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How to Monitor Your Engine's Email this article | Print this Condition article With a few extra simple

checks before, during, and after each flight, you can gain a broader picture of your engine's health, and increase your confidence in your aircraft. February 5, 1996 by John Schwaner This article is Copyright 1995 by Sacramento Sky Ranch Inc. All rights reserved. Preflight: About the Author ... 1. Inspect the aircraft's John Schwaner is AVweb's belly. On most powerplant expert. John is a aircraft, any fluid leaks world-class authority on piston from the engine aircraft engines, and a specialist compartment ends up on the in the engineering analysis of belly. Fresh oil is a sign of an oil engine failures. John runs leak. Dark soot is a sign of rich Sacramento Sky Ranch, Inc., a engine mixture or increased leading distributor of aircraft combustion gas leakage past the and engine parts, and probably piston rings. Fuel dye is a sign of the foremost aircraft hose shop a fuel leak. One quick look at the and magneto overhaul facility in belly and you know whether the U.S. John and his wife live in there are any leaks in the engine Sacramento, California. compartment. John has also written two 2. Take your finger tip and touch superb technical books: Sky the inside edge of the exhaust Ranch Engineering Manual and pipe. If your engine's mixture The Magneto Ignition System. and oil consumption are normal, Both can be previewed in and then your finger should be clean, ordered from the AVweb or possibly have a slight tan ash Online Bookstore. deposit. If your finger tip has dry black soot on it, then your engine at a rich fuel/air mixture. If your finger has oily black soot, then your engine's burning too much oil. 3. Smell inside the engine compartment for any fuel smells. Small fuel

leaks evaporate fuel as they leak and may not be enough to drip. Leaks may occur at primer fittings, hose connections, or the hose itself. One sniff in the engine compartment and you've checked all of the fuel connections for leaks. 4. Check the color of the oil on the dipstick. If it looks like black lacquer then the piston rings are leaking combustion gas into the oil. Start: 1. Listen for any out of the ordinary noises as the starter turns your engine. You should hear the starter, the clanking of the impulse couplings, and no wheezing of air out the engine breather or intake. 2. On your Continental 6-cylinder engine, does the propeller turn with the starter? If the starter turns but the propeller sometimes doesn't, then the starter adapter is slipping and needs to be repaired. 3. On Lycoming engines if the starter turns but the propeller doesn't then the starter Bendix is starting to stick. Usually cleaning and silicone spraying the starter Bendix shaft fixes the problem. 4. Does the engine kickback when starting? If it does, then you have a problem with the magneto impulse couplings, engine timing, or the starter vibrator. 5. If the engine's getting hard to start then your magnetos probably need repair. Idle: 1. Many engine problems are first noticed during idle. Engine roughness, caused by carbon fouled spark plugs, lead fouled spark plugs, a sticky valve, or a hydraulic lifter not operating properly are more common at idle. 2. A carbon fouled spark plug clears when you increase power, a lead fouled spark plug does not clear when you increase power. A carbon fouled spark plug indicates a spark plug that is not firing constantly or that the engine is operating at a too rich fuel/air mixture. Lead fouled spark plugs indicate a rich fuel mixture or that the power is being increased too rapidly at takeoff. 3. Bad hydraulic lifters are more noticeable during idle then during flight. A worn hydraulic lifter that leaks oil causes rocker arm to valve clearance. The rocker arm strikes the valve tip instead of pushing the valve open, resulting in a tapping noise. The noise goes

away as the cold engine oil flows into the hydraulic lifter. Cold oil, being more viscous, doesn't leak out the hydraulic lifter as fast as hot oil. This causes the hydraulic lifter to pump up, closing the tappet clearance and causing the tapping noise to go away. This is fine and should not be a concern if the noise goes away shortly. If tappet noise occurs regularly then replace the hydraulic lifters. Worn or defective lifters cause the valve to pound against the seat, possibly causing valve breakage. 4. Is the oil pressure at its normal position? Low oil pressure at idle and high oil pressure during flight is caused by leakage in the oil delivery system and cannot be fixed by adjusting oil pressure. Takeoff: 1. Is takeoff rpm lower then normal? If takeoffs are getting longer and climb performance is getting worse, then suspect that a camshaft lobe is flattening out. Damaged camshaft lobes cause a gradual decrease in takeoff rpm in an otherwise smooth engine. 2. If takeoff rpm is low on a constant speed engine then the problem may be in the governor and not in the engine. Check to see if you can reach redline rpm in cruise flight. If a constant speed propeller airplane won't reach redline rpm in cruise, then the propeller governor is holding back the propeller and your 3. problem is not low engine power. In cruise flight or descent, even an engine with low power will turn a propeller past red line because of the low engine loading. 4. Monitor for engine smoothness and power. 5. Is vacuum pump pressure normal? As the vacuum pump starts to fail it often produces lower suction for a flight or two before failure. Cruise: 1. Magneto problems often cause a slight roughness as you climb to altitude. The roughness may go away when you reduce power to cruise. High manifold pressure requires more voltage from the magneto to spark the plugs then lower manifold pressure. Therefore, if you can turn the engine roughness on and off by changing the manifold pressure, then the magneto is at fault. 2. The higher the altitude the less resistance to arching within the

magneto. Therefore, a marginal magneto often causes slight engine roughness during the climb, only to clear up when you reduce power or descend to a lower altitude. 3. To some degree oil pressure follows oil temperature and oil temperature follows cylinder head temperature. As oil temperature goes up, oil pressure goes down. As cylinder head temperature goes up, oil pressure goes up. This can be used as a crosscheck of proper gauge operation. The relationship is not linear and sometimes may not exist. For example, increased heat transfer from the cylinders to the oil occurs when the piston rings start leaking hot combustion gas into the oil. This causes oil temperatures to rise without a corresponding increase in CHT temperature. Shutdown: 1. If the propeller has more than 100 hours on it and is starting to sling oil onto the windshield then its time to send it off to a propeller shop. 2. Does the engine cutoff evenly? If not, the idle cutoff circuit is leaking. 3. You should get no more than a 100-rpm increase when going to idle cutoff. Any more than 50 rpm means that idle mixture is too rich.The optimum idle setting is one that is rich enough to provide a satisfactory acceleration under all conditions and lean enough to prevent spark plug fouling or rough operation. A rise of 25-50 rpm will usually satisfy both conditions. 4. Check the aircraft belly again.

Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine: An Email this article | Interview with Lycoming's CEO Print this article During one of our three visits to Lycoming, we spent a couple of hours with Phil Boob, the company's chief executive. We found him disarmingly frank in discussing a variety of issues from competition to Cessna's chances. Boob has been at Lycoming since 1985, having spent 17 years in sales at Piper Aircraft before that. He worked in sales and marketing before being

appointed CEO in 1986. November 9, 1995 by Paul Bertorelli This article originally appeared in THE AVIATION CONSUMER and is reprinted here by permission. About the Author ... Paul Bertorelli is a professional aviation journalist and editor. He's Editorin-Chief of The Aviation Consumer and editorial director of AVweb and Belvoir Publications' Aviation Division. He's a 4,500-hour ATP and CFIA/CFII/CFIME. He owns a Mooney 231.

Articles in This Series

Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine, Part 1: A Visit to TCM (Teledyne Continental Motors) Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine, Part 2: A Visit to Lycoming Supplemental Feature: Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine: An Interview with

AVweb's comments are in red.

Lycoming's CEO

Why would a sane and profitable multi-national conglomerate like Textron want to mess around with engines for little airplanes? Because as long as we return to the shareholder the profits they expect, we'll be in the engine business. And we have been able to do that. If it gets to the point that an investor could say "Textron, the reason I don't own your stock is that you've got too many of these divisions that aren't returning a profit," Textron would look at it differently. That's different than saying if they didn't own it already would they go out and invest in it. In that case, you might look at the shrinking market and the liability costs and say, gee, I don't know if I could get into this or not. Even so, our engine business is good. We're measured by Textron as a stand-alone business. And I can tell you that as a stand-alone business, there's no problem with this division. Still, it's obvious from our tour that the factory is a shadow of its former self. Do you see any way to eke some growth out of a market that's declining at a percent or more a year? Our business is not declining. Our business in total and our dollars in total have been stable and in fact, slightly better this year than last, even not counting our windfall from Chevron. Our real growth opportunity is in the aftermarket business, in parts and in overall engines. We did $20 million in that segment last year and we only have about a third of the market. That includes overhaul, parts and entire engines? Yes. We're 30 percent of the overhaul market now and obviously 100 percent of the new engines for replacement, because you can't get them anywhere else.: In parts, we've got the competition from the PMA guys. But the real growth opportunity is in the overhaul business and if you get that, you automatically get the spares, too. More parts go into overhauls than into repairs. That was our whole thrust on the cylinder-kit program. We finally recognized that for years, we were trying to sell a cylinder, what we call a stud assembly, which was just the cylinder. We wouldn't sell the rest of the stuff to go along with it. Then we had the PMA guys; coming in with their valves and rings and pistons and so forth. We realized they were just going

