Two more Jabirus down
 

It appears that the Jabiru curse has struck again, Two more Jabirus down in Queensland within 4 days. It's lucky they make a good crashworthy frame! - they need it, with the regularity of those engine failures!
What was it Jack Ranga said in another thread? - "If you want a Jabiru, just buy a paddock, there's a Jabiru engine in most paddocks!" :)

Plane makes emergency landing in Victoria Point paddock

Pilot uninjured in emergency landing at Parkinson

Not convinced that second one made it to the paddock the article says they landed on.

Pigs were never meant to fly

717tech - I'd hazard a WAG that the second Jabiru landed in a paddock with trees at the far end of it! If he'd landed fully in that solidly-wooded country behind the aircraft, that Jabiru wouldn't look any near as pretty as it does now! - and we'd probably be reading about another light aircraft fatality!

The little Jab in the article has a load of oil all over the nose leg assembly. Pilot was probably wondering what happened to his oil temperature and pressure...

Shame about 7984, that does at lot of flying around AF.
ABC news reported that it collected a barb-wired fence around its undercarriage on the way in - good thing it stayed right way up.
Hopefully it will be in the air again soon.

They did quiet well for many a year. That 'dump and burn' thing were great to see..:cool:






.

Probably why the ATSB are now conducting investigations like this

Research investigation into the reliability of light sport aeroplane engines

Most people probably would never air their true thoughts on a public
Forum about such incidents as this, I feel for fear of litigation.

Part of the problem for the ATSB is a lot of failures go unreported, plus
They don't tend To focus as much on recreational aircraft.

I can tell him! The first went up and the second went down!

PS: What's a Jabiru??

....A large wading bird of the stork family????....:}

Not necessarily Bloggs. I can tell you from experience that in a BAE146 (I am sure you remember those) when you lose oil qty, the psi drops, and the temp drops. After arriving on 3 engines one day and quizzing an engineer, he said as the qty drops below a certain level, the oil level drops below where the temp sensor will read it - causing the oil gauge temp to drop. :)
(By the way this one was not the famous "catastrophic" engine failure, this one was shut down before it got to that)

rumour has it one of them ran out of motion lotion

There is an AD on Jabbies to replace the landing gear bolts every 500 hours. Perhaps this person forgot? It is an AD that you wuld ignore at your peril!

Or as an afternote perhaps this person was a contributing factor in the AD :confused:

Jabiru Are Bloody Inherently Really Ugly.....the true meaning:E:E

Wmk2

The Jab undercarriage bolts had a size upgrade some years back (eg An4 to An5 or similar. Replacing them at 500 hours isn't so bad, $30 worth of bolts and nuts and maybe an hours work so not a big deal.

Locking up a main wheel under braking (causing skipping) is a major contributor to losing the undercarriage. It's the reason why the Vans RV 12 kits were recently modified as owners locking up the brakes were causing skipping and subsequent bending around where the undercarriage attaches.

So Aairbatic, I don't believe you would need to be concerned about the Jabiru undercarriage in general. There's a video on the front page of their website that shows the undercarriage during certification drop tests, very impressive!

PS: I may happen to own one :-)

Thanks Wally, I assume you don't want a ride then?
Oh that's right, not enough engines :-) !!

You bought a Jab?...............You Goose :}

Mine doesn't have a Jab engine :-) Great airframe though, carries far more than it's empty weight in payload and at only 30hp per person. Try that in a 172 :-)

There's at least one very unhappy Jabiru "crash-test-dummy" out there, who has instigated a sizeable website, asking a lot of questions about Jabirus that he wants answers to. I can't see him getting them.
Because the website owner hasn't indicated any recent updates to his website (and it appears a lot of his info is 4 to 12 yrs old), a lot of the info there may not be particularly relevant at this present time.

JabiruCrash.com - the story of my flight (and plane crash) in a Jabiru aircraft with Ron Bertram (deceased) - jabiru engine failure, Jabiru piston failure, ultralight

Another item I found that is probably of great relevance and interest to Jabiru engine owners, is this following blokes claim that all factory Jabirus have their pistons installed backwards.

Jabiru have installed their pistons backwards

As it appears the Jabiru merely uses standard Holden pistons, I'd be concerned about the fact they're being used - rather than aviation-specific pistons - or tailored pistons.

I can recall a story from a bloke who worked on the Holden engine factory assembly line, from many years ago, telling me how Holdens had three markings for pistons as they lobbed in the basket for checking prior to installation. These markings were dobs of green, yellow and red paint.

The pistons that met all specifications precisely (including weight, a critical factor) were dobbed with green paint. These pistons went into export engines only.

The pistons that met specifications with a shove, went into "domestic production" engines. These pistons could have flaws in machining or casting, that were not deemed to affect engine life seriously.

Then came the final group of pistons, those marked with red. These pistons hovered between "just usable" and bordered on the, "to be scrapped" range - due to being so far outside specifications, it was dubious as to whether they would produce a full engine life.
I was advised these pistons were duly installed in the engines of fleet purchase or rental vehicles, and Govt vehicles. :(

I've read that Jabiru Crash in detail and there are a lot of allegations and a lot of mud being thrown in the hope that some of it will stick. Not just at Jabiru but even at the guy maintainting it and questioning of his credentials (now deceased after Bankstown crash).

Long story short, the aircraft suffered an engine failure into a wooded area.

The first page of the Jabiru flight manual mentions to fly the aircraft at all times as if the engine could fail at any time. It's good advice :ok:

As for the pistons, Jabiru's answer is that they are the other way around because the rotation of the Jabiru engine is opposite to that of the Holden Commodore. They are not actually Holden pistons, they are "like" Holden pistons and they are modified from the supplier to suit the Jabiru engine.

Likewise, the Rotax 912 has 100% interchangeable rockers with the Ford Falcon :ok:

Onetrack,
I'm surprised that someone of your age believes this nonsense-Is this the same guy that worked for Mobil and helped suppress the engine that ran on water and later worked in a Condom factory where they put a pin hole in every 100th condom?
Before further efforts a made to ruin the reputation of a small Australian company perhaps you should acquire some knowledge on the subject.
This is shamelessly lifted from an article on modifying Holden engines:-
Cheers RA