Oscar

Kai, a few small observations, if I may.

Ian Bent at CAMit is developing a new flywheel attachment mod. which is now in late testing phase. He agrees with pretty much everybody that inadequate clamping pressure is the issue; however his experience also says that the 3/8 bolts (and especially in a crankshaft with dowels / dowel holes drilled), presents a concern that there is inadequate metal in the shaft area around the threads to prevent micro-cracking of the shaft around the bolts, which may be exacerbated by over-tension of the bolts. Your 5/16 bolts and no dowels is probably the optimum compromise, though if others are experiencing bolt breaks at /very close to the head of the bolt, the load of the starter on the flywheel in low temperatures may be part of the problem there. He is developing a different approach entirely to securing the flywheel and no doubt the details of that will emerge when he is satisfied with the testing work.

The fact that through-bolt issues seem to be non-issues in Norway is interesting: do you guys have consistently good-quality fuel available? It can be a real lucky-dip here in Australia. The major problem for through-bolts comes from detonation caused by one / both of fuel quality and operating temps. in use. I'm guessing here, but I would imagine that in Norway, the normal ambient temps are generally a bit kinder than we routinely get here.

Yes, but is the crankcase now made of forged alloy? If it's not we "know" it won't work.

Andy, evidently you are well aware of the background regarding the registration of Sting aircraft in Australia. I expect all the Board would have access to the background information that has not been publicly released.

Your advice is absolutely the best that I could think of to give to a prospective Sting purchaser.

There should be an announcement from RAA fairly shortly that will clarify the situation re CAE engines being used in controlled airspace. RAA has been working with CASA on this; the content of the announcement needs to be made public by those responsible (not any third party) but will, I believe, be welcomed.

However - remember that this will be for CAE engines, not CAMit core rebuilds which remain legally Jabiru engines. Since there is very, very little of the original Jabiru engine left in a CAMit core rebuild, it seems a strange situation but it has to do with meeting the convoluted regulations. The engine doesn't know what the paperwork is, it just knows whether it is happy to go around and around...

Are there many other failures such as his Oscar? I know carbon in other uses onces it fails it tends to be catastrophic but is there any plane that would have good survivability for a nose first impact?

I'm not going to get into a major thing about this; I know what I saw, and that was a pile of pieces of cockpit back to around the rear bulkhead/mainspar area, most of which were fractured/torn into bits that would have fitted into a standard house moving packing carton. For those who feel that I have made unfair comment, I don't wish to enter an argument. I personally will never get into one to fly and I don't resile in stating that, but as with every aircraft, it is a matter of personal choice.

409, I viewed the remains of the Goulburn Sting crash as part of the preparation of material for the subsequent Court case; the evidence collected there is not publicly available since the case was terminated. In the case of possible legal action I can't make any specific comments, however I can say that in my strictly personal opinion, the extent of the damage was so bad that it would be hard to imagine that anything worse could happen from a major explosion in the cockpit. ( http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http://www.recreationalflying.com/images/Smith%20and%20Guthrie%20Finding%20-%20Final.doc&ei=_AvCVJiNJMHTmgX15YCABw&usg=AFQjCNGM2DoUc4oFTxfiyw141_kLZuo3DA&sig2=WpxOUB4F_lkZ21ugmjfS4w&bvm=bv.84349003,d.dGY

Geoff, if you have any idea of what a Sting ends up as after a crash that more robust aircraft would tolerate quite well, you'd be thankful that you've turned your interests elsewhere. The CS2000 Sting, at least, was so appalling in terms of crash-worthiness that it would be hard to find publishable words to express it.

I know of one serious project to produce an STC for J160Cs that progressed a fair way down the track with the engineering work and then stopped, because it became apparent that - for all of the reasons Ian Boag has mentioned plus a realistic appraisal of the costs - the results would have produced uneconomic and too performance-restricted aircraft.

You cannot have a STC for an ASTM certified aircraft - they don't have a TC in the first place.

I'm a Kiwi who Rotaxified his Jab, so I really have no skin in this game, but just out of curiosity - do you think I'm making sense? :-)Data logging - and dropping the results into a graph package - and video recording - are all just so easy these days. If any regulator was getting nervous she could phone up and demand a Skype walkaround. etc etc.