to keep picking away at our business. So we just said, what would the price to the consumer be if he bought a cylinder from us and went to Superior and bought all the valves and rings and so on? What would it cost? We got that number and decided we had to sell our cylinder kit at X dollars. We had been selling about a thousand stud assemblies a year. We put this program into place and we haven't sold less than a thousand a month since we started. You haven't mentioned Continental as a competitor. Do you consider them competition? No. You have to remember that 75 percent of our business is aftermarket and the parts aren't interchangeable with Continental engines. When I look at the OEMs (original equipment manufacturer) we have a list of 40 customers all over the world. None of them are big, so we'll sell 50 engines here and 50 engines there. I give my predecessors the credit for this. Back in the 1970s, when Continental didn't want you as a customer unless you'd buy thousands of engines, Lycoming took a different approach, particularly in the international market. I think we're benefiting from that today. Other than new OEM, it's difficult to make financial sense out of changing from one manufacturer's engine to another, unless you're having significant product problems or customer acceptance problems. Say you want to put a Continental engine in a Saratoga. You're looking at in excess of a millionand-a-half dollars to do that. Why would you do it? How much better do these things have to be before the consumer is willing to pay the additional rnoney? Are Cessna's plans to make 2000 airplanes a year by 1997 or 1998 sustainable? No, I don't see it as sustainable. At the outside, probably half of the two thousand. Can they be profitable at that volume? Cessna has run the economics on this thing. Somebody had to make a decision to go back into business. So I can only assume that either they believe they know how to make the 2000 work and the economics are driven on that, or, they've got to factor down to some level and still have it make sense. You're not a proponent of the pent-up demand theory, then? Well, one of the reasons I flinch so much on that is because it's not Like you

can't today go buy a new airplane comparable to the new 172 for a comparable amount of money. Now if you said they figured out some magic way to come to the market with a $70,000 Cessna 172, I'd change my answer real quick. They haven't done that. I think some people are saying that i n the entire world today, it's impossible that you couldn't sell an additional 2000 airplanes. I remember sitting with Tom Gillespie at Piper towards the final days of the Cheyenne program when he challenged the whole sales force sitting around the table and said, " Are you guys telling me, that in the whole damn world we couldn't sell one Cheyenne in the last three months?" And the answer was "you bet." When I sit back and look at the fact that you can go buy new airplanes today and I consider that the prices aren't going to be that much different and I look at the lack of student starts, I get a knot in my stomach. But I hope Cessna is right. I hope I'm so wrong that they rub my nose in it forever. Put money in the bank and they can rub my nose in anything they want to. You mentioned student starts and the lack of new pilots. What do you think of the AOPA Mentor Program and EAA's Young Eagles. Don't these generate interest and demand among young people? Certainly those are excellent programs. But I don't know how to measure their success and I don't think anybody else knows what the impact of programs like these could be. But it's the right kind of thing to do. If they don't work, then I don't know. I don't care if you're selling automobiles, furniture, houses, airplanes or cars, if you can't get the younger people interested, you don't have an industry. Do you think the lack of interest in flying or ownership is cost driven or is it some other factor? It's maybe not so much cost as much as the hassle with the activity. Meaning that if you wake up tomorrow morning and look out the bedroom window and it's a foggy day, before you can back your car out to go to work, you gotta get on the phone, check the weather, file a flight plans get a clearance, go whatever direction or whatever route somebody tells you to as opposed to the route that you'd really like to go. When you start thinking about cost you gotta say, look, how many Lexus's were sold last year, how many Cadillacs, how many yachts, how many skiing packages? People are spending money. Use the yacht and the airplane as a comparison. I don't need to know a

damn thing about a yacht to impress you with it. All I need to do is buy it, tie it up to the dock, take you down and throw my cocktail party on Saturday night and I've impressed all my friends. Now, it's not very impressive to buy an airplane and go down and sit in it Friday night and have drinks. Somebody has to know how to use that airplane-I didn't say how to fly it, I said how to use it-because it's not very impressive sitting on the ramp. I'm inclined to believe that what's missing is disposable time as opposed to disposable income. At Oshkosh this year, there seemed to be a general euphoric feeling that the industry is on the comeback. Some people argue that the statute of repose is responsible for this. What's Lycoming's view? I think that's an exaggeration. I think it's just a piece of the solution that may eventually revitalize the industry. Then it really won't make the difference some people think it will? No, it'll make a difference. And it will be a financial benefit, but it'll be several years before that manifests itself . We basically didn't see any change in our costs in 1995 as a result of that. But the engine manufacturers and the component manufacturers are going to be the ones to see the direct benefit last. The airframe manufacturers should see it earlier. On the engine side of it, there's constant replacement going on. How many engines are 18 years old that don't have some parts replaced? And a good trial lawyer is just going to zero right in on those replaced parts. We've already had it happen to us. You may win the suit, but you spend about the same amount for defense costs to win as to lose. Our average defense cost, by the way, is $300,000 per suit, win or lose. At any given time we've got about 175 suits working. Given what appears to be fierce competition from engine shops, your avowed promise to improve efficiency and perhaps with a declining cost for product liability, is it realistic to expect engine prices to actually decrease? I can say almost with certainty what we're doing here will cause the price to not increase at the rate that it has over the last 10 years. And probably it's going to allow us to make increases below the inflation rate. For the last 10 years or so, it's been just the opposite. Now, if somebody says when you're done with this, you're gonna take that $16,000 engine and be able to sell it for $14,000, I don't know yet.

But if I can do that and at the same time increase the overall business and make a profit that makes sense, I will.

Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine, Part 1: A Visit Email this article | to TCM (Teledyne Continental Motors) Print this article We expected our recent visit to the Teledyne Continental Motors factory in Mobile to be depressing, but we came away feeling surprisingly upbeat about the future of TCM. November 9, 1995 by Paul Bertorelli and Mike Busch This article originally appeared in THE AVIATION CONSUMER and is reprinted here by permission. About the Author ... Paul Bertorelli is a professional aviation journalist and editor. He's Editorin-Chief of The Aviation Consumer and editorial director of AVweb and Belvoir Publications' Aviation Division. He's a 4,500-hour ATP and CFIA/CFII/CFIME. He owns a Mooney 231.

About the Author ...

Mike Busch is editor-inchief of AVweb, a member of the technical staff at Cessna Pilots Association, and in a prior lifetime was a contributing editor for The Aviation Consumer and IFR Magazine. A 6,000-hour commercial pilot and CFI with airplane, instrument and multiengine ratings, Mike has been flying for 36 years and an aircraft owner for 33. For the past 14 of those years, he's owned and flown a Cessna T310R turbocharged twin, which he maintains himself. In his never-ending quest to become a true renaissance man of aviation, Mike's on the verge of earning his A&P mechanic certificate. Mike and his wife Jan reside on the central coast of California in a semi-rural area where he can't get DSL or cable TV.

Articles in This Series

Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine, Part 1: A Visit to TCM (Teledyne

Will the piston engines of tomorrow incorporate new technology of will they just be more of the same? Do piston aircraft engines even have a future? To answer these questions, we've been touring the country talking to as many engine experts as we could find. This is the second article in a periodic series on the current state and future of the engine business. The second article in this series recounts our visit to Textron-Lycoming and our revealing one-onone interview with Lycoming's CEO.

Continental Motors) Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine, Part 2: A Visit to Lycoming Supplemental Feature: Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine: An Interview with Lycoming's CEO

The visit that almost wasn't When we first called TCM's public relations office last winter to arrange a plant tour and management interview, it became quickly obvious that the company wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea. It took nearly six months of dogged persistence before TCM agreed to our visit in mid-May. Even then, we were told that we would not be permitted to take photos or use tape recorders, and that management interviews would be strictly "off the record." Fortunately, we were able to arrange a breakfast meeting with TCM president Brian Lewis and persuade him that we weren't there to do a hatchet job on his company. Lewis reluctantly but graciously relaxed most of the restrictions originally placed on us. During the next day and a half, we talked at length with Lewis and all of the other top TCM managers, and saw as many parts of the manufacturing operation as time allowed.

To be honest, we arrived in Mobile with some preconceived notions about what we would find there. We'd been told horror stories about quality assurance problems at TCM. We'd heard rumors that Teledyne was on the brink of shutting down TCM and getting out of the piston aircraft engine business. And TCM's reluctance to let us visit made us suspicious about just what they were trying to hide. Given this background, we were pleasantly surprised by much that we saw and heard at TCM. TCM's rollercoaster ride Continental has been building piston aircraft engines for 65 years. In 1930 Continental introduced the A40, a 38horsepower 4cylinder horizontallyopposed air-cooled engine used in the Piper Cub and Taylorcraft. The A40 was the first of a long series of Aseries engines that culminated in the A225 engines that powered early Beech Bonanzas in the late 1940s. The A40 evolved into the O200 and O300 engines used in the Cessna 150 and 172. The A-225 was the progenitor of today's big-bore 470, 520, and 550 Continentals. Continental's original factory was in Ohio. The company expanded into its current Alabama location starting in 1966 when the Air Force decided to close down Brookley AFB (now Mobile Downtown Airport) and Continental was able to lease the old hangars and buildings for a song. In 1969, Continental Motors Corporation was acquired by Teledyne, a diversified conglomerate with operations ranging from weapons and aerospace to shower heads and Water-Piks. Teledyne acquired additional space at Brookley and relocated all TCM operations to Mobile. TCM prospered during the heyday of general aviation in the 1970s. By 1979, the firm was turning out more than 10,000 engines a year, mostly new engines for Cessna, Beech, and other OEM customers. The TCM workforce reached 950 people, and the company expended into virtually every available building at the Brookley site. Then disaster struck. In the early 80s, the general aviation industry experienced a devastating downturn. New piston aircraft production virtually ceased. Cessna (TCM's biggest customer) shut down piston production altogether, and other manufacturers slowed to an insignificant trickle. Virtually overnight, the market for new TCM engines vanished. The 1980s was a traumatic decade for TCM. The company was forced to downsize drastically, and to transform itself from a manufacturer of new

