Commercial Pilots who don't know about piston engines
 

If you are one, please, at the minimum read John Deakins old Pelican Perch articles on AvWeb, or any of Jabawocky's posts concerning engine management right here on the prunes.

If you are thinking of sticking around in GA and potentially abusing many engines over many hours I strongly recommend the Advanced Pilot course. You will be on the right side of history.

If this does not pique your interest, make you question your shiny-shoed instructors advice and make you want to dig deeper on the subject...

If you rely on old wives tales to set your mixture, think that fuel cools an engine from evaporation, pull a Continental engine back to 25" after take off.... in short, if you cannot think for yourself and are not at all curious GO AND FLY TURBINES.

They are marvellous things that by now have engineered out the requirement for any sort of deep knowledge and understanding of what's going on under the cowl.

Piston engines are also marvellous creations, even more marvellous in the eyes of some because, in the higher powered examples, you have to THINK. You can break stuff (eventually) if you don't THINK. There are expensive consequences for not knowing stuff. Some derive some sort of satisfaction at a job well done in this regard. Others think that a CHT of 460°C is fine because the absolute limit is 500°C :sad:

Never thought I'd rant on pprune but there it is. Just had our pristine, factory new, pampered, GAMI'd, EDM'd 540 defiled by yet another victim of our collective ignorance.

Also never thought I'd use emoticons

Peace

"Pelican's Perch" Index - AVweb Features Article

Advanced Pilot

Yes, I am a follower of the Holy Trinity: George, John & Walter. They are shining light where there was darkness....

That's all good and well, but at the end of the day, when you're being paid to fly someone else's machines, you fly them how they want you to fly them (caveat that with 'as long as it's safe). You can't just go and fly them how you want to because you read something on the Internet.

You can also degrade a turbine engine by running it just below the absolute limit or by crap handling practices too.

What's your point?


So who broke your fancy new engine? Did you hire it out to an idiot or did one of the pilots in your employ not get taught by you "correctly"? Were they following the AFM or the magical teachings on the internet?

It's probably not fair to put all the blame on the pilot...

Did the operator provide adequate training? Did the owner (you) do research before leasing out the aircraft to the operator? Does the operator have a history of ****ing engines? How does he instruct his line pilots to lean the engines? Have you asked them this? :rolleyes:

I remember my GA days. The owner of the company insisted we run the EGT right before it would cut out to save $$$$ on fuel. Not his engines so he didn't care. Not that all the pilots did that....

How was your engine defiled in this case?

It was flown by an employee of the manufacturer. My bad for assuming they would know what they're doing. Clearly, they wrote the AFM. In this specific case he got a number wrong from what he was actually told, and was leaning (300hp) engine to as low as 76lph at full power.

No damage done, but looking at the EDM data you can see the confusion as mixture goes down, then back up as CHTs shoot through 400°F, then down again... and so on.

Yes, the online APS course is magical.

You don't know it's 'safe' unless you know how a piston engine actually functions and what the various controls actually do to its innards.

The blissfully ignorant are generally only 'safe' because most GA piston engines are engineered to take a lot of abuse. Those who run GA piston engines on the basis of data and knowledge are 'safer', because they aren't exposing the engine to unnecessary abuse.

But Lumps: You were a little naive in believing that an employee from a manufacturer would know what he was doing, given some of the demonstrable rubbish published by manufacturers.

No doubt you have caught my attention.

LUMPS, are you the young fella who contacted me recently about LAME's and company folk not interested in fixing fuel flow on take off for a TC engine and with what by simple diagnosis of the EMS we think had advanced timing?

Or are you the guy who is an ex student from the Perth class? This sounds too much like their story but it is not hard to believe it is another example.

My personal opinion about owners and telling you how to do things, if you are suitably educated in the science of combustion, you should be able to convince the owner/operator that the practises need to change. And if they are really dangerous leave.

I think it is like a CP telling pilots to dive through holes on an RNAV…..(think Lockhart River type crash, not that the CP said it), just because they said to do it I doubt you would. Engine operation is similar.

Lead Ballon :ok:

Lumps……maybe you should suggest they book in for the Feb class in two weeks, only 3 spots left.

Sadly, yes.

If read carefully tried to avoid blaming the pilot It'd be unfair as it's more of a aviation community thing.

