Light Aircraft Association

. Test

Depends what you mean by engine maintenance. I do the normal service maintenance on my Rotax, but get it serviced professionally every three years to triple check things are ok. So far this has worked well (3.5 years in). I would struggle if I had to rebuild it, but I hope I will never have to!

Rod1

Most aircraft engines (that we use) are very simple in engine terms. VWs, Continentals etc are very basic. The new small engines are too, Rotax and Jabiru for example. Anyone with good mechanical 'feel' and some patience can cope - if they are allowed. I used to build race engines and amongst others a V12 quad cam Lamborghini engine, frankly once you've done one of those, everything else is simple!

It's when you get into fuel injection and management systems that specialist equipment and knowledge get in the way of cheap maintenance.

My only caveat would be the 'feel' which can only come from experience - it's not for everybody.

Rob, Playing devils advocate here.

Lets's suppose you have set up a company rebuilding permit engines. I approach you with a Gipsy major that needs exactly the work that your engine needed and you sorted for £3000. How much are you going to charge me? What paperwork are you going to supply me with ? What garantee are you offering? How much are you overheads? What is your hourly charge? If I fit the engine to my permit aircraft and it fails on take off putting me in hospital. My no win/no fee "leech" decides it is your engine and your work at fault, how are you going to fight my legal costs and claim?

Oh one final point. I accept your quote, you rebuild the engine for me. How do you know I am going to pay! . Just a point discussed recently with my inspector and ex propellor maker. Always money up front.

I wish you luck if you set this up. I would like to do exactly this but just not sure if it is worth it.

Stuart Penfold

In my not-so-humble opinion what we need is a more helpful approach to aircraft engine rebuilds from LAA engineering and more engine inspectors!

By aircraft engine in this case I mean Lycomings, Continentals etc.

As I understand it we have this daft situation that if I want to convert a VW, Corvair, Subaru etc engine from car to aircraft use then I just get on with it, almost making it up as I go and that is basically fine and dandy, just getting it inspected at certain build points.

If I wanted to strip down my Lycoming O-320, following a Lycoming manual, replacing all worn and end of life parts with new certified ones, reassemble it with care and following the manual to exactly the manufacturers spec for a zero-timed engine then this seems to be deemed 'unacceptable'.
The LAA would rather I send it to an engine shop with a cheque for eight to twelve grand to get back an engine that is probably still only 'on-condition'!

A 1980's 2 stroke single motorcycle engine is more complex than an O-320 and I rebuilt one of those very successfully when I was 19 in my bedroom!

Personally, I have strong suspicions that many more aircraft engines are stripped and rebuilt than are ever reported to LAA Engineering, although I hasten to add that I have no evidence of this.

OK, rant over!

When it comes down to it, a VW is much more reliable than a Rolls Royce, Lycoming or whatever. 20 odd million of them says so.

Yup=those underneath VW Campers alongside the A303 confirms there are lots out there

Bill McCarthy wrote:When it comes down to it, a VW is much more reliable than a Rolls Royce, Lycoming or whatever. 20 odd million of them says so.

I totally disagree with you Bill. I worked at a flying school which had 20 Cessna 150's doing about 700 hours a year each and i can only remember one failure which ended up in a forced landing. Even that was a precautionary landing due to dropping oil pressure on a test flight. Anything else I recall was attributed to carb icing. I'm sure you know the school and if you're wiser i'd love to hear from you.

I have often thought of setting up an overhaul shop doing Continentals but couldn't figure out how best to gauge the market for it. I'm still open to it though if anyone would like to get in touch.

We performed a top end overhaul on our Emeraude. It now runs better that I have seen in the past 18 months.

I have pdf manual for the C range contental engines if anyone wants a copy!

Cheers,

Colin