engines into a supplier of parts and rebuilt engines to the aftermarket. In essence, TCM became a giant overhaul shop The trauma was compounded in 1989 when TCM's management and labor union reached an impasse in contract, resulting in a long and bitter strike that crippled TCM's production. One legacy of the strike was a customer perception of poor quality control that persists to this day. In the aftermath of the strike, Teledyne brought in a new TCM chief executive, Brian Lewis, and a new top management team tasked with repairing the company's relationship with its workforce, solving the quality problems, and re-engineering the company in response to TCM's different and downsized market. The company was reorganized into business units, manufacturing cells, and quality circles reminiscent of a Japanese car company. TCM's new realities Today, TCM is down to about 600 employees, and produces about 3,600 engines a year. Only about 15% of those are new OEM engines. The remaining 85% are remanufactured engines for the aftermarket. These engines represent about half of TCM's revenues; the other half of the business is in selling replacement parts to overhaul shops and other field maintenance facilities. Brian Lewis is convinced that TCM's worst years are behind it. He sees positive signs for the first time in fifteen years, and anticipates slow but solid growth for some years to come. With Cessna resuming piston aircraft production, Piper expected to exit bankruptcy soon, and the kitplane business growing rapidly, Lewis expects the market for new OEM engines to revive. TCM's future OEM business won't come from Cessna, who stated that engines for its new piston production would be 100% Lycomings. Since Cessna and Lycoming are both divisions of Textron (another 1960s-vintage conglomerate), Cessna's decision came as no big surprise. Lewis's comment: "we're disappointed that Textron made its decision along corporate lines." Piper is a different story. TCM is the lead member of a creditor group that is attempting to acquire Piper and bring it out of Chapter 11. If the court approves the buyout plan, TCM will become the largest shareholder of the new Piper, and would presumably become Piper's primary engine supplier. TCM's other OEM customers include Beech, Mooney, and several overseas manufacturers. In addition, TCM is the dominant engine supplier for the

high-performance kitplane market (Lancair IV, Questair Venture, etc.), which TCM expects to become an increasingly important segment of the OEM market. Although he doesn't see the OEM business returning to the heady levels of 1979, Lewis thinks that TCM's business might reach a 50-50 ratio of new vs. reman engines by the end of the decade if all goes well. Engineering innovation For decades, Continental and Lycoming have displayed very different attitudes toward innovation. Lycoming spends relatively little on R&D, and tends to make engineering changes very rarely and only when absolutely necessary. In contrast, Continental has a much bigger R&D budget, and makes changes much more frequently. Take a side-by-side look at engine parts catalogs sometime: a TCM parts catalog is dominated by hundreds of change pages, while a Lycoming parts catalog has hardly changed in years. Continental has pioneered many important engineering innovations like fuel injection and turbocharging. But TCM's predisposition toward innovation has been a two-edged sword. Some of their "improvements" have not worked out well in the field (such as Nitralloy exhaust valve guides and cast steel-belted pistons). And the company has spent many millions on R&D programs that have not paid off. The innovative geared high-RPM Tiara engine that TCM developed the '70s appeared briefly on one agplane and then disappeared into oblivion. TCM's promising liquid-cooled "Voyager" engine developed in the '80s has yet to surface except in a relative handful of RAM-converted Cessna 414As. Nevertheless, TCM's enthusiasm for R&D seems undiminished. Brian Lewis made it clear that he considers innovation to be a key factor in providing tomorrow's OEMs and converters a reason to choose TCM rather than Lycoming. TCM intends to keep and enhance its reputation as the most innovative company in the piston engine market. For example, TCM expects to start shipping engines using the new Slick LASAR electronic ignition system as soon as Unison can get FAA certification. Also, TCM holds an STC to install liquid-cooled IO-550 engine in the Beech Bonanza, and is trying to get it to market via a licensing arrangement with a (yet unnamed) airframe converter. We talked at length with TCM's engineering chief, John Barton, about what the TCM engines of tomorrow would look like. Barton's roadmap includes lots of small product improvements, several new but evolutionary engines,

and a major thrust to incorporate electronics into TCM engines. Barton showed us a number of new product improvements in his engineering lab. We saw a new line of rocker cover and accessory gaskets that have an integral raised rubber-like bead to improve sealing and eliminate pesky oil leaks. We examined a new O200 cylinder assembly that incorporated dozens of significant improvements. And we looked at a brand new clutchless starter that TCM is introducing to replace the old and failureprone O200 starter. Future engineering direction Barton's engineers are working on several new engines to meet specific needs. TCM is developing a pair of new high-power geared engines, a normally aspirated GIO-550 and a turbocharged GTSIO-550; the turbocharged model will be rated at nearly 500 hp. At the opposite end of the horsepower scale, TCM is creating a new 125 hp IO240 engine, basically a four-cylinder version of the current IO360, to power trainers and mediumsized kitplanes. Finally, a lightweight 250 hp version of the IO-520 is in development, dubbed the IO-520-LW. TCM engineers are focused on the increased application of electronics to the piston aircraft engine, much as the auto industry did a decade ago. Expect to see this occur in small increments. The first use of electronics will be variable-timing electronic ignition, most likely the Slick LASAR system. TCM is also working on an electronic engine instrumentation package to replace the traditional steam gauges we now use. Longer term, TCM is investigating an electronic fuel control unit that would provide optimum mixture control. Ultimately, TCM's goal is a single power lever system that reduces pilot workload while assuring optimum power and mixture settings. Although TCM's geared high-RPM Tiara engine was a commercial failure 20 years ago and its liquid-cooled Voyager engine has yet to gain much acceptance, John Barton still believes that they were both steps in the right direction. His long-term vision of TCM's piston engine of the future (what he calls the "Advanced Core Engine") is a geared, high-RPM, finely-balanced, liquid-cooled engine with variable-timing electronic ignition, electronic mixture control, electronic instrumentation, and a single power-lever control, capable of operating on low-octane unleaded fuel. There's no target date for such an engine, but it gives a good indication of where TCM engines are most likely headed.

Major retooling Meantime, TCM is making major changes to their manufacturing operation. The company is investing big bucks to retire decades-old manually-operated machine tools and to replace it with state-of-the-art computerized numerically-controlled (CNC) equipment. The first portion of the factory to be retooled was the cylinder fabrication facility. Howard Atwood, TCM's vice-president and general manager of operations, took us through the cylinder shop and showed off his expensive goodies. Over the past three years, TCM has installed four new Mori Seiki CNC machines that cost $1.5 million, and were able to retire almost 75 ancient manually-operated machines. The new cylinder shop is one-third the size it used to be, requires substantially fewer workers, and has almost twice the production capacity of the old facility. Cylinders are now manufactured with greater consistency and less dimensional variation than before. Most importantly, the retooling allowed TCM to cut the price of new cylinder kits by 30% to 40% last year. (We discuss the new economics of cylinders in "The Jug Jungle.") TCM's modern Mori Seiki CNC machines are the same kind we saw when we visited the Dallas production facility where Superior's Millennium cylinders are built. Such equipment was conspicuously absent during our visits to Lycoming, however. Next in line for retooling at TCM are the crankshaft and crankcase production areas. New CNC machines will replace old tooling wherever it is advantageous to do so. Some of the old equipment will remain, because CNC isn't always the best solution. For example, gang-boring crankcase halves with custom-built boring jigs is both faster and more reproducible than drilling holes sequentially with a CNC rig. Nevertheless, Atwood expects to achieve significant productivity increases and cost savings when the crank and case cells are retooled. Final assembly When Atwood took us though the area where final assembly of engines is performed, it was not quite what we expected. Most of the TCM factory looks like a gigantic machine shop: huge, sprawling, dark, smelly, hot, with row after row of big metalworking machines. In contrast, final assembly is done in a separate room that is air conditioned, brilliantly lit, laboratory clean, and surprisingly small (perhaps 1,000 square feet). Every TCM engine is built in this one little room.

