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.

It's worse when you come across undated "news" articles - and that's not confined to "backyard" journos. There's some pretty sloppy journalism around today.

Ahh, isn't this ancient news? Like 9 mths old?

You have to remember that an EGT gauge is the only way to ensure you don't melt valves with extreme combustion temperatures - as well as being very useful in combination with a mixture adjustment, to set the most economical fuel burn. CHT gauges and water temperature gauges react slowly to combustion changes, whereas an EGT gives you instant combustion temperature readings.

......, that's typical of pilots - they're like signwriters, you never know if they're actually going to turn up for work, or simply bugger off, and never show up again. Cappy has brought up an interesting mining reference, in which OT has a great interest - sand mining. Few people know that W.A. exports lots of sand, and OT is right up there, keeping up the sand supply to the rest of the sand-deprived and economic backwaters of the world - you know, places such as Wagga and Kapooka. Such is the amazement when the local inhabitants of these areas actually see magnificent W.A. sand (after having to look at nothing but green trees, green grass, grey rocks, glassy rivers, and other useless products) - that displays of piles of OT's sand are placed in strategic locations, so the locals can go play in the fine W.A. sand. "It's just like going to the beach!" cried one of the local sand-deprived inhabitants of Kapooka (who very closely resembled Cappy), as he rolled in the sand, and threw it around. It wasn't long before Turbo saw the money OT was making from sandpiles, and he started up Turbine Desert Sands, to try and get the jump on OT. But Turbo's plans came unstuck when he imported cheap sand from the Sahara (a deal that apparently involved the swapping of Australian camels, an oil and gas swap, and a few new Landcruisers thrown in as a sweetener) - and the Sahara sand just blew everywhere, and got into the local inhabitants eyes, noses, ears, homes, and................

You got it in one, lead fouling. That's pretty severe fouling. Lacquer thinners is a good spark plug cleaner, but I find sandblasting with fine garnet works best. Make sure there's no garnet trapped down the side of the insulator when you've finished. Wire brushes don't clean off deposit coatings properly, and they can leave metal streaks on the insulator, leading to tracking. This bloke has a good video showing spark plug cleaning.

Yes, the simple problem with Sodium-ion batteries right at the present moment, is that they're well behind Lithium-ion as regards energy density - around a maximum of 170 Wh/kg, as compared to 200-300 Wh/kg for mature Lithium-ion designs. But Sodium-ion batteries have one huge advantage over Lithium - low cost. Lithium prices are high, and it's a costly product to mine and process. Sodium is much more abundant in the Earth, and cheaper to source. In addition, Sodium-ion batteries can be transported at zero voltage, making them much safer than Lithium batteries. They have a much better thermal and safety profile, with a far less chance of battery runaway thermal events. Sodium-ion can handle high temperatures as well as very low temperatures much better than Lithium. The very cold countries are constantly griping about poor Lithium-ion performance in very cold weather. At present, the Sodium-ion battery is only complementary in the battery lineup - they're good for stationary applications, and because they're much cheaper, they're suitable for low-cost small EV's and items such as scooters and bikes. There will need to be design improvements in Sodium-ion batteries before they can become a better choice than Lithium-ion. However, I believe it won't be long before those Sodium-ion design improvements become available. Both the Chinese and American battery producers are dead-set on getting away from Lithium if they can - but for two different reasons. The Americans are constantly concentrating on abundant elements for batteries, on the basis that no-one can then hold them to ransom, because of rare element availability limitations. But the Chinese are looking for the holy grail of an excellent battery chemistry that is cheap, as well as having good performance. The Chinese know, that low pricing rules, if you want to dominate the market, and make the product easily available to everyone. https://bolt.earth/blog/sodium-ion-vs-lithium-ion-batteries-which-is-better-for-electric-vehicles?srsltid=AfmBOoryIr0RAs6KEDCiHhMQmOP_2Yg7BML2_5-mQYhvxGn6TD4jo-HQ https://carnewschina.com/2026/01/30/catl-byd-fast-track-sodium-ion-battery-shift-as-lithium-prices-soar/

.......losers are just quitters, no-one quits in the Turbine group or in any Turbine operations! - they keep going until they win, or they're dead!" Despite this morale-boosting pep-talk, Turbine always seemed to have problems getting drivers, pilots, and employees in general. Being strapped into Turbine test aircraft with bolted-in-place body restraints, seemed to discourage a lot of people from taking on the Turbine test pilot positions. However, Turbo was always there, beside the test pilot, with more pep talks. "You make this thing fly, or you don't come back", was one of his favourite sayings. Accordingly, there were a lot of Turbine aviation designs that didn't come back. Whether this was due to............

