PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Piston engine RPM overspeed
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Old 29th Mar 2010, 21:37
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markkal
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Down south
Age: 69
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I would not be worried too much about overrevving a lycoming 360..

In the 25 years that I've been around aerobatics, starting with cap 10's in aeroclubs that have been used and often abused I've never seen one engine fail. They all made it to TBO.

I would worry more of a private airplane that collects dust in the hangar and is seldom used with great care by its owner.. A lot of private planes flying little over the years start to have problems way before they reach TBO.

An engine to be healthy has to run often. And for an amount of time that enables the oil temperature to get warm enough to allow for evaporation of the condensation it collects. Remeber a piston engine is a steam machine...

It is current practice to overspeed the engine past 2700 RPM, especially when learning aerobatics and practicing solo's. Too many things to concentrate upon...Easy to forget that poor prop starting to cavitate...

Time, training and experience tend to make things better.

One good tip we have and that makes things easy is the following:

Constant monitoring both tach and ASI is time consuming and distracting . Learn to watch the ASI only.

In the Cap 10 I used to fly years ago, the engine started to overrev past 2700 RPM when the ASI indicated 250 Km/h.

So depending on what type of prop you use, those figures may vary, but once you know that speed, keep it in mind and start easing the throttle when reaching it..That way you won't have to watch the tach all the time...


If you are concerned about your engine, there is worse:
Look at the oil pressure drop everytime you pass knife edge in a barrel roll, maintain knife edge for a while and the red low pressure light starts to blink!!

The Christen system works well once you are inverted or upright, that steel ball allows to switch from its inverted tank to the engine carter but does not seal at a 90 degrees angle !!!

And that terrible ever changing sound due to prop regulators in constant speed engines during aerobatics
Every change in pitch during manoeuvers entails a severe engine overspeed well beyond the red line, often above 3000 RPM. It takes a fraction of a second before the regulator overcomes the inertia and brings back the prop to the assigned RPM ( Red line in competitions.. believe me).

The engine not only has to cope with overspeed, and does it well, but much worse with enormous torsion forces which took their toll in the past when a few heavy metal props departed in flight with parts of the crankshaft.. Now with wood and composite props it does not seem to happen anymore.

Aircraft engines are big bore motors turning slowly, with a low HP/Liter ratio. Unless they are supercharged overrevving should not be a major concern, I can bet your engine will make it to the 1500 hours TBO + the extensions. Expecially if you take good care of it, keeping the RPM's low at start, waiting to have temp's in the green, carefully monitoring the oil temp especially in summer during aerobatic flights - temp may reach red line- reduce RPM's and wait one min or two...

Check compressions regularly, break open and inspect oil filters for particles, do an oil analysis even if you don't find anything...Those microscopic steel traces diluted in the oil if they are not found, chances are that they are where they belong, and those bearings and piston rings are still in a good shape...
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