Every engine has its own assembly dolly, its own parts cart, and its own serial-numbered assembly manual. These all move down the line together as engine assembly progresses. There is just one assembly line that every engine traverses, whether new or reman. (This differs from Lycoming, where new and rebuilt engines are built on separate parallel assembly lines.) The assembly dollies allow the engines to be assembled with the crankshaft horizontal. Pivots on the dolly permit the assembler to turn the engine on its side or even upside-down for easy access during various assembly steps. (Lycoming uses a similar scheme.) In contrast, every field overhaul shop we've visited assembles engines with the crankshaft vertical and supported by the propeller flange. Because TCM builds such a wide variety of engine models and spec numbers, the assembly manual for each engine is customized for each particular engine serial number. The manual contains hundreds of pages of computer printout, itemizing each individual assembly step, detailed procedures, torque values, and so forth. TCM is in the process of digitizing their assembly drawings so that the computer can incorporate graphics into these manuals. We saw a mixture of old-style (text only) and new-style (text plus graphics) manuals when we visited. After final assembly is complete, each engine is wheeled to an instrumented test cell where it goes through a test run that normally lasts 45 to 60 minutes. The test cells are old and low-tech, using steam-gauge instrumentation and manual logging of results. (TCM has one high-tech computer-instrumented test cell that is used by engineering.) Production control TCM has also created major new data processing systems to support its manufacturing operation. Production and materials control are now computerized with an order-driven scheduling system. Ron Caton, TCM's manager of production control, showed us how the new system works. When an engine order is received, the computer instantly allocates all necessary parts based on the proper bill-of-materials for that particular engine model and spec number. If any of the required parts are in short supply, corrective action can be taken immediately so that production is not impacted. If an urgent situation arises (such as an AOG order), the computer is smart enough to realloate parts from lower-priority orders. Caton told us that this system proved invaluable during production crunch following the recent Chevron fuel contamination crisis when demand for

reman engines and parts suddenly went ballistic. It was impossible for TCM to keep up with the unexpected order surge, but things would have been a whole lot worse if the new scheduling system hadn't been in place. The computer allowed TCM to provide fairly accurate delivery time estimates to customers during the Chevron crunch so that they knew how long their aircraft would be down and could make alternate plans. Questions about quality Innovative engineering and efficient manufacturing may be well and good, but what customer care about more than anything else is quality. Prior to our visit, we'd heard numerous stories about the poor quality of the engines coming out of Mobile. So we sat down with Bill Thornbury, vice-president of quality assurance, and asked him to give us a detailed show-and-tell about TCM's approach to Q/A. Thornbury started out with a highly technical presentation that was frankly over our heads: Cpk=2, 6-sigma, SPC analysis. When he noticed our eyes starting to glaze, he graciously started over in plain english. Although detailed inspection is the last line of defense against out-of-spec parts, Thornbury explained that TCM's emphasis is on monitoring and improving each manufacturing process so that problems can be caught and corrected long before out-of-spec parts start appearing. Critical dimensions are logged and analyzed to determine whether dimensional variations are random or whether a trend can be detected. Red flags go up any time variation exceeds one-half of the allowable inspection tolerances. In support of this kind of analysis, TCM is now phasing in state-of-the-art measurement tools that we'd never seen anywhere else in our travels. Thornbury showed us electronic torque wrenches, micrometers, depth gauges, and surface roughness testers, all with digital outputs to permit direct computerized logging of measurements. The use of these fancy new instrumentation was particularly in evidence when we visited the cylinder cell. Special emphasis was given to certain critical measurements such as the roughness of cylinder microfinish which TCM considers critical to proper break-in. At the opposite end of the Q/A spectrum is engine audit inspections. One out of every 25 engines that comes out of final assembly and test-cell run is pulled off the line and subjected to a complete teardown inspection. A long list of critical dimensionsThornbury called them "key characteristics"are measured and logged. The audit engine then goes back through final

assembly and gets another test-cell run. (Lycoming uses a similar procedure.) No matter how thorough a company's Q/A procedures are, sometimes "stuff happens." To deal with such problems when they arise, TCM has created a "Product Integrity Council" which includes Atwood, Barton, Thornbury, and various other key managers. These folks meet to evaluate a quality problem and decide how to deal it. What happened? Did it occur in-house or at a supplier? Have any defective parts or engines reached the field? Can we identify precisely which serial numbers are affected? Is a service bulletin or airworthiness directive required? Is priority notification required? How can we ensure that it doesn't happen again? A basic ground rule of this Council is: if there's any safety issue involved, no matter how remote or improbable it might be, go public with it. As a result of this policy, TCM sometimes finds itself getting bad press when another company faced with the same situation might have elected to say nothing. Perception versus reality We came away with the vivid impression that TCM is working both harder and smarter to assure product quality and consistency than what we saw at Lycoming, Superior, or any of the overhaul shops we visited. So why does TCM have such a bad reputation for quality in the field? Neither Thornbury nor anyone else at TCM could give us an answer. But we have our own theories. A piston aircraft engine has an average life of about ten years before it is majored or replaced. This means that an average owners' last contact with the factory was about five years ago. And five years ago, TCM was in the throes of a labor dispute that severely disrupted its manufacturing operations and had devastating impact on product quality. Perception seems to lag years behind reality in this business. In this regard, it's similar to what happened to the U.S. auto industry. More than a decade ago, Detroit developed a reputation for building terrible cars, and droves of Americans started buying Toyotas and BMWs instead of Chevys and Dodges. The U.S. automakers redesigned their cars, updated their tooling, overhauled their Q/A procedures, and started to build excellent cars that were every bit as good as what the Germans and Japanese were making. But it took many years before the stigma associated with poor quality American cars was erased from the mind of the consumer. We suspect that the same phenomenon is partly responsible for the perception of poor TCM quality.

Also, it is an irony of today's market that TCM's principal customers (authorized distributors of TCM reman engines) are also TCM's principal competitors (overhaul shops). Consequently, there's a love-hate relationship between TCM and many of its distributors. Since many of them make more profit selling an overhaul than they do selling a factory reman, they have a vested interest in making TCM remans look bad. These firms used to compete with TCM on the basis of price, but with today's aggresively-priced remans this is no longer possible. A number of high-profile shops are quite overt in marketing their overhauled engines as better than what the factory turns out. (Capehart, RAM, and Victor come to mind.) And frankly, those shops are doing a far better job at telling their story than the factory is. We can't help but conclude that this is a factor in perpetuating the perception of inferior quality from TCM. TCM seems to have come light years from the bad old days of '89 and '90. Contrary to widespread perception, TCM appears to be working harder on product quality than anyone else in the industry. Based on what we saw in Mobile, we'd feel just fine about buying a TCM factory reman. Customer service The last department we visited at TCM was customer service. These are the folks that process orders, deal with warranty claims, and provide field support. We spoke with Tim Archer, director of sales and service, and with several of Archer's managers. TCM is in the midst of a major reorganization of its customer service department that at last recognizes the realities of today's market. Prior to the Great Downturn, the word "customer" in the TCM lexicon was defined as "airframe manufacturer." Today, a miniscule fraction of TCM's product goes to OEMs. Consequently, Archer has been tasked with re-inventing his department so that it serves the customers of today: the aircraft converter, the distributor, the FBO, and aircraft owner. In our judgement, this change is very welcome and about a decade overdue. Archer is a big believer in computers, and has invested heavily in automation of his department. Last year, he deployed TCM-NETa PCbased system providing 24-hour on-line dial-up access to TCM's distributor network. The system allows distributors to place and track orders for engines and parts, to submit and track warranty claims, and to obtain price and availability information. TCM-NET is presently being used by 70% of TCM's distributors, and Archer

expects the number to reach 99% by year-end. The system has eliminated most of the access problems associated with time-zone differences, and has produced a tremendous savings in paperwork, particularly for overseas distributors. About 30% of TCM's business is overseas, but that business involves vastly more paperwork than does domestic business. Archer used to have four full-time people preparing export documentation. With the advent of TCM-NET, export documentation is now handled by one person working half-time. Overall, TCM's customer support headcount decreased from 48 to 36 over the past few years, but the number of people in direct customer-contact roles increased from 23 to 27. The next phase of the automation initiative is called FBO-LINK, and is basically a version of TCM-NET designed to allow field maintenance shops to have direct access to TCM factory support. FBOs will have 24-hour on-line access to warranty status, warranty claim tracking, service bulletins, and technical briefs, and a broad range of troubleshooting help. FBO-LINK will be introduced later this this to a hand-picked group of large FAA repair stations, but ultimately should become available to any field maintenance shop that wishes to participate. Eventually, FBOs may be able to use their PC to videoconference with factory support experts (Archer is experimenting with this right now, and showed us a demo). A third phase of this program, slated for rollout next year, is TCM's "Gold Medallion Club." This is a version of TCM-NET that will be available to aircraft owners who have new or reman TCM engines. Owners will have online access to warranty status, service bulletins, and tech briefs. This program should provide yet another incentive for owners to choose a factory reman over a field overhaul. In addition to the headquarters support organization, TCM has 10 field technical reps8 regional reps in the U.S. plus 2 international reps. These are the guys your mechanic calls for technical help or warranty support when you have an engine problem. Each regional rep is an experienced A&P with extensive expertise in troubleshooting TCM engines. Each rep is equipped with a borescope, a fancy digital thermocouple test set, a Chadwick-Helmuth balancer, and now (since the advent of TCM-NET) a laptop computer, modem, and cellular phone. A couple of the reps who serve geographically-large territories also have company airplanes. We have first-hand experience dealing with a few of these TCM field reps. We've found them to be technically sharp and good folks to work with. The

biggest problem is that they travel a lot and are not always easy to reach on short notice. Overall impressions In one respect, what we saw in the course of our visit to TCM was what we expected to see: a big, old, dark, smelly factory packed with hundreds upon hundreds of antiquated metalworking machines operated by hundreds of sweaty machinists. And yet we saw lots of things that we found suprising, and most of the surprises were pleasant ones. TCM is clearly a company undergoing profound change. After a decade of denial following the precipitous industry downturn of the early '80s, TCM has brought in a new management team and appears to be turning the company around and doing almost all of the right things. TCM definitely is not behaving like a company on the brink of getting out of the business, as rumors might have you believe. TCM is investing millions in state-of-the-art machine tools and computer systems. The new cylinder cell has yielded impressive results in productivity and cost-cutting, and is a prototype for what TCM will be doing to the rest of the factory during the remainder of the decade. Also contrary to common perception, TCM seems to be doing everything right in the area of quality assurance. They're clearly working harder at Q/A than anyone else we visited (including Lycoming). There's no queston that TCM had big problems 5 or 6 years ago during the period of labor unrest. But today we're inclined to think that most of the horror stories about TCM's poor quality are outdated and a bum rap. TCM management believes that the OEM market for piston engines will rise again, and they are making the R&D investment that they think is needed to give the airframe builders of tomorrow a good reason to select TCM engines rather than Lycoming. TCM can be expected to be the engineering frontrunner in liquid-cooled, geared, turbocharged, and electronically-managed engines. If there's anything that TCM isn't doing well, it's communicating with the world outside of Mobile. In our judgement, TCM's advertising is ineffective. Their public and press relations stink. And their new customer support initiatives, although certainly welcome, are coming ten years too late. If we had one piece of advice for Brian Lewis, it would be this: go hire a topnotch Vice President of Corporate Communications. TCM today has a teriffic story to tell, but it's doing a lousy job of telling it. We think TCM's public

image is way past TBO and needs a major overhaul.

Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine, Part 2: A Email this article | Visit to Lycoming Print this article With Cessna back in the new piston airplane business, Lycoming should soon be top dog of the OEM engine market. But while they're busy gearing up for Cessna, the company still plans to expand its overhaul and parts business. November 9, 1995 by Paul Bertorelli and Mike Busch This article originally appeared in THE AVIATION CONSUMER and is reprinted here by permission. About the Author ... Paul Bertorelli is a professional aviation journalist and editor. He's Editorin-Chief of The Aviation Consumer and editorial director of AVweb and Belvoir Publications' Aviation Division. He's a 4,500-hour ATP and CFIA/CFII/CFIME. He owns a Mooney 231.

About the Author ...

Mike Busch is editor-inchief of AVweb, a member of the technical staff at Cessna Pilots Association, and in a prior lifetime was a contributing editor for The Aviation Consumer and IFR Magazine. A 6,000-hour commercial pilot and CFI with airplane, instrument and multiengine ratings, Mike has been flying for 36 years and an aircraft owner for 33. For the past 14 of those years, he's owned and flown a Cessna T310R turbocharged twin, which he maintains himself. In his never-ending quest to become a true renaissance man of aviation, Mike's on the verge of earning his A&P mechanic certificate. Mike and his wife Jan reside on the central coast of California in a semi-rural area where he can't get DSL or cable TV.

Articles in This Series

Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine, Part 1: A Visit to TCM (Teledyne

Will the piston engines of tomorrow incorporate new technology of will they just be more of the same? Do piston aircraft engines even have a future? To answer these questions, we've been touring the country talking to as many engine experts as we could find. This is the second article in a periodic series on the current state and future of the engine business. The first article in this series recounts our visit to Teledyne-Continental Motors. A companion piece presents our long and revealing one-on-one interview with Lycoming's CEO.

Continental Motors) Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine, Part 2: A Visit to Lycoming Supplemental Feature: Future of the Piston Aircraft Engine: An Interview with Lycoming's CEO

When we embarked upon our grand tour of engine plants and shops last fall, a mechanic we know advised us to brace for a shock when our travels took us to Textron Lycoming's plant in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. "You won't believe that place," he said. "It's like a ghost town." While that admonition proved to be an exaggeration, there's truth to it, too. Lycoming's aviation engine business is a fraction of what it was in the late 1970s, during the heyday of general aviation manufacturing in the U.S. The plant is a working monument to the term "sunset industry," but it also shows that even in the midst of a declining market, a determined company can prosper at a volume of business that would have seemed preposterously low by 1970s standards. As has Continental, Lycoming has survived by brutally downsizing itself

during the late 1980s and by ruthlessly cutting costs. But unlike Continental, which plans to capitalize on what may be a modest recovery by investing in new plant, Lycoming will continue to shrink its Williamsport workforce and to outsource most of its primary manufacturing. In effect, the plant is evolving into a large, highly specialized assembly operation whose competition is field overhaul shops and the companies that make engine parts. As we reported in the August Aviation Consumer, Continental is investing substantial money into clean-sheet engine designs while Lycoming intends only incremental improvements, with no revolutionary products in the works. (At least none that they would tell us about.) What limited R & D money it has goes into improved and more efficient manufacturing processes andan industry buzzword these days "enhanced customer service." Shortly after our third visit to Lycoming, Cessna announced that all of its new production will use Lycoming engines, thus Lycoming will soon be far ahead of Continental in new engine sales. Yet even though Lycoming execs seemed happy with this development, they weren't exactly dancing in the streets at Williamsport. Cessna hasn't ordered production-run engines yet and in general, we sensed that at Lycoming, any euphoria over a glorious recovery is tempered by the trauma of cutbacks that seem all too recent. The Old Line A visitor to Lycoming's Williamsport plant is struck by one thing: the place is old, seemingly but a generation beyond the days when factories ran on steam-driven lineshafts. Lycoming's "modern" historymeaning the manufacture of airplane enginesdates to early 1920s, when it produced a nine-cylinder radial, the R-680, which powered such aircraft as Stinsons and Stearmans. Before that, the Lycoming Company, on the same site it now occupies, manufactured auto engines for the Cord, Auburn and Duesenberg and before that, it made a successful line of sewing machines. (The company files still contain spec sheets and price lists for the sewing machines; evidently, before turning to engines, Lycoming (then called Demorest Fashion and Sewing) achieved no small success in the sewing and garment industry.) In 1932, Lycoming got gobbled up by the Aviation Corporation (Avco), which

already consisted of 81 companies, including Fairchild, Bendix, Fokker and several airlines. Through the 1930s and 1940s, it built aircraft engines of all designs (including radials) and, eventually, tank and turbine engines. In 1986, Avco was bought (including Lycoming) by Textron, yet another oldline industrial conglomerate that evolved from the New England textile industry (hence the name). Cessna wound up in the Textron fold in 1992, having been bought from General Dynamics. Like Continental, Lycoming had been going great guns through the 1970s. The industry seemed to accept periodic downturns but everyone assumed the inevitable rebound would yield yet ever higher demand for engines. The crash of 1980-81 changed all that. In little more than three years, piston production sagged from a high of 17,000 to barely 3500 in 1982. The engine industry practically went down the tubes with the OEMs. At its peak production, Lycoming had three shifts of workers, turning out 1500 new engines a month. There was no need to bother with remans or overhauls in those days. Now the output hovers between 300 and 400 engines a month, most of them remans and factory overhauls. The workforce stands at just less than 600, down from a peak of about 1800 during the heyday. Two years from now, it will decline to 300 or so, according to Phil Boob, Lycoming's CEO, with production at or above the 300-engines-a-month level and plenty of additional capacity. On the Factory Floor The downsizing is obvious to even a casual observer touring the Williamsport plant. The factory is a complex of classic, old-style industrial buildings, with high ceilings dimly lighted with fluorescent tubes and populated by rows of old machine tools, some dating to the 1940s and 1950s. Large areas of the plant floor are given over to...nothing. As production plummeted, Lycoming laid off workers and did away with defunct and unused machinery. Until recently, the Williamsport plant made parts for the turbine division in Bridgeport, but that business was sold to Allied-Signal and now all that remains are a few pieces of advanced CNC machinery. During our tours, we were shown some machine tools upgraded with numerical controls, but generally, the factory runs on the tools it had 20 or 30 years ago. During the early 1970s, Lycoming built a high-output line for connecting rods and a fully automated crankcase machining line that trundles cases from one machining operation to the next on a little trolley. It

was state of the art for its day and still holds its own. But it has far more capacity than Lycoming has orders. We were told that incremental improvements are made on machining and tooling processes, but no capital-intensive upgrades of the sort we saw at Continental are planned. Instead, the Holy Grail at Lycoming is outsourcing. Lycoming insists that it's more than profitable enough to invest in new plant, but it chooses not to. "We are in the position to invest," says Phil Boob, "but that would be the wrong answer for us. The reason is that other people have already made that investment in modern equipment that's being under utilized. There's just tremendous excess quality machining all over the world and in the U.S. As long the quality is there in the finished product, the customer doesn't care who makes it." Continental, of course, also outsources but it has aggressively invested in modern machinery, a strategy that Boob says Lycoming considered but rejected. "I'm wondering what the financials are going to look like when they start getting hit with the depreciation on that equipment in a skinny market. Five years from now, are they going to wake up and find that the company can't be profitable because of the depreciation? One of us is gonna be right and one of us is gonna be wrong. The world isn't going to vertical integration anymore. It hasn't been for years. Why fight the world?" Managers at Lycoming are fond of the phrase "added value" and throughout our tours, we were shown operations in which Lycoming workers were machining or processing parts which had originally been produced by another manufacturer. About 75 percent of its manufacturing is "value added," meaning that 25 percent of what goes into a Lycoming engine arrives at the factory in finished condition, with no need for the factory to do anything but install it. Within two to three years, that number will be closer to 95 percent. The factory will require a fraction of the floor space it now occupies and the workforce is expected to stabilize at about 300 workers. The Quality Issue For all its benefits, outsourcing has its problems. If the vendors aren't competent the quality will suffer and if they aren't reliable, the parts won't arrive on time. Lycoming admits that this has been a problem in the past, if only in terms of the sheer volume of vendors.