Yes, you can bugger up turbines too with dunderheaded tactics, I just don't think they are as vulnerable to ignorance. Push the levers until the correct numbers are obtained. With pistons quite often know one knows what the correct numbers are, not helped by wrong figures in the AFM.

For example take the P&W R985 with a CHT limit of 550°F. If it was an ITT max continuous limitation in a turbine, you could assume running it at say 5-10% below the max continuous ITT would be prudent practise, typically nothing required more than routine maintenance. Run the R985 at 500°F all day and, well, you probably won't be flying all day after a while.

I think his point is that with a turbine engine its all black and white in the sense that there is a power lever and needle. All the monkey needs to be taught is don't put the needle beyond that place. There is less room for dummies like in the OPs case to have heard something, run with it treating it as gospel and subsequently giving the engine undesirable treatment. I'm not saying it can't happen, but the scope for it to happen is MUCH less.

The irony of this is that, at least at typical cruise settings, the engine would have been happier there than where you would have probably leaned it to.

https://i.imgflip.com/y9rmz.jpg

Now Lumps, Jaba et al, I'm not having a go at either of you and the engine operating methodologies you support. HOWEVER as mentioned in this thread, students should never just take stuff that is spoonfed to them by their instructors as gospel and do proper research, the same really can be said for LOP operation.

I'm sure you guys will agree that proper LOP needs proper engine monitoring, and properly balanced fuel injectors, not just a single EGT probe you'll find in the vast majority of GA pistons.

Now if some young (or not so young) impressionable person would read your research and then start operating a stock standard engine with 1970's era instrumentation against the owners and/or POH LOP, what are the possible consequences of doing this? Would you consider it safe if someone were to try this?

Having operated radials and a decent percentage of piston types that make up the GA fleet the most "modern" engine feature I've seen in 98% of these were fuel totalisers / digital fuel flow gauges.

Now again, I am by no means discounting the science, should I ever be silly enough to buy my own piston single/twin I will most certainly also invest in hardware that will allow me to safely operate LOP. :ok:

In the meantime I shall go back to monkey mode and push the levers on my PT6's and make sure I don't make the needles go over the line. :E

Safe ROP operations needs proper instrumentation and engine set up, too.

That's the joke. Those who don't want to operate their engines at settings that dare not speak its name are usually blissfully ignorant of where the engine is set! :}

Touche :ok:

Nobody has mentioned anything about LOP operations. Of course you need the proper equipment and knowledge to be able to do it safely and correctly. The grievance of this thread is to do with people routinely doing what you should definitely NOT do period. The follow-on from that topic is the disappointment that many of us share. The disappointment that many of our fellow aviators just do not seem to care or be in the slightest bit interested in the intricacies of the trade. Back in the day when I started reading Pelican Perch it got me hook line and sinker.

You don't need to be operating LOP or have all-points monitors to gain value from understanding your engine properly. I largely operate low powered carb engines, but have gained a great deal from the writing of Deakin etc.

When teaching a student about leaning I can tell them how it actually works rather than the usual "leaning too much destroys engines!" that I got when I was learning. Likewise why the engine runs rough when you lean aggressively, that it's the leanest cylinder falling off the HP curve, not the engine detonating (as many instructors I know believe).

With that said every time I fly my little O-235 I'm running LOP. If I lean till rough then enrich till smooth the leanest cylinder(s) are likely LOP, possible with some others at peak or ROP. Which is why I laugh when people say "You can't LOP without the equipment!". True I can't climb LOP etc, but how to do I know where each cylinder is on my horrible EGT spread? And unless I'm at high power settings it doesn't matter. Considering the POH tell me to operate it at the worst EGT it could it's not like things could get any worse is it?

According to wishiwasupthere, that's just stuff you read on the Internet, FoolC! :}

All discussions about piston engine operations are implicitly about ROP and LOP, because:

- if an engine's running, each piston is somewhere on that lean curve, and

- the only way - repeat, the ONLY WAY - to be sure that you are NOT doing something that you should "definitely NOT do" is to know where each cylinder is on that curve.

