefully the investigation will provided information which hopefully can assist others in understand what went wrong so there can be some positive outcomes from this trajedy.
 

The old chestnut that auto engines aren't designed for full power loadings simply isn't true. The testing associated with auto engines includes extended operations at full power.
An example of how robust these engines are is in this example.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a60787517/subaru-legacy-still-holds-this-incredible-speed-record-from-1989/

Auto engines in aeroplanes do have a much higher failure rate however the vast majority of issues associated with these failures relates to installation and PSRU issues, not fundamental issues with the engine.

• Modern car engines are built to higher tolerances using better engineering that any of the aero manufacturer engines.
• Modern car engines are far more reliable than Lycoming engines and their brethren.
• Start a modern car engine, they're better balanced, faster starting and use less oil, they're far better.

However these engines are far harder to install in aircraft and maintain that reliability, they're invariably bespoke engineering, often with unanticipated failure modes and innocent looking decision can have fatal consequences.

These installation issues makes them less safe, but pretending that it's an engine design issue isn't helping. 
 

It's not really an old chestnut if it's true though, is it? I used to think car engines should be a great alternative. Even when I learnt to fly and learnt about the basic differences between the two types I didn't latch on to the engineering side of things. It's only once I started building my own plane and seeing if there were other options out there did I learn more, quite a bit from this very forum. Quite a bit from facthunter, but also others 

 

In my mind the big hurdle that will never be hurdled is the fact a car engine is designed to run at relatively low power settings most of the time, with fairly short bursts at high power.  An aircraft engine is more like 70-80% most of the time, and small aircraft 100% on climb. You could be climbing for five minutes. That's the equivalent of a car  going onto an impossibly long salt flat and just flooring it and driving at its top speed for five minutes. There's a reason top fuel dragsters are rebuilt after every run. 

 

That reason alone makes the car engine stand on the back foot from the get go. No manufacturer is going to spend the money engineering their car engines to suit those scenarios 'just in case'. But there are other reasons too. 

 

I think the only thing that might be comparable that could be converted might be marine engines. But they're not exactly cheap, and lets face it, the big appeal of car engines is price.

 

Having said all that, I would love to build a Pietenpol Air Camper. I would use a Datsun 120Y engine 😊

Edited Monday at 01:37 AM by danny_galaga

[facthunter]

Why not use the Original engine?  An  A models Ford swinging a BIG Prop.  The engine is Lightened by chiselling metal from the Block. Nev

[onetrack]

Never forget that car engines are manufactured in huge numbers, at great production speed, to keep costs low to be competitive, and they are recognised as having a much higher failure rate in use, as compared to a specifically-designed aviation engine.

 

The car manufacturers rely on parts sales to make their profits, they make little profit selling new cars, so they're happy with a percentage of engine failures. That's the reason why you'll always find new crate engines in stock at your local dealer, they fully expect to sell more than a few, every year.

 

Add in the fact that car manufacturers source their engine components from sub-contract suppliers - in places that still have less-then-stellar QC. Slovenia, Argentina, Brazil, China, South Africa. Even the main factories have regular QC fails. Just look at the Toyota engine failures several years ago. There was a lapse in QC that allowed machining swarf, or RTV beads from component tightening, to remain in the engines.

 

The warranty claims cost Toyota a lot of money, and a lot of new engines. Ford and GM engine recalls for manufacturing/QC slip-ups are the stuff of legend. Numerous GM V8 petrol engines suffered thousands of early failures due to the manufacturers incorrect oil recommendation, in an effort to reduce friction, improve fuel economy, and to reduce emissions.

The GM L87 V8 has suffered from tens of thousands of engine failures due to simple manufacturing defects in conrods and crankshafts.

 

If you ever watched a Ford production line manufacturing valves, you'd never buy another Ford again, they punch them out by the hundreds a minute. This is a critical part in any engine.

 

Ford have already issued a recall for the inlet valves in their 3.0L V6 diesel for a defective hardening process. Ford issued a recall for camshaft sprockets that could fail with no warning, in the same engine, due to manufacturing defects.

Nissan has had constant 2.5L YD25 engine component failures due to faulty manufacturing processes and QC failures. Nissan use "powdered sintered metal" for numerous critical gears.

It's a process designed to save money, pure and simple. Instead of forging or machining the gear, they manufacture a mould, fill it with powered metal, then compress and heat the mould to a high temperature.

This results in a gear with a substantial variation in strength. Many of these Nissan powdered sintered metal gears have failed early.