Engineer Rick Moffett told us that as recently as a year ago, the company was dealing with some 300 vendors; 80 companies alone supplied fasteners and hardware. By this summer, the vendor list had been winnowed to 130 and eventually, most of Lycoming's outside work and parts will be supplied by fewer than 100 companies. Quality control is one reason for this. At Continental, we saw a QC program built on periodic inspections of each process and part and Lycoming does the same, at least for now. They hope to rapidly move toward a system of certified vendors, whereby companies supplying the parts demonstrate they can produce quality work and inspect parts in their own plants before shipping them. "It makes no sense to inspect parts over and over," says Moffett. "It just adds cost, but no value." Instead, he says, "At some point, a vendor's quality is at the point where we wouldn't catch any problems unless we inspected every part." On the engine assembly line itself, Lycoming operates two distinct lines, one for new engines and one for remans and overhauls. Exchange overhauls are done in the factory while customer overhauls are completed in a small shop at the Williamsport Airport. This is in contrast to Continental, where all the engines move down the same line, differentiated only by the color of the serial number plate. (Continental doesn't offer factory overhauls, just remans.) At various points in the Lycoming assembly process, each engine is inspected for critical items such as cylinder-bolt or rod-bolt torque, for example. As does Continental, Lycoming performs an instrumented test-cell run on every engine and documents the results. It also disassembles every 20th engine of each type after the test cell run to inspect for damage or unusual wear. (Continental strips every 25th engine. There's no particular magic in either number; it's just the inspection procedure the FAA happened to have approved for each factory.) At Continental, we were shown detailed manuals that list standardized assembly procedures for each engine as it moves down the line. Slowly, these assembly manuals are being tied into computer tracking systems. By comparison, Lycoming is just beginning to develop this sort of computerized documentation, although each engine is accompanied down the line by inspection sheets that ultimately form a paper trail of its history. Curiously, although we have to say Continental's QC systems appear to be

more state-of-the-art, we receive far fewer complaints of poor quality slipping through the cracks at Lycoming. In our informal surveys of engine shops and from letters we receive from owners and operators, Lycoming seems to earn acceptable although not perfect grades for quality. What complaints we do hear often concern lagging parts shipments and, from field overhaul shops, high prices on engine parts that make it difficult for them to compete with the factory's economics. Indeed, at one engine shop we visited, almost the entire stockroom was filled with boxes from Superior Air Parts, the leading supplier of aftermarket engine components and Lycoming's chief competition. Without Superior and other PMA houses, say many field shops, Lycoming would have little incentive to price its engines and parts competitively. Getting the Business But Lycoming does have the competition and having watched its new engine business dwindle, the company has filled the void by going after the bread and butter of the field overhaul shops. "In 1976, we didn't really sell engines," says Peter Bates, who handles international marketing, "if you wanted an engine, you knew where to find us." All that's changed, of course. Until Cessna ramps up (and assuming it really meets its projected sales volumes), 70 percent of Lycoming's dollar output is either parts or remanufactured/overhauled engines. Despite the Cessna orders, we expect Lycoming will continue to go after the replacement market. "Right now," says Boob, "the competition is fierce and the margins tend not to be what we would like. But if we get our cost structure in lineand we have been doing thatthen there's no reason that we shouldn't own a minimum of 60 to 75 percent of that worldwide market." When Lycoming first got into the overhaul business, its prices didn't lure much business away from traditional overhaul shops. As both Lycoming and Continental have lowered their costs and learned to live by thinner margins and with Lycoming offering factory overhauls, marginal field shops have been driven out of the business and those that remain are finding a tougher go of it. On many engines, overhaul shops can still undersell the factory, but the price spread is less than it used to be and factory engines always include new cylinders, a significant incentive for some customers.

In 1992, Lycoming essentially cut the cost of its cylinder kits by half on the most popular engines. This development didn't kill the re-conditioned cylinder market overnight, but it surely eased the pain of equipping an overhaul with new jugs instead of reconditioning the old ones. It also made factory overhauls yet more competitive. The factory had always been at a disadvantage in service and engine delivery times. With five to eight week lead times common, field overhaul shops are bad enough but until recently, Lycoming had trouble matching even those schedules. Now, the factory has put in place a four-tiered delivery schedule, such that engines for popular airplanesan IO-360 for a Mooney, for exampleare kept "inflow" and can supposedly be shipped within two weeks on an exchange basis. Few field shops can match that. Although delivering an overhaul or reman in two weeks sounds like a trivial accomplishment, Moffett says it took a fundamental reshaping of factory culture that's still ongoing. "Being good at building new engines doesn't mean you're worth a damn at overhauls," he says. In days of yore, when volumes were high, the plant would inventory parts for each engine. But because Lycoming builds so many variants of only five engine families (more than 600), the process was wasteful of time and money. Worse, if an engine assembler ran out of cranks or some other part, work would halt until a new run of parts could be made. Now, Lycoming uses a variation of the "just-in-time" inventory method pioneered by Japanese auto plants. Inventories of major parts are tracked by demand and then advanced through manufacturing only to the point where commonality with other engines in the family ends. The O-320, for example, used to require six basic crankshafts in 29 variations, the differentiation amounting to a hole bored here instead of there. Now, says Moffett, there are three basic cranks and finish work on the part doesn't happen until just before it's due to go into the engine, thus the plant ties up less money in inventory but can still meet short delivery schedules. More of the Same Another stark contrast between Lycoming and Continental is the corporate attitude toward innovation and risk. Continental touts itself as a hightechnology engine company, with hopes that its clean-sheet designs will lead the way to the future. Lycoming, on the other hand, is obsessive about retaining what works,

making tweaks in production processes and, above all, avoiding disastrous service problems that alienate customers and strain the warranty budget. Some complain that Lycoming is too conservative and waits too long to correct design or production flaws. In recent history, one of Lycoming's more painful forays into innovation was the O-320-H2AD engine that powered the Cessna 172 from 1977 to 1980. The engine was supposedly an improved variant of what had been a virtually bulletproof powerplant for Cessna. More important, it gave Lycoming an opportunity to tailor the engine to its new automated crankcase line. The engine proved to be an embarrassment for both Lycoming and Cessna. It suffered premature camshaft and valve train wear, not to mention failures due to sheared oil pump drives. Lycoming eventually cured the H-engine's ills, but the experience reinforced the company's instincts to stick with the tried and true. Still, that didn't stop Lycoming from teaming with John Deere in the mid1980s to build a revolutionary new aircraft rotary engine. After sinking millions into the project, neither Deere nor Lycoming found any takers. Well, actually, they found one. "I was vice-president of sales at the time," recalls Phil Boob. "We found just one airframe manufacturer willing to sign a memorandum of understanding to go forward with that engine. That was Cessna. They signed the memorandum on Monday and made the announcement on Friday that they were getting out of the light airplane business." In Boob's mind, the current marketprobably even a revitalized market isn't demanding nor will it support revolutionary engine designs. "If all I'm doing is replacing engines that I'm selling anyway, how does it make sense to develop new engines? Now if you could increase the market, or increase the total number of units you could sell, or you could get more per engine, obviously, it starts to make some sense. But if I'm going to replace a 540 with a rotary at the same numbers, why am I going to do it? Why would anyone do it?" That's not to say Lycoming won't improve its engines incrementally. It plans to make available the new Slick LASAR electronic ignition system and doubtless numerous other minor improvements. But if you're looking for a new-age powerplant with 400 horsepower and .30 fuel specifics, it won't come from Williamsport. Conclusion

Of all the companies we've visited recently, Lycoming seems the best positioned to benefit from any GA recovery. With Cessna's restart on the horizon, Lycoming won't need much investment to service what could be a huge inflow of business. Even if Cessna fizzles, Lycoming appears to be in a superb position to grab more of the overhaul and reman market. Although Lycoming's customer service network is not yet as sophisticated as Continental'sits plans for computer on-line access to maintenance data are a year or more awaythe company has added service reps in the field and doubled the number of people available to help customers over the phone. And despite complaints, Lycoming doesn't suffer the bad quality rep that seems to perpetually dog Continental. We see this as generally positive news for aircraft owners and operators, although we have some concerns that if predatory pricing drives too many field shops out of business, lack of competition will cause engine prices to spiral upward again and service quality may decline. Given the health of the PMA industry, however, that seems unlikely to happen in the near term future. Gearing Up For Cessna In the old days, a major new order for powerplants meant the factory would staff up, add shifts and go at the job hammer and tong. Not anymore. Although it has hired on some additional engineering help, Lycoming will fill Cessna's orders mostly with the workers it already has, with outside companies building the parts and pieces. Despite the fact that the 172,182 and 206 will be getting engines they've never had before, Lycoming will stick to its corporate philosophy of using only the tried and true, or at least as much of it as the customer will accept. The parallel-valve IO-360 to be used in the Cessna 172, for example, is virtually the same engine used in the Cutlass RG, although it will have fuel injection instead of a carburetor, ostensibly to reduce the likelihood of carburetor ice. At this point, it looks like Slick's LASAR electronic ignition system will be an option on this engine, but not necessarily standard. (It hasn't been certified yet.) When we visited the plant last winter, no one at Lycoming thought Cessna would drop the Continental IO-520 in favor of a Lycoming engine but that's exactly what happened. Cessna asked Lycorning for a 300plus HP bed-mounted engine for the 206 and Lycoming proposed a new

model called the IO-580. But even this engine is new only by degree. The power section (crankcase, crankshaft, rods, cam) will be essentially the same as that used in the 540-series engines, with the additional displacement coming from boring of standard 540 cylinders. The heads will be retreads, too, having been used on the TIO-540-V2BD used in the Piper Mojave 15 years ago. That engine had less than a stellar service history but its problems weren't related to heads and cylinders. The IO-580 will have 310 HP and a turbocharged version-using a new model Garrett turbocharger-is in the works. The biggest difference may be in external appearance. The IO-580 will have top-mounted induction and a bottom-mounted exhaust, whereas Lycoming has generally located the intake plumbing on the bottom of the engine.