From experience in maintaining several commercial operators fleets most aircraft still have the old egt/cht combo. Cessna old engine clusters are especially bad for for discerning any useful information. At best you can say 'your in the green' . The scale seems non linear and wishful at best. Full engine trend monitoring is rare as operators don't want to spend the coin.

Hasher, have the non precision instruments,that we know and love,been detrimental to engine longevity?
Hasn't seemed to have mattered in my limited experience.

From memory the point of those articles were that owners should spend money on a proper all cylinders temperature measurement.

And the irony here is that if they did that flying a piston with that gear in it is really the same as flying turbines! Not hard to blow up or overtemp a turbine engine.

As a novice pilot, I am concerned this post starts buy suggesting engine management advice should be taken from an anonymous contributor called Jabawocky, some dentist, and a lawyer. The industry is in serious trouble.

Actually, he isn't anonymous, he has freely shared his real name and contact details in these forums on several occasions and has met in person many people on here, me included!

A basic search of the website will show you this...

As a novice pilot you would do really well to meet Mr. Jabbawocky ....

Probably true, but its not his point.

just because someone is a dentist, lawyer etc, doesn not mean they do not know what they are talking about when it comes to engines, and engine management. yes, i have done the courses, and the Data doesnt lie.

All of the people who run the APS classes are publicly identified. You can shake their hands and ask them questions. And you can sue them.

Funny thing is that with all the dangerous folklore and wildly inaccurate misinformation they have been spreading over decades, they have yet to be sued for negligent misstatement. Not once. Extraordinarily lucky, considering how litigious the USA and Australia are supposed to be.

An alternative explanation is that their courses are based on science and data - science and data that saw vast improvements in piston engine efficiency and reliability over millions of hours of piston engine operations before the jet age. Very difficult to prove something said by APS is inaccurate, when the science and data prove otherwise.

You want to run an aero piston engine on the basis of a single EGT gauge and single CHT gauge? Go for it. The joke is that if you think the CHT gauge being 'in the green' and the EGT gauge being at some temperature relative to peak means that you're operating the engine as efficiently and as a safely as practicable, it's just blissful ignorance. The fact that the engine might survive the abuse or inefficient operation proves nothing, other than that many engines are manufactured with wide tolerances for abuse and inefficient operation.

A comparison between the condition and costs of running engines the blissful ignorance way, on the one hand, and the condition and costs of running engines on the basis of the science and data used by APS, on the other, is quite instructive. But only for those who are willing and able to learn.

(PS: I have no direct or indirect pecuniary interest in the APS courses. I have a direct interest in aviation safety.)

I don't think anyone is arguing the science. What I think people are arguing is that the notion of commercial pilots being ignorant for flying something with only an EGT...

I'd be very interested to see how many commercial companies are going down this route. I know of only one myself, but happy to be corrected.

it's all fine and good to spend money on your privately owned aircraft, but calculate the price it'd take to upgrade a dozen 200 series cessnas, Barons, Chieftains etc when most operators are already working to very tight margins given the increased costs of regulatory compliance, SIDS, ADSB, ageing aircraft etc.

In a perfect world operators would be buying new aircraft every 5 years. If this were the case the piston engine would probably be close to extinct because everyone would go for the safer and more economical option of operating turbines, but unfortunately this is far from a perfect world.

No. Generally there is an outside problem that causes low compressions , burnt valves etc. Could be a newbie pilot , induction leak etc . Most engines go happily go through to overhaul.

That is So FUNNY ….. I love it! http://www.beechtalk.com/forums/imag...ies/rofl02.gif

The Lawyer……..:D:D:D :ok: Smartest guy I know and I know rocket scientists and Nasa Astronauts (No kidding either). And he just happens to be an Aeronautical engineer (check the engineering drawings on much of the Aerostar) and an FAA DER. and I could go on…..

Thanks for the compliments guys, but this thread was about abuse of an engine. I think the abuse has been stopped with intervention. :ok:

iPhalot
Actually the truth is when you have a conforming engine, it is far easier and safer to run it LOP than ROP properly. Seriously proper ROP ops are harder to do. But you would need to understand why that is so to appreciate what I just said. Cheers :ok:

What's wrong with 25/25?

You omitted to mention the other shyster in the APS team: John Deakin.