 

Nissan and VW have had regular timing chain failures, due to bad design, poor quality timing chain adjusters and guides, and inadequate timing chain strength. In numerous cases, they either used a single chain that was inadequate, and had to redesign to accommodate a duplex chain - or they used a duplex chain initially, then went to a single chain, in a cost-saving drive - and that single timing chain promptly became unreliable.

 

If you took a car engine and dismantled it, and examined all its internal weak points, and altered/redesigned/revised them to racing level upgrades, then you likely would have an engine internally suitable for an aircraft.

But then you still have the problem in that all the accessories are built by the cheapest subcontractor. Injectors and coils and leads and electronic components that fail regularly, due to poor design or cheap materials. Wiring harnesses with cheap connectors and poor layout. There are always recalls for wiring harness faults.

 

At the end of the day, there is no such thing as a cheap and reliable aircraft engine. Aircraft engines cost serious money because of their extensive levels of QC, extensive testing, quality materials, and designs that are specific to aircraft, to ensure that an engine failure in flight, minimises the risk of the engine failure turning into a major disaster. An EFATO is something that keeps every pilot awake at night.

[BrendAn]

1 hour ago, danny_galaga said:

It's not really an old chestnut if it's true though, is it? I used to think car engines should be a great alternative. Even when I learnt to fly and learnt about the basic differences between the two types I didn't latch on to the engineering side of things. It's only once I started building my own plane and seeing if there were other options out there did I learn more, quite a bit from this very forum. Quite a bit from facthunter, but also others 

 

In my mind the big hurdle that will never be hurdled is the fact a car engine is designed to run at relatively low power settings most of the time, with fairly short bursts at high power.  An aircraft engine is more like 70-80% most of the time, and small aircraft 100% on climb. You could be climbing for five minutes. That's the equivalent of a car  going onto an impossibly long salt flat and just flooring it and driving at its top speed for five minutes. There's a reason top fuel dragsters are rebuilt after every run. 

 

That reason alone makes the car engine stand on the back foot from the get go. No manufacturer is going to spend the money engineering their car engines to suit those scenarios 'just in case'. But there are other reasons too. 

 

I think the only thing that might be comparable that could be converted might be marine engines. But they're not exactly cheap, and lets face it, the big appeal of car engines is price.

 

Having said all that, I would love to build a Pietenpol Air Camper. I would use a Datsun 120Y engine 😊

Honda , Suzuki and chev conversions have been successful.

[BrendAn]

8 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Never forget that car engines are manufactured in huge numbers, at great production speed, to keep costs low to be competitive, and they are recognised as having a much higher failure rate in use, as compared to a specifically-designed aviation engine.

 

The car manufacturers rely on parts sales to make their profits, they make little profit selling new cars, so they're happy with a percentage of engine failures. That's the reason why you'll always find new crate engines in stock at your local dealer, they fully expect to sell more than a few, every year.

 

Add in the fact that car manufacturers source their engine components from sub-contract suppliers - in places that still have less-then-stellar QC. Slovenia, Argentina, Brazil, China, South Africa. Even the main factories have regular QC fails. Just look at the Toyota engine failures several years ago. There was a lapse in QC that allowed machining swarf, or RTV beads from component tightening, to remain in the engines.

 

The warranty claims cost Toyota a lot of money, and a lot of new engines. Ford and GM engine recalls for manufacturing/QC slip-ups are the stuff of legend. Numerous GM V8 petrol engines suffered thousands of early failures due to the manufacturers incorrect oil recommendation, in an effort to reduce friction, improve fuel economy, and to reduce emissions.

The GM L87 V8 has suffered from tens of thousands of engine failures due to simple manufacturing defects in conrods and crankshafts.

 

If you ever watched a Ford production line manufacturing valves, you'd never buy another Ford again, they punch them out by the hundreds a minute. This is a critical part in any engine.

 

Ford have already issued a recall for the inlet valves in their 3.0L V6 diesel for a defective hardening process. Ford issued a recall for camshaft sprockets that could fail with no warning, in the same engine, due to manufacturing defects.

Nissan has had constant 2.5L YD25 engine component failures due to faulty manufacturing processes and QC failures. Nissan use "powdered sintered metal" for numerous critical gears.

It's a process designed to save money, pure and simple. Instead of forging or machining the gear, they manufacture a mould, fill it with powered metal, then compress and heat the mould to a high temperature.

This results in a gear with a substantial variation in strength. Many of these Nissan powdered sintered metal gears have failed early.

 

Nissan and VW have had regular timing chain failures, due to bad design, poor quality timing chain adjusters and guides, and inadequate timing chain strength. In numerous cases, they either used a single chain that was inadequate, and had to redesign to accommodate a duplex chain - or they used a duplex chain initially, then went to a single chain, in a cost-saving drive - and that single timing chain promptly became unreliable.

 

If you took a car engine and dismantled it, and examined all its internal weak points, and altered/redesigned/revised them to racing level upgrades, then you likely would have an engine internally suitable for an aircraft.

But then you still have the problem in that all the accessories are built by the cheapest subcontractor. Injectors and coils and leads and electronic components that fail regularly, due to poor design or cheap materials. Wiring harnesses with cheap connectors and poor layout. There are always recalls for wiring harness faults.

 

At the end of the day, there is no such thing as a cheap and reliable aircraft engine. Aircraft engines cost serious money because of their extensive levels of QC, extensive testing, quality materials, and designs that are specific to aircraft, to ensure that an engine failure in flight, minimises the risk of the engine failure turning into a major disaster. An EFATO is something that keeps every pilot awake at night.

You always talk about how bad car engines are yet most never give any trouble.  A while back you told me my Commodore as was a heap of shit yet at 210,000 km now and it's never had a spanner on it except for services.  I have owned dozens of Ford's and Holden's and never a problem except for a wiring problem in a vs 5 litre. I have a V6 turbo diesel territory that is at 216000 now and never misses a beat. 

All companies have recalls because they are cheaper than changing a production line.

When I worked at Stillwell ford the old blokes told me the xy was the perfect Falcon. No recalls or problems at all.

[FlyBoy1960]

10 minutes ago, BrendAn said:

Honda , Suzuki and chev conversions have been successful.

Show me some that have run for 2,000 hours please.  Everything works well in the first 200 hours, even a Jabiru

[BrendAn]

2 minutes ago, FlyBoy1960 said:

Show me some that have run for 2,000 hours please.  Everything works well in the first 200 hours, even a Jabiru

Who said they have to run 2000 hrs.

You could replace those engines at 1000 hrs with the cost savings.

How many hrs do you do a year.

Recreational pilots do fa.

I try to do 2 or 3 hrs per week so I am only doing  150 hrs a year and I fly more than anyone at my airfield.

So by the time I got an engine to 2000 hrs I would be too old to fly anyway. 

[onetrack]

Unfortunately, many car owners have highly selective memories when it comes to their vehicles. They have a tendency to forget about numerous repairs in the history of their ownership.

I've owned, pulled apart, and repaired many hundreds of engines over 60 years, and been involved with repairs and problems with many other owners of vehicles, engines and equipment.

And I can give you a specific list of design failures that caused heartache and serious unnecessary cost to many car, engine, and equipment owners  - even though they basically loved their machines.

There are people out there who think God himself designed and built BMW engines. I can tell you, from first-hand experience, BMW engines are largely crap construction, with excessive use of cheap plastics in the engines, horrendous layouts, bad engineering designs, and parts costs that require you to take along a large tub of vaseline every time you need even a simple a BMW part.

[BrendAn]

12 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Unfortunately, many car owners have highly selective memories when it comes to their vehicles. They have a tendency to forget about numerous repairs in the history of their ownership.

I've owned, pulled apart, and repaired many hundreds of engines over 60 years, and been involved with repairs and problems with many other owners of vehicles, engines and equipment.

And I can give you a specific list of design failures that caused heartache and serious unnecessary cost to many car, engine, and equipment owners  - even though they basically loved their machines.

There are people out there who think God himself designed and built BMW engines. I can tell you, from first-hand experience, BMW engines are largely crap construction, with excessive use of cheap plastics in the engines, horrendous layouts, bad engineering designs, and parts costs that require you to take along a large tub of vaseline every time you need even a simple a BMW part.

Well you know everything thing. I know what I know which is jack shit according to you and another on here so I won't try to change your mind. You can laugh at my posts if you want. At long as it entertains you.😁

Edited Monday at 03:16 AM by BrendAn

[cscotthendry]

1 hour ago, BrendAn said:

You always talk about how bad car engines are yet most never give any trouble.  A while back you told me my Commodore as was a heap of shit yet at 210,000 km now and it's never had a spanner on it except for services.  I have owned dozens of Ford's and Holden's and never a problem except for a wiring problem in a vs 5 litre. I have a V6 turbo diesel territory that is at 216000 now and never misses a beat. 

All companies have recalls because they are cheaper than changing a production line.

When I worked at Stillwell ford the old blokes told me the xy was the perfect Falcon. No recalls or problems at all.

Brendan: there you go. You're comparing apples to oranges. As I and others have said, aircraft engines operate under completely different conditions to car engines. Car engines are designed to spend their life at 30% throttle OR LESS. Aircraft engines are designed to operate at 75% throttle OR MORE. Comparing mileage done by a car engine to the reliability required for an aircraft engine is a non sequitur.

Besides which, the repercussions of engine failure in a car is totally different to an engine failure in an aircraft. Just ask the people this thread is about … oh, tnat's right. You can't because they're dead. If they had been in a car it would have been a completely different outcome.

Edited Monday at 04:16 AM by cscotthendry

[skippydiesel]

I remind  you of ;

• VW/Mercedes diesel/Honda/Suzuki/GM?/etc (then there are the small engines B&S/Kawask etc) 

that have been successfully modified for use in aircraft.

 

Yes most, non commercial, ground based vehicles will be loping along at very low power demand when in cruise.

Bit diffrent when I when tow a fully loaded double horse float (estimated at 2.5-3 tonne + built in headwind) with my Ford Ranger, I can easily cruise at 110 kph, on the flat, up most freeway hills, occasionally being reduced to 90-100 kph. The ute is under load all the time - just like an aircraft.

Same goes for most agricultural engines - they  can be under load for many hours in a day.

[BrendAn]

12 minutes ago, cscotthendry said:

Brendan: there you go. You're comparing apples to oranges. As I and others have said, aircraft engines operate under completely different conditions to car engines. Car engines are designed to spend their life at 30% throttle OR LESS. Aircraft engines are designed to operate at 75% throttle OR MORE. Comparing mileage done by a car engine to the reliability required for an aircraft engine is a non sequitur.

Besides which, the repercussions of engine failure in a car is totally different to an engine failure in an aircraft. Just ask the people this thread is about … oh, tnat's right. You can't because they're dead. If they had been in a car it would have been a completely different outcome.

I was actually responding to one-track talking about how unreliable car engines are. Nothing to do with aircraft 

[BrendAn]

15 minutes ago, cscotthendry said:

Brendan: there you go. You're comparing apples to oranges. As I and others have said, aircraft engines operate under completely different conditions to car engines. Car engines are designed to spend their life at 30% throttle OR LESS. Aircraft engines are designed to operate at 75% throttle OR MORE. Comparing mileage done by a car engine to the reliability required for an aircraft engine is a non sequitur.

Besides which, the repercussions of engine failure in a car is totally different to an engine failure in an aircraft. Just ask the people this thread is about … oh, tnat's right. You can't because they're dead. If they had been in a car it would have been a completely different outcome.

In another post I did mention Honda,Suzuki and chev  have been used successfully in aircraft. I know someone with a 150 HP Suzuki V6 in a titan mustang that has been very reliable so far . 

[facthunter]

The Chev V8 is used because its all alloy and Mainly for glider towing. It makes a lot of sense to use air-cooling for an aircraft Piston engine, Not so much in Cars these days. A Lot of TANKS used Aircooled RADIAL Motors..  Nev

[BrendAn]

18 minutes ago, facthunter said:

The Chev V8 is used because its all alloy and Mainly for glider towing. It makes a lot of sense to use air-cooling for an aircraft Piston engine, Not so much in Cars these days. A Lot of TANKS used Aircooled RADIAL Motors..  Nev

 glider tugs would be a tiny minority of chev powered aircraft. There are quite a few different aircraft powered by them. There is a canard pusher ,I forget the name of them . A lot of titan mustangs. Cessna 172s. The Vickers Vimy replica had 4 of them.

John Williams the owner of titan aircraft died last year in a chev powered mustang. The new propeller exploded while doing a demonstration flight . A car pulled out onto the only road he could land on so he forfeited his own life rather than crash into his neighbour in the car. Nothing to do with the topic but a tribute to a brave pilot.

[facthunter]

They are Most SUITED  where the Operation is Intermittent and air cooled engines crack Heads often under those circumstances. I would not say they Make a great high Performance engine. GM make many higher performance engines than that version. Nev

[BrendAn]

44 minutes ago, facthunter said:

They are Most SUITED  where the Operation is Intermittent and air cooled engines crack Heads often under those circumstances. I would not say they Make a great high Performance engine. GM make many higher performance engines than that version. Nev

what is the version you are talking about.

ls chevs come in lots of variations. hsv commodores had up to 5 or 600 hp.

Edited Monday at 06:53 AM by BrendAn

[BrendAn]

the latest craze in america is the aussie ford barra 6.  they love hotting them up. 1500 reliable hp is achievable  with them.

 

[Ian]

5 hours ago, danny_galaga said:

It's not really an old chestnut if it's true though, is it? I used to think car engines should be a great alternative. Even when I learnt to fly and learnt about the basic differences between the two types I didn't latch on to the engineering side of things. It's only once I started building my own plane and seeing if there were other options out there did I learn more, quite a bit from this very forum. Quite a bit from facthunter, but also others 

The chestnut is "Automotive engines aren't designed to run at full power"
In reality, automotive engines are designed to run at full power for long periods. Look into the testing regimes of automotive engines you'll find that is one of the basic qualifying tests. People who say they're only designed to run at part loads as flat out wrong. 

 

I'm not saying that the complexity of auto engine installations are manageable by most home builders, obviously it isn't. However what I'm saying is that mechanically the engines are more than up to the job when integrated correctly. 

 

The reason that I put in the subaru driving record was to show that when the engines are installed by the manufacturer they are can operation at 100% power for 100,000km without failure. 

 

Many people simply aren't aware of or qualified to understand the compounding effects of the modifications that make to the engines and this is one  area of risk. But simple failures independent of an engine mechanical failure, like a loss of fuel, spark, boost or PSRU make up most of the failures. 

 

The thread below shows 

 

https://vansairforce.net/threads/lycoming-or-alternative-which-is-more-reliable.28452/

 

[Ian]

6 hours ago, facthunter said:

The Chev V8 is used because its all alloy and Mainly for glider towing. It makes a lot of sense to use air-cooling for an aircraft Piston engine, Not so much in Cars these days. A Lot of TANKS used Aircooled RADIAL Motors..  Nev

Liquid cooling provides the control to operate engines at far closer tolerances and allows modern engines to meet emissions targets. Liquid cooling made sense for numerous for numerous WW2 airplanes because it allowed more effective aerodynamics. There was a significant debate at the time over which approach was best as both had their pros and cons.
A better understanding of the merideth effect allowed fighter like the P51 to be extremely efficient using water cooling & the NACA cowling allowed large radials back into the game just prior to WW2.
Water cooled engines were more efficient but air cooled engines were considered more robust.

 

The bottom line is air cooling is simpler but water cooled engines properly installed can produce lower drag installations. But getting this right is difficult.

Edited Monday at 11:25 AM by Ian

[turboplanner]

15 hours ago, skippydiesel said:

I remind  you of ;

• VW/Mercedes diesel/Honda/Suzuki/GM?/etc (then there are the small engines B&S/Kawask etc) 

that have been successfully modified for use in aircraft.

 

Yes most, non commercial, ground based vehicles will be loping along at very low power demand when in cruise.

Bit diffrent when I when tow a fully loaded double horse float (estimated at 2.5-3 tonne + built in headwind) with my Ford Ranger, I can easily cruise at 110 kph, on the flat, up most freeway hills, occasionally being reduced to 90-100 kph. The ute is under load all the time - just like an aircraft.

Same goes for most agricultural engines - they  can be under load for many hours in a day.

"can be under" load and designed to be under load are two different things.

 

The Ranger engine is designed for an intermittent power application which includes cruise stints at rated GCM. Even there there will be bends, dips, hills winds which vary power demand.

 

Stationary Engines are designed for constant load application. They are started, run at a constant governed rpm and often have a constant power demand, such as a bore pump.

 

Aircraft engines are designed for constant load application. The application is usually a shirt climb, a long cruise and a short descent.

 

Manufacturers building for a constant power demand market need to design a more robust engine.

 

Manufacturers building for an intermittent power demand market can take a lot more shortcuts and save a lot of cost without detriment to the buyers in that market.

 

What confuses the issue are intermittent engines which punch way above their class. The small block Chev 350 is one of the legends, and the engines which have succeeded in recreational aircraft.

 

In general, you wouldn't think of putting an intermittent power demand engine in an aircraft but some have been bulletproof enough to make the grade.

 

In this particular crash, maybe the fuel tap is going to be found in the off position, maybe there had been an engine issue.

 

Either way, the splay at the end of the runway wasn't clear for a landing was it. And there are plenty more like that around the country.

 

[facthunter]

You should be talking of clearances,  NOT tolerances   and the clearances when the engine us Running. is what matters. 4 Valve heads are near impossible to cool effectively without liquid cooling as the 2 exhaust valves in each head are very close together. but are NOT needed. Good U/L engines shouldn't need to be complex. Liquid cooled engines run cooler than optimum for efficiency and Play up more in hot Ground temp environments. Ie Overheat on the ground if time is Prolonged. The also have the drag of radiators and vulnerability of Leaks and extra complexity, COST and weight and need to check Hoses, radiator Mounts  water Pump seals etc and you don't want head gaskets  and joins, IF they can be avoided. Nev

Edited Monday at 08:36 PM by facthunter
typo