Licking Alternator Whine Email this article | Print this article Is that whine in your earphones driving you nuts? It might well be alternatorinduced radio noise. Here's how to identify alternator and regulator noise, what causes it, and how to get rid of it. February 5, 1996 by John Schwaner This article is Copyright 1995 by Sacramento Sky Ranch Inc. All rights reserved. About the Author ... John Schwaner is AVweb's powerplant expert. John is a world-class authority on piston aircraft engines, and a specialist in the engineering analysis of engine failures. John runs Sacramento Sky Ranch, Inc., a leading distributor of aircraft and engine parts, and probably the foremost aircraft hose shop and magneto overhaul facility in

Identifying the problem the U.S. John and his wife live in Alternator induced radio noise Sacramento, California. is a high pitched whine whose John has also written two pitch and intensity increases superb technical books: Sky and decreases with changes in Ranch Engineering Manual and engine speed. Turning the alternator The Magneto Ignition System. master switch off also turns off the radio Both can be previewed in and noise. ordered from the AVweb Solid state regulators that use a pulseOnline Bookstore. width-modulated field control system can also create a whine in the radios. Regulator-caused whine can be distinguished from the alternator-caused whine in that the intensity and pitch of regulator-induced noise changes with changing current load at a constant engine speed. Thus, turning on the landing lights won't increase alternator whine but will increase regulator whine. How the alternator works Current generated in the alternator stator windings is three-phase alternating current, but diodes convert it from AC to DC before it leaves the alternator. Six diodes are required to rectify the three stator phases. Each of the three stator windings is connected to a pair of diodes. Three diodes are connected to the positive output terminal of the alternator, and the other three are connected to the negative (ground) terminal. As the voltage of each stator winding increases, the corresponding pair of diodes becomes forward biased and allows alternator current to pass. Which stator winding and diode pair is conducting at any moment depends upon rotor position. After the diodes rectify the three AC phases and sum them all together, the combined result is a DC voltage with only a slight amount of AC ripple voltage remaining. The best way to detect ripple voltage on the electrical bus is with an oscilloscope. Another method is to use an ordinary volt-ohmmeter (VOM) set to measure AC volts. You may have to connect a capacitor in series with the positive meter lead to block out the DC voltage so that only the ripple voltage gets to your meter. (Some meters do this automatically when you select AC volts.) The capacitor is an open circuit to DC but passes AC, so the voltmeter reading you see is the amount of AC ripple voltage on the bus. You will need to do comparison readings with other aircraft to determine

what AC voltage level is normal. What causes alternator whine? Normally, there is not enough ripple voltage to cause radio noise. But, there are two conditions that can cause an increase in ripple voltage sufficient to create radio noise. These are diode failure and increased circuit impedance. If an alternator diode fails, the amount of ripple voltage increases markedly. Alternator whine can be a symptom of a bad alternator diode. Two test methods can be used to test the alternator without disassembly. There is a hand held unit with a probe that clamps over the alternator output wire. A bad diode will show up on the meter. These meters were originally sold as the Ward Aero Alternator Tester model 647. They are currently sold by Support Systems Inc. as model 10-647-01. The second test method is to use an oscilloscope to check the alternator output for excessive voltage ripple or rectifier spikes caused by a bad diode. Checking the diodes With the alternator apart, the diodes can be checked with a VOM set to measure ohms. This test makes sure that each diode conducts in only one direction. You need to unsolder the stator leads from the each diode. Calibrate the VOM on the R x 1 multiplier range scale so that there is zero reading with the VOM leads shorted together. Connect one test probe to the alternator's positive output terminal and touch the other test probe to each of the three solder terminals of the diodes mounted to the positive rectifier plate. Note the three ohmmeter readings: they should be identical. Now reverse the test probes and repeat the test. Note the three ohmmeter readings: again they should be identical to each other, but not the same as in the previous step. Three of the ohmmeter readings should show a low resistance reading of approximately 6 to 20 ohms and three should show an infinite reading (no meter movement). Repeat the same test procedure for the three diodes on the negative rectifier plate, connecting one test probe to the negative output terminal and checking all three diodes with the other probe. Then reverse the leads and check again. The diodes should show low resistance in one direction, and infinite resistance in the opposite direction. Circuit causes Alternator whine can also be caused by poor electrical connections, especially at the battery. Normally, the low impedance of the battery keeps

the aircraft's electrical circuits at a DC potential. (Impedence is simply resistance to an AC current.) Any AC ripple voltage in the aircraft bus is absorbed by the battery. Thus, the aircraft battery acts as a big ripple absorber. If the battery provided zero impedence (i.e., a short-circuit for AC current), alternator noise could not occur. In the real world, there will always be some impedance. But the lower it is, the less ripple voltage there will be. Let's assume that the battery positive terminal is corroded. Although DC resistance as measured with an ohmmeter may still be low, the highfrequency resistance (i.e., impedence) may be very high. The higher this impedence, the greater the ripple voltage on the bus and the more whine you hear in your radios. Circuit impedance can be lowered by making sure the battery posts are clean and making good contact. DC resistance should be less than 0.01 ohm...virtually zero. Also check the alternator ground connections, including the engine grounding strap. DC resistance between the alternator and the negative post of the battery terminal should be as low as possible. The ideal low-noise circuit would have the alternator power output going directly to the battery's positive terminal. This dumps ripple voltage into the battery, where it is absorbed. The radio power lead would also go directly to a pure DC source, the battery. If the alternator power lead and the radio power lead connects to a bus, then voltage ripple can go from the alternator to the radio power lead. The amount of voltage ripple at the bus depends upon the impedance between the bus and the battery. This impedance is higher than at the battery. The return path is from the alternator to the engine, engine mount, firewall, and through the fuselage to the battery. These connections should have low resistance. Flat braided ground straps are ideal for grounding the airframe to the engine mount. Flat braided straps are used because impedance is less with a braided, flat conductor than a round wire conductor. Filter capacitors There are two methods of filtering ripple voltage: bypassing the ripple voltage back to the source, or blocking the voltage ripple so that it cannot pass. Capacitors are used to bypass ripple voltage, whereas inductors are used to block noise currents. The most effective approach depends primarily on the circuit impedance. Capacitors bypass noise currents back to the alternator return path

(commonly referred to as ground). To be effective, a capacitor must have a low impedance path back to the alternator. Consequently, a filter capacitor must be mounted as close to possible to the alternator. The capacitor is installed with one lead connected to the power output and the other lead to ground, so that it is in parallel with the circuit. For DC voltages the capacitor forms an open circuit (high impedance) and doesn't allow any current to pass. At noise frequencies the capacitor forms a short circuit (low impedance) and bypasses noise currents back to the alternator. In this manner we have formed a low-pass filter. The effectiveness of using a capacitor as a noise filter depends upon matching the capacitance rating of the capacitor to the frequency of the noise currents. The frequency at which the capacitor's capacitance and inductance are equal is where it has the lowest impedance and the best filtering. This is the resonant frequency. The correct size capacitor is one where the frequency we wish to bypass is the same or less than the resonant frequency. Smaller size capacitors (picofarad range) are effective at high frequencies, while larger size capacitors (microfarad range) are effective at lower frequencies. If you're filtering conducted interference (as you are in an alternator), then this is low-frequency and the capacitor should be in the microfarad range. If you're filtering radiated interference (where the conductor is acting as an antenna), this is high-frequency and the capacitor should be in the picofarad range. Typically, an alternator filter uses a .5 to 50 microfarad capacitor. Cessna has a 5.72 microfarad capacitor filter available as part number S1915-1. The best types of capacitors for filtering are ceramic and tantalum capacitors, ceramic for the picofarad range and tantalum for the microfarad range. Electrolytic capacitors are relatively poor noise filters, and also have a short life. Capacitor resonance can be approximated with the following formula: resonant frequency (in MHz) equals 1/2 pi times the square root of lead length times capacitance. Notice that lead length has a significant effect on the capacitor's resonant frequency. For example, a 500 pf capacitor with 1/4 inch leads resonates at 100 MHz. But with 1 inch leads, it resonates at 50 MHz. So capacitor lead lengths used in filter circuits should be kept as short as possible. Inductive filters

The other way to filter radio noise is to block the ripple with a series inductor. The most common style of inductor for noise filtering is a ferrite core. These come in many different styles but typically the wire with the noise currents is wrapped around the core, creating an inductor in series with the circuit. DC current passes through the core but high frequency currents induce a magnetic field in the ferromagnetic material of the core. This magnetic field raises the impedance and effectively blocks noise currents. Ferrites are effective on radio power input leads and strobe power input leads. In the first case they prevent noise currents from entering the radio, and in the second case they prevent noise currents from exiting the strobe. To be effective, ferrite impedance must be larger than circuit impedance. To filter the output of an alternator would required an impractically huge ferrite core. So alternator voltage ripple is usually bypassed to ground by use of a capacitor. However, ferrites are simple to use and have an amazing filtering ability. Ferrites are best used in low impedance circuits whereas capacitors are best used in high impedance circuits. It is best to install ferrites on the radio power input leads, and to use a filter capacitor at the alternator output terminal.