Mr Deakin only has about 37,000 hours in command, around half of it on 747s and the rest on Gulfstream IV, C-46, M-404, DC-3, F8F Bearcat, Constellation, B-29 and V35. What would he know?Depends on the engine. But on many piston aero engines, reducing the revs to 2500 moves the peak pressure point closer to TDC (thus increasing the peak pressure) and reducing the throttle from e.g. Sea level MP to 25 effectively leans the mixture and increases the EGT and CHT.

The shysters at APS will have you believe that the 2 biggest enemies of cylinders are internal pressure and temperature, and that you can avoid unnecessarily high internal pressures and temperature by leaving the throttle wide open and not reducing RPM by mutch in the climb. And such is the extent of the APS deception that all of the available aircraft engine monitors on the market have been programmed - much like Volkswagen emissions test fooling software - to show this.

Don't fall for it!

Aren't we supposed to only maintain max power for 3 minutes before the engine explodes?

So confusing :(

Pelicans Perch is still available online, do yourself a favour :ok:

So before (well, currently in many aircraft!) all this whizz bang all cylinder monitoring, how did someone run the engine properly/safely?

If the aircraft has that gear but you don't know how to use it, how are you meant to run the engine?


AFM figures surely.


Please forgive my snobby turbine brain. Pistons were so a decade ago!

I've spent many years flying around with just the basic engine gauges and never had any problems with the engines, running them as per the Poh.
And that includes several types with geared super/turbo charged engines!
Maybe I am just lucky...perhaps!

The old saying goes 'you don't know what you don't know'. You can forgive someone for being none the wiser however you have your head stuck so far up your ass its no surprise that dealing with your own ignorance isn't high on your priority list.

Given you're such a wise guy why don't you explain how the laws of chemistry and physics change when the AFM of the 520 powered Malibu mandated LOP operation or AFMs of Navajos permit LOP operation?

I mean, its in the AFM right? You'd would have been a pretty rad driver of one of those Malibus because people died from not following that one.

Wow did I hit a nerve with you FCP!

Never flew a Malibu or a Navajo, so sorry buddy your outta luck getting me to explain them!

Yeah I'm a bit of a wise guy, like pulling the piss but wow. Did I get a nerve!


Ok to be serious. How were things done before full engine monitoring on pistons? I never had monitoring on pistons and ran them as per the AFM. Is there something wrong with what is published in AFMs and all this APS stuff knows better?

I'm not debating that with new technology that there aren't benefits. I just wanted to debate the aspect of "what do you do if you don't have fancy gear?" and also point out that turbines aren't as basic as the original comparison was made. Obviously that point was lost on you. Thank you for having a jab at me rather than answering my questions!


And back to not being serious.
Having ones head up their arse (that's correct, arse, not ass) is good. Don't see the rest of the crap in the world :ok:

I will just make the title of topic more accurate -


Pilots who don't know about engines and/or their airframes as related.

Ramrod,
What these guys are teaching is anything but new.

In fact, it was all well known by the end of WWII and into the 1950's.

Somehow it all got lost over the years, and in Australia in particular, from about the 1980s on, general ab nitio teaching of engine handling varied from bad to appalling.

Indeed, so bad was the teaching, that you came across such modifications (with DCA approval) of mixture controls disconnected, and carb. heat locked in ON. Such helpful "rules of thumb" as "no leaning below 5000' AGL" ---- pity about the density altitude on a hot summer day, at some of the more elevated of our airfields.

Do yourself a favor, read everything you can off Pelican, and get to one of the courses. Ignorance is never very attractive, in aviation can be fatal.

CleartoEnter,
Nothing "wrong" with the "recommendations" , which are that, recommendations, not limitations.
Re. Best Economy, that might be theoretically correct, but very touchy. Worked great on the Qantas "Double Sunrise" services during WWII --- but not recommended for other than extreme range for the fuel available.
The 50 rich of peak is the one that will getcha!! Around there is going to maximize the possibility of detonation.

Tootle pip!!

I don't understand the controversy, suppositions and what not in this thread... Lycoming, Continental, and Pratt & Whitney (Round motors that is) have been in the industry a long time... written good manuals and with proven procedures and operational techniques.


True, Lycoming and Continental have evolved with water cooled, single power lever/condition lever applications. But at the end of the day... if you stick with their procedures... you'll reach TBO without issues.