I have never seen just the ends available, they only come complete with wiring. They're more correctly called thermocouples, although they're often described as probes. Use "thermocouple" or "EGT probe" for search terms. https://www.aircraftspruce.com.au/search/search.php

Which one of the old blokes is Skippy? 😄

The old adage is still just as applicable today as it ever was - you get exactly what you pay for. You buy cheap Chinese product, you're going to be lobbed with lots of shortcuts in the construction. My feeling is that sodium ion batteries are soon going to replace lithium ion batteries in many applications - including EV's. https://cleantechnica-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/cleantechnica.com/2026/01/29/researchers-improve-sodium-ion-batteries-almost-4x-with-thin-layer-of-activated-carbon

I'd have to agree that the real pleasure in a Spitfire must be in actually flying it - not as a passenger. But my choice would be a Beechcraft Model D17 Staggerwing - pure luxury and total comfort, a classic Art Deco design, and a lovely-sounding and exceptionally reliable R-985 Wasp Junior up front. I just want someone else picking up the fuel tab and maintenance costs.

Do you really think they got to cruise speed and kept it up, on only 21HP? Seems like a major and constant tailwind would have been a factor in the delivery flight.

Thruster, do you have any confirmation of this fuel consumption figure? Seems like it's a figure that defeats physics. The quoted fuel consumption figure has been 2.2 US gallons/hr, the quoted aircraft speed is reported as 100mph - that means, approximately 9 hrs flying, on just 12 gallons? That's just 1.33 US gallons/hr. I was having trouble believing the quoted fuel consumption of 2.2 U.S. gallons/hr, but then I realised their V-twin engine is only 1288cc and 42HP. However, 1.33 U.S. gallons/hr seems to be stretching the bounds of credibility.

Well, Skippy - at least you did admit you were guessing. 2.2 U.S. gallons/hr is 8.327L/hr. A bit of a difference to your "guess". Yes, 782 Nm is 900 statute miles, so you got that right. I would have to opine that 8 hrs in the cockpit of any small aircraft would be very tiring. However, no-one has specifically stated that any pilot has spent 8 hrs non-stop at the controls of a Spirit SE-1. And the reason is - the SE–1 has a no-reserve range of 4 hours and 400 miles (640 km). So, there were obviously two stops on the delivery flight. Let's just examine the reasons for the effusive response to the appearance of the SE-1. 1. This is a company that is actually delivering a completely new-design recreational aircraft - not video promises with slick imaging, and no production for a decade - if at all. 2. It's tiny. I saw someone ask, "When do they bring out the adult-sized version?". Maybe that was you. It's tiny by design, and to fulfil the companys aim of filling a gap in the market for a cheap, fun little aeroplane. 3. It may be open cockpit - but that's all part of the fun of cheap recreational flying, isn't it? It's a snug cockpit, so you're not going to be blasted in your face mercilessly, for 8 hrs, with a 120kt wind blast. I've flown in a R22 with no doors, and that WAS uncomfortable - especially when no-one advises you that the trip is going to be doorless. 4. The cockpit IS snug. But it's 25 inches (635mm) wide. That's 5 inches (127mm) wider than either the pilot or the passenger gets in a C172. It's a full 8 inches (203mm) wider than the average budget airline economy seat. 5. The polished finish is not only to promote a "vintage" look - it saves weight, thanks to no paint, it keeps costs down, and it's slippery. 6. It's an aircraft designed to appeal to pilots who just want to go for a casual fly at lower speeds, lower cost, and with a "fun factor". It doesn't equate to a noisy, rough-riding Harley-Davidson. 7. The interest and demand for this little beast is quite substantial, and it fills the gap in recreational flying that the Morris Mini-Minor did in motoring. A product that is cheap, tiny, and ideal for a lot of people, who have no need to go hundreds of miles in one flight at high speed, and to endure high running costs, accordingly. Meet the Spirit SE-1, the retro light sport aircraft turning heads AEROSPACEGLOBALNEWS.COM Introducing the SE-1: Spirit Engineering’s new “shiny” single-seat light sports aircraft from Colorado

Spirit Engineering has sold 18 of these little beasts already, and are struggling to fill the orders flooding in. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=26384305904505092

Skippy, you're not going to have very much elevator authority at low speed. The machine quite likely tipped on its nose at very low speed, just the last few metres, along with the hard braking.