I need help here with the "huge amount of data analysis" notion. Let's look at a hypothetical 2-hour run. Logged every 5 seconds that would be 1500 data samples. Maybe 20 things would be logged ... Drop them into a spreadsheet and plot them as a time series. If there was anything odd, it would take about 5 minutes to identify that - if the data were presented intelligently.If there was nothing dodgy in the graphed data, then job is done for that run. You wouldn't sit down and watch a multichannel video (with sound) of an engine running in a test cell for two hours on the offchance that you might see something that wasn't in the (extensive and trouble free) data record ......

 

I still reckon the quickest way out of all this is for RS to bury the hatchet with IB, merge some of IB's good ideas into the Jab certificate and go with that. Assuming of course that IB's good ideas work out to be right :-) Can't be any worse that some of RS's previous tries.

Ian, I'll be sure to pass your ideas along to the people concerned with the testing. New ideas are always good to consider. I'm not sure how far I'll get; things like data logging, computer-assisted analysis and spreadsheets may be a bit of a jump for these engineers to understand, it's not as if that industry has had any exposure to such radical concepts. They are SO bound up with their abacii and counting bones, really locked back in the C18.

Some of this certification stuff is a bit confusing to me.The certification process requires the on-site presence of CASA engineering staff at a gazillion dollars per hour with most of that being spent doing either nothing much or hardly anything. This is century 21 and video is soooo easy to generate in large quantities and data is sooo easy to log in vast quantities. So one might work on the idea that the process is all videoed (from as many angles as you want) plus all operational data (T's, P's, RPM, phases of the moon etc) is gathered at 5-second intervals. CASA take all of that and look for anything strange in it ... it would not be hard to sift out any bits of data that look a bit strange and go to the video to find out more. Assuming the results are unexceptional, two people should be able to knock that off in a couple of days. Even public servants with smoko/lunch breaks .... To keep people happy there could be the odd random auditing visit on site.

 

If there are fifty sessions of two hours, then someone could check out an uneventful session in about 15 minutes. Hence my two man-days estimate.

 

Over the years there have been a number of changes - hydraulic lifters, flywheel attachment, through bolt stuff, change ignition coils and probably more that I don't know about. Some of these would appear quite significant. One assumes the engine certification did not have to be redone from scratch (?). So there must be a point at which the post-mod engine becomes a "new" one and we (presumably) aren't there yet.

 

So if Jabiru took some/all of the Camit changes (and the Stiff/Bent differences were resolved), how hard would it be to call the result a "Jabiru 2200/3300"?

However, all of the techniques you have mentioned will be used, but there is still a huge amount of data analysis to be done. The cost estimates were prepared by two of the most experienced aero-engineers in Australia (both of whom have experience in engine certification, btw, which is extremely rare in this country). Absolutely nobody will be getting rich from this exercise (except maybe CASA..).

Probably a similar reason why people speed on the road. Are you suggesting that there is anything like 100% reporting? Nev

The continual reference to 'unreported' incidents, is simply justification used by a few people to rubbish the documented data because the documented data does not provide the evidence they seek. A while ago, one of those who continually uses this 'argument', initiated a 'survey' on this site; it failed to provide the answer he sought. It is not unreasonable to connect the dots here.

One has to ask: what is the plausible reason why people would NOT meet the reporting requirements when penalties apply?

Talk to Ian Bent.

However, RAA is not just sitting on its hands here, nor are some other key people. There may well be useful news forthcoming fairly soon. However, what that news may be has to be left to the principals involved in the current activity - this is not an area for any second-hand information to precede the careful release of properly authenticated ( and qualified in any way/s that need clarification) statements.

In six months the instrument expires. If there isn't a problem the matter resolves itself, doesn't it?

Let's assume, for the sake of illustration, that Jabiru amazingly came up with a number of engineering fixes that gave serious promise of addressing the CASA-designated problem target areas tomorrow. Perhaps if Rod Stiff went for an early-morning walk to ponder life, the universe and everything and happened to stumble over - golly gee - such an engine, capable of being immediately fitted into Jabirus without changing things that themselves required other engineering, testing etc., tomorrow. 'Wow', he says to himself, 'here's the answer!'