Troubleshooting the Turbo-System Email this article | Print this article Turbocharging problems seem to be among the most elusive for A&Ps to find and fix, at least judging from the feedback we get from aircraft owners. The keys to success include having a thorough understanding of the system, knowing the symptoms that often can be tip-offs to what's wrong, and using a logical troubleshooting strategy. AVweb editor Mike Busch offers all that, plus a step-bystep checklist for diagnosing those turbo gremlins. December 25, 1998 b Mike Busch y This article originally appeared in the December 1998 issue of CESSNA PILOTS ASSOCIATION

MAGAZINE. Mike Busch is editor-in-chief of AVweb, a member of One of the most perplexing the technical maintenance problem areas that staff at Cessna owners of high-performance piston Pilots aircraft have to deal with is the Association, and in a prior turbocharging system. I often hear from lifetime was a contributing unhappy owners who have already incurred editor for The Aviation considerable expense in overhauling or Consumer and IFR Magazine. A replacing costly turbo-system components without having resolved the trouble. As always, 6,000-hour commercial pilot and CFI with airplane, I advise that it's almost never a good idea to instrument and multiengine "throw money at the problem" until sufficient ratings, Mike has been flying for troubleshooting has been done to identify the 36 years and an aircraft owner actual cause of the problem. for 33. For the past 14 of those There are very good reasons that turbocharging problems tend to be difficult for years, he's owned and flown a mechanics to troubleshoot. They're hardly ever Cessna T310R turbocharged reproducible on the ground, often occur only at twin, which he maintains himself. In his never-ending quite high altitudes, and are sometimes quite quest to become a true erratic or intermittent. In most cases, the mechanic has no choice but to rely entirely on renaissance man of aviation, a description of the symptoms provided by the Mike's on the verge of earning owner or pilot. Unfortunately, that description his A&P mechanic certificate. Mike and his wife Jan reside on is often incomplete or misleading because the the central coast of California in owner or pilot doesn't really understand what a semi-rural area where he the mechanic needs to know to diagnose the can't get DSL or cable TV. problem correctly. Furthermore, there's precious little cockpit instrumentation that offers any direct measurement of what the turbocharging system is doing. We don't have a turbocharger spindle speed gauge or a wastegate position indicator on the panel. Turbo problems generally show up on the Manifold Pressure gauge, and that instrument provides only a very indirect

Turbocharging Basics What Really Happens What Can Go Wrong? A Troubleshooting Strategy

About the Author ...

indication of what's going on with the turbocharging system. To make matters even worse, the fundamental design of the automaticallycontrolled turbocharging systems used on most high-performance and pressurized aircraft tends to compensate for-and therefore conceal-problems with the engine and turbo-system, often leaving pilots blissfully ignorant that mechanical problems are developing until those problems get quite serious. Nevertheless, if the owner or pilot understand how the system works and knows that to look for, and if the mechanic employs a logical procedure for troubleshooting the system, it's usually possible to isolate turbocharging problems problem without having to resort to the "shotgun approach" of replacing or overhauling one component after another until the problem finally disappears. Turbocharging Basics The basic principles of turbocharging are quite simple. The turbocharger itself consists of exhaust-driven turbine wheel mounted on one end of a shaft, and a centrifugal compressor impeller mounted on the other end. Engine exhaust gases, which would otherwise simply be wasted energy, are used to spin the turbine at very high speed (typically 50,000 to 100,000 RPM). This drives the compressor, which is used to boost the pressure of the engine's induction air and therefore increase the engine's power output. Turbocharging can be employed in two ways. One, known as turbonormalizing, is used to maintain sea level manifold pressure (roughly 30 in. hg.) at altitude, thereby eliminating the progressive horsepower reduction that occurs with normally-aspirated engines as the aircraft climbs. The other, known as turboboosting, boosts manifold pressure to a value significantly higher than sea level ambient (usually 35 to 45 in. hg.) to provide increased sea level horsepower. Boosted engines normally employ some means to provide adequate detonation margins, such as reduced compression ratio and intercooling. In either case, the turbocharging system needs to include a means of controlling the turbocharger's compressor output pressure. Without such a control system, a turbocharged engine would be fundamentally unstable. For example, a small increase in engine power would result in a small increase in exhaust volume. This would cause the turbocharger to spin faster, which would increase the compressor speed and therefore the manifold pressure. This would result in an additional increase in engine power, producing more exhaust volume, faster turbocharger speed, higher manifold pressure, etc. In other words, the system would "run away" and very possibly exceed maximum engine operating limits.

Likewise, a small decrease in engine power would cause a reduction in exhaust volume, a decrease in turbocharger speed, a reduction in manifold pressure, a further decrease in engine power, and so forth. In short, the engine would be nearly impossible to control. The way turbocharger output is regulated is by means of a butterfly valve called a "wastegate" which allows a certain amount of exhaust gas to be vented overboard without going through the turbocharger. If the wastegate is fully open, almost all of the exhaust bypasses the turbocharger; if it is fully closed, virtually all of the exhaust must go through the turbocharger.

Automatic control Most high-performance turbocharged aircraft (including all pressurized piston models) employ an automatic wastegate control system to regulate the turbocharger. (A few aircraft such as the Mooney 231 and Piper Seneca use fixed wastegates, while Cessna's T182/TR182 and some older aftermarket turbo

conversions use manually-controlled wastegates.) The automatic system employs a hydraulic wastegate actuator and an pressure controller to maintain turbocharger output at the desired pressure. The wastegate butterfly is normally held in the full-open position by a strong spring, allowing exhaust gas to bypass the turbocharger. Engine oil pressure applied to the wastegate actuator causes the wastegate butterfly to close, forcing exhaust gas to go through the turbocharger. The more oil pressure is applied to the wastegate actuator, the more the wastegate closes until, at about 50 PSI, the butterfly is fully closed. The pressure controller monitors the output of the turbocharger's compressor (also known as "upper deck pressure" or UDP), and regulates the oil pressure to the wastegate actuator to hold the turbocharger output constant. The controller is a simple device that consists of an aneroid and a poppet valve. Here's how it works. If the turbocharger output is less than the set-point of the controller, the aneroid expands and closes the poppet valve, increasing the oil pressure in the wastegate actuator and causing the wastegate to close. This causes more exhaust to pass through the turbocharger, spinning it faster, and increasing the compressor output. If, on the other hand, turbocharger output rises above the set-point of the controller, the aneroid contracts and opens the poppet valve, decreasing the oil pressure in the wastegate actuator and allowing the wastegate to open a bit. This lets more exhaust gas bypass the turbocharger, slowing it down and decreasing compressor output. Thus, equilibrium is quickly reached whereby the turbocharger output stays right at the set-point of the controller and the system remains stable. Most unpressurized turbos use an absolute pressure controller (APC) set to maintain turbocharger output at a few inches over engine red-line. The controller set-point is easily adjustable by screwing the controller's poppet valve seat in or out, and should be adjusted so that application of full throttle produces the proper red-line manifold pressure for takeoff. Most pressurized piston aircraft use a variable absolute pressure controller (VAPC). The difference between an APC and VAPC is that the VAPC's set-point is varied by means of a cam connected to the throttle control. At full-throttle, the VAPC works just like an APC (and is adjusted to produce proper full-throttle MP in the same fashion). But at partial throttle settings, the VAPC set-point is reduced so that the turbocharger doesn't have to "work so hard" when the pilot throttles back to

reduced manifold pressure. What Really Happens To gain a better understanding of how the system works, let's follow it through an actual flight profile and see what it actually does. To make things simple, let's suppose we're flying an unpressurized airplane like my T310R that uses a simple absolute pressure controller. (The differences when flying a pressurized airplane with a VAPC are minor and not really significant for purposes of this discussion.) You've probably noticed that when flying a normally-aspirated airplane, fullthrottle manifold pressure at takeoff never quite reaches sea level ambient (around 30"), but tops out at a few inches less than that due to unavoidable pressure losses in the induction system. Likewise, for a turbocharged airplane to achieve rated red-line MP on takeoff, the APC set-point must be a few inches higher to compensate for induction system losses. My T310R's manifold pressure red-line is at 32", and the APC set-point is adjusted to about 3" higher (about 35") to produce red-line MP on takeoff. Let's start the engines and taxi to the runup area. The APC sees that the turbocharger output is less than its set-point of 35" so it closes its poppet valve to call for wastegate to close. As soon as engine oil pressure comes up, the wastegate (which is spring-loaded to the full-open position) will close all the way. However, since the engine is at idle, there's not enough exhaust flow to spin up the turbocharger enough to produce 35" of UDP, so the wastegate remains fully closed throughout the taxi and probably even during the runup. Now we taxi onto the runway and slowly apply full throttle for takeoff. As the engine develops more and more power, the exhaust flow increases dramatically and spins the turbocharger faster and faster, causing UDP to increase until it reaches the controller set-point of 35". At that point, the controller opens its poppet valve to relieve the oil pressure to the wastegate actuator, allowing the wastegate to open as necessary to stop the turbocharger from spinning up any faster and thereby holding UDP right at 35" (and indicated MP right at the 32" redline). Climbing out of 1000' AGL, we reduce to 75% cruise-climb power (which in my T310R is 29" MP and 2350 RPM). Throttling back to 29" MP reduces the exhaust flow from the engine, and reducing RPM from 2700 to 2350 reduces the exhaust flow even more