Blueadventures - The aircraft in this crash was VH-registered and the ATSB have commenced an investigation. According to Angus Mitchell, there is good video available of the aircraft takeoff, and it is obvious the engine was not producing full power on takeoff and in the early stages of flight.

There is a constant and recurring furphy and urban legend, that Subaru built an aircraft engine, and couldn't sell enough of them, so Subaru put it into their cars. It is a line of total BS and bar talk, that hasn't a skerrick of truth in it. The urban legend is always "backed up" by producing photos of Fuji FA-200 Aero Subaru aircraft, which were manufactured by Fuji Heavy Industries, owner of the Subaru brand and manufacturer of the Subaru cars. The true story is - the Fuji Sangyo company was formed in 1946, amidst the wreckage of Japanese industry, by managers and engineers from the Nakajima Aircraft company, which had built radial aircraft engines for the Mitsubishi Zero. In the takeover of control of Japans direction by the U.S. after WW2, the Japanese were banned from producing any aircraft or aviation equipment. So the managers and engineers from Nakajima Aircraft Co formed Fuji Sangyo, and started producing the Fuji Rabbit scooter. In 1950, the Japanese Govt, under "anti-zaibatsu" legislation, broke Fuji Sangyo up into 12 smaller companies. The "anti-zaibatsu" legislation was anti-monopoly legislation, designed to stop major vertical integration of industries, to prevent major industrial power blocs. In 1953, the managers and engineers from Fuji Sangyo amalgamated 5 of the smaller subsidiaries of the company into Fuji Heavy Industries, registered Subaru as a brand name, and FHI started down the path of manufacturing Subaru cars. The major lineup of early Subaru car production was small cars, that used in-line engines. The managers and engineers selected the flat four Boxer engine design for the Subaru cars (starting in the early 1960's), simply because they liked the engine layout. The flat four has lower vibration levels than upright inline engines. In 1968, FHI decided to manufacture the Fuji FA-200 Aero Subaru light aircraft, in the hope of cracking into another potential source of income. Around 275 Fuji FA-200's were built, before Piper and Cessna went on a major sales and production drive, to ensure that the Fuji FA-200 would fail to get a start in the light aircraft market. It is a regularly ignored fact, by the urban legend spreaders, that the Fuji FA-200 used a LYCOMING engine as its power plant - not a Subaru engine. There was no "Subaru aircraft engine" to put into the Fuji FA-200. The Subaru flat four Boxer engine is a car engine, and has always been designed as a car engine. Anyone who claims that it has "aviation heritage" or was designed as an aviation engine, is simply spreading a major lie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru

Subaru's are full of Nissan parts, built under sub-contract to Subaru. Nissan employees are unhappy employees, because Nissan has carried out multiple forced mergers with multiple suppliers and subcontractors, and those employees never ever wanted to work for Nissan. And Subaru reliability is nowhere near as good as it should be. Their diesel engines broke crankshafts by the dozen in the late 2000's, before they carried out a crankshaft redesign that seemed to fix the early problems. Subaru EJ25 problems involved regular head gasket failures, ring problems, piston failures, seal failures, bearing failures and timing belt failures. In comparison, numerous Honda and Toyota engines are virtually bulletproof, but they rarely lend themselves to modification to fit into aircraft - apart from the Viking/Honda aircraft engine conversions. And of course, many Subaru aircraft engine conversions are also carried out with used car engines. Not an engine I'd like to fly behind.

Gee, the co-pilot praying doesn't give you a lot of confidence!! 🫣 A least it's very favourable weather, and they've got a nice long runway. But the lining up is certainly tricky.

Possibly the first $1M kit for homebuilt aircraft, on offer?

.....mud got into everything - including Cappys Drifter. In fact, the mud was so permeating. Cappy complained that the controls of the Drifter "felt like stirring a stick in a bucket of mud". When Turbo politely informed Cappy, that he really was operating the joystick with 300mm of mud on the floor, Cappy said, "But...........

And the poppet valve problem solved, too! I understand the reliability of the Junkers-Jumo 205 was quite good, once initial design problems were sorted. Any problems with the 205 were more likely related to the Germans inability to acquire numerous strategic metals that were critical for high performance engines. Add in the possibility that some Jumo 205's suffered from internal sabotage, and it would have been interesting to see where the 205 could have ended up with full access to all critical metals, design improvements, and overall materials improvements. The Rootes TS3 copied the Jumo 205 design with substantial success, but noise levels and emissions were always a problem.

No. 6 looks like a Prince Charles landing effort! (remember he came close to writing off a Queens Flight BAE146?)