That engine needs to be certified to ASTM (for the LSA-reg Jabirus) and JAR 22H (for the certificated aircraft). Since there is only one suitable test facility in Australia (as far as I know) that means sequential tests: one of 50 hours actual running for the 2200 certificated engine, and two of at least 200 hours - one for the 2200 to be ASTM certified and one of 200 hours for the 3300 engine to be certified.

Just the JAR runs will take - realistically - about two and a half weeks to complete (and that assumes CASA has observers just waiting for the chance to spend a couple of weeks observing, to be deployed virtually immediately.) About four hours per day of actual running - two two-hour blocks - is as much as one can expect to be accomplished. Then there's all the data documentation and formal paperwork to be created (by the aero engineers) and approved (by CASA.) Some of that data prep. work can be done concurrently with the actual test running, but short of having a 'backroom' team doing that while another team conducts the tests, most of the work will be done sequentially, not concurrently.

To do 200 hours of running to ASTM standards, at two runs (four hours) per day, is 50 days of test running... times two to cover both engines. Plus the data documentation etc, though see above re the possibility of concurrent data prep. - if there are resources available.

So we are looking at nearly six months before just all the testing and approval stuff is completed. All that does, is get a different engine to the same status as the existing Jab engines!. Better reliability is not assured any more than it was by the testing that Jabiru originally undertook - because the tests are the same!. ll that can be said for the new engines is - they haven't proven to be unreliable.... I would think that at a minimum, a test of reliability would be 1000 hours of typical service - and that's about three years of average FTF use!

So - where does that leave CASA when the current instrument expires? CASA can hardly say: 'well, we see signs of good intent / potential progress, we will withdraw the instrument'. There are still a thousand or more Jabirus (and others) out there with Jabiru engines in them and the new engines are not limited by the instrument anyway - if they are not Jabiru engines - but are limited if they are Jabiru engines. Remember, the test there is if the engine is manufactured by a person under licence from, or under a contract with Jabiru. If Jabiru is the 'manufacturer', then it's a Jabiru engine!

Nothing has changed for the existing Jab. engines; so if CASA were to withdraw the instrument, it would be an admission that the instrument was 'wrong'. Would they do that anyway? - hardly likely for an authority that can be sued...

If Jabiru itself comes out with a suite of engineering modifications, tests them according to JAR 22H / ASTM standards - the situation is really the same: there is still no explicit 'guarantee' of reliability. Back to the roundabout of in-service 1000 hours (or whatever) of proving...

The underlying problem here, is that CASA by the language and the timing of its action ( and by that I mean the way in which it was progressed, over and above the extremely dubious date of enactment - about which I'd be surprised if some in CASA aren't dreading a call to visit the new DAS and explain why it was done in the way it was done..) has effectively left itself with no realistic exit strategy. Rather like a parasite that ultimately kills its host, unless there is a very sudden and drastic change by CASA in its way of handling the situation that it has now created, I see few reasons to be optimistic about the outcomes.

Thanks, Oscar, and I do take you seriously, seriously, but this is not a question of metaphysics. The simple fact is there is a problem with Jabiru engines and my question is, what was CASA supposed to do?

In terms of loss of life, the commercial aviation result for 2014 is absolutely an epidemic, for instance, and it so happens that Airbus aircraft have been the ones in all of the high-loss-of-life accidents. Do we see signs on Airbus aircraft informing passengers that they run a higher risk of fatality/injury than for the other 'major' brand of airliner? Do we see limitations on Airbus aircraft flying over populated areas?

However, to return to your central question - what was CASA supposed to do? You are asking me to express a personal opinion; fair enough, I'll give it a go.

In terms of world standard practice, it generally requires evidence that a 'performance standard' has been breached (e.g. a QA requirement for an APMA, a breach of a production certificate, a material or manufacturing standard spec. has not been met etc.) or a 'new' condition is discovered (e.g. unanticipated environmental/operational causes for degradation of a particular metallurgy / process). There are huge 'graveyards' of aircraft that arrived there in fully operational condition, because an end-of-life condition was determined that made them unable /uneconomic to continue to fly. For other aircraft, serious AD's / SBs have to be observed: e.g. the Cessna SIDs programme.

