Originally Posted by
jimjim1
Figure 3: Maintenance program of the Ju 52
The engines had a maximum allowable according to the maintenance program
Operating time to overhaul (Time Between Overhaul - TBO) of 1500
Hours with a tolerance of 10%. In the operating manual of the aircraft engine
The manufacturer's BMW 132 from 1939 states the following: «One
Overhaul should rarely be required before 200 to 300 hours of operation ».
I am possibly over obsessing about the engines but
- why did they run those very old engines when much better options are available (while keeping with original / vintage JU 52 specs) ? Is there something unique about those ?
- they had respectively 946:50 h, 1153:11 h and 457:49 h since TCO - seems a lot (even if formally within tolerance).
- This is not looking too good
- overall it would seem that these airplanes were not maintained to top standards, so there would be a suspicion that the engines were probably not able to deliver rated power
This might or might not ultimately be related to the accident but I think we can reasonably assume that they did not have a significant performance margin on that day... if at all.