CASA has broken new - and potentially fraught for the whole of recreational (at least) aviation - ground in the Jabiru case. It has not only not provided any metric to determine that an extant standard may have been breached ( which it cannot do because there is no such standard), it has decided that 'not as good as' a competitive product is unsatisfactory service - and it has not even applied that 'de-facto ' new standard across the board!

Seriously: an analogous action for passenger vehicles would be a decision that an ANCAP rating of (to pick a number at random) 4.5 is 'not acceptable' since the top vehicles are getting what - 4.9? - and further, that only one of the vehicles rating at 4.5 or below is going to be placed under restriction because all the others don't sell many so won't potentially kill so many people if they do have a crash. I think that most people contributing to this thread can see why that proposition has so many holes in it that it would sink in hard mud.

In my personal opinion, CASA has created a definition of 'unacceptable failure rate' that is unique to CASA, since it does not apply any international standard of 'unacceptable failure rate' - there is none. By so doing, CASA has set a precedent for the creation of a 'new' standard to apply in Australia. So, let's take that to a logical conclusion.

I see two possible courses for action available to CASA.

The first is, a new set of standards for engine performance that supercede /augment the JAR 22H certification and the ASTM certifying standards, to introduce 'reliability' metric parameters. I suggest that such a move might not just catch out Jabiru engines - or perhaps certain configurations of Jabiru engines - but also quite possibly some models of Rotax and all of the auto-conversions. Ul Power and d-motor engines, just to name two, are not even in the frame for use because they are already NOT conforming to either JAR 22H or ASTM standards. I suspect that this line of action could have very, very serious effects on the entire recreational fleet and might well decimate the numbers of recreational aircraft allowed to fly.

The second option - and the one that I believe makes more sense - would be for CASA to remove the obstacles for the replacement of Jabiru engines in certificated / ASTM certified aircraft with other engines that can meet the CASA-mandated reliability factor metrics. That would blow the underlying rationale for the ASTM standards for LSA aircraft apart- that the manufacturer has the only say in what components are allowed in their aircraft . It would allow, for example, the substitution of (standards-meeting) Rotax, Continental 0200D, CAE (when JAR 22H certificated/ ASTM certified), etc. engines in LSA aircraft. Jabiru would not be disadvantaged - all they have to do is get their engines to meet the 'new' reliability standard and they compete on price/performance basis with everybody else. Owners and operators of Jabiru airframes would be able to choose the mix of cost/performance/reliability to the minimum mandated standard that suits their flying profile.

No it doesn't, but I'd sure sit up and sing the opposite tune if I saw some substantive facts.

It's rather interesting that when these broken records were formally given the opportunity by CASA, who had publicly stated a proposed action, to make their cases, no substantive submissions appear to have been received.

thanks Oscar, you sure know this stuff.These sums of money are obviously beyond what the companies could pay. I would like to think that was deliberate, because this would mean there were some brains behind it all. Alas, I think it is the result of stupidity and having committees stacked with people who have always had fat government salaries.

Ornis, I think CASA should take the action to disband and return their last years salaries to the taxpayers.

World-wide, the premier manufacturer of light sport aircraft engines is Rotax (Bombadier), with Jabiru second and Lycoming a very distant third on numbers in use. Companies like d-motor and UL Power, are frankly minnows in the Pike pool by comparison and are not even in the hunt for certification / certification.

Ornis, we are actually progressing - rather painfully and with a huge amount of static from the drum-beaters who cannot get off their own soap-boxes - to an intelligent appreciation of the overall issues that the CASA action has raised.

When we discuss 'lack of evidence': to quote a famous phrase that has gone into the lexicon: 'what we have here is a failure to communicate'.

CASA has nominated a number of 'failures' that it claims validates its action. It has NOT released the raw data for public scrutiny, so we do NOT know whether CASA's definition of 'failures' corresponds to reality. I believe this needs to be recognised, because it is surely extremely dubious that if CASA believed it was a 'slam-dunk' situation, it would not be being evasive in supplying the data for public scrutiny. The ATSB figures do not provide authentication for the CASA assertions; the only 'authority' that has had access to the CASA data has emphatically repudiated its authenticity as validation for its action. Lest you think I am employing sophistry here, I do have some reason to believe that at lest one of the 'failures' listed by CASA was a locked brake - but without access to the CASA data, neither I nor anybody doubting that contention, actually knows.

When examining data at an epistemological level, to derive reliable 'truth' from the data it requires balancing the 'supportive' from the 'negative' data. In less sophisticated terms: if you have 10 occurrences of condition 'A' and 90 occurrences of condition 'B', it is invalid to state that condition 'A' predominates. The existence of indisputable proof of the existence of condition 'A' is NOT indisputable proof that condition 'A' is the ruling class.

There is no international standard measure for 'acceptable' reliability for aircraft engines. There are metrics for engines by which an individual may choose to judge her/his exposure to risk: TBO, MTBF etc. By its action, CASA has arbitrarily and unilaterally decided that there is a cut-off point for risks deemed attached to 'failures', above which it considers that participants in recreational aviating need additional limitations for their safety.

Even if we are disposed to accept that CASA's 'line in the sand' is reasonable, the question of why those engines that do not demonstrate reliability at or below the level of the 'line in the sand' has to be resolved. For instance: just because a small number of participants may fly behind an auto-engine conversion that does not statistically achieve the 'line in the sand', how does that justify the non-application of the 'new' CASA standard for reliability?

The CASA action, when looked at holistically, ( and by that I mean taking into due consideration the actual figures for the effects of Jabiru engine problems in terms of fatalities/serious injuries to participants / any effects on 'non-participants aka 'innocent victims on the ground'), is extremely lacking in credibility. CASA itself will not open its 'validation' to public scrutiny.

I have no issue whatsoever in supporting the general belief that Jabiru engines need improvement to their reliability. However, that is not the entire spectrum of the issue here, which is: what actual risk factor of fatality/serious injury is attendant on the use of Jabiru engines by comparison with other engines? The argument of 'potential' is bullsh#t here: we have the figures for 25 years of operation of Jabirus with possibly one fatality due to engine failure; there are a considerable number of other types with multiple fatalities and serious injuries that appear to have escaped any CASA attention.

Should pressure be put on Jabiru to seriously improve the reliability rate of their engines?" I believe that answer to that is a resounding 'YES'. Has CASA undertaken action that would achieve that result, while still considering the full implication and effects of their precipitate action? I believe that the answer to that is an equally resounding 'NO'.

I guess a related question is how much it would cost CAMIT to certify their engine and where would this money ( if any ) go to?

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However, for either set of tests, a facility that can undertake the required set of tests to the required standard of validation (i.e. using calibrated equipment, using a 'representative' propellor, and running to the prescribed set of 'blocks' that re designed to produce a representation of actual operational conditions) is required. There is a lot of data analysis necessary, and also things like 'tear down and measurement' of the engine when tests have been completed etc. If you were CAMit and looking to do a full 'suite' of testing for certification / certifying, start contemplating figures in the $350 - $500k mark and you're in the ballpark.

For JAR 22H certification ( as on the 2200 certificated engines, or the Rotax 912 A series, which produces a TCDS), CASA 'observation' of the testing is required under the standard. That alone is of the order of $50k based on rather old figures for CASA, it could be considerably more nowadays. Much of the rest of the costs is in consumables, engineer's services etc. Testing to JAR 22H requires 50 hours of running 2-hour 'blocks' of tests. JAR 22H does not produce figures for TBO's, those are established by the manufacturer based on experience in service.

For certifying an engine to ASTM (the 3300's are certified, not certificated), CASA is not involved though the reliability of the testing has to be carried out to a very similar standard, with records kept and the accuracy required meaning that the infrastructure used for testing is essentially identical. The test blocks are similar but not identical. However ASTM requires a set amount of testing time for the initial establishment of TBO ( I'm not sure what the mechanism is for 'adjustment' based on operational experience following that.) To claim an initial TBO of 1000 hours requires 200 hours of test running.

I've lost interest Oscar, sorry.

Ah, a comedian in the face of the issue of the day.

Your response is, to me, the sine qua non of your obsession against Jabiru.

Just for you Oscar, you could refer to a few hundred non-Jabiru safety posts of mine on this site for a start.And yes, I have stayed out of aircraft or situations where the risk factor was elevated, Cirrus and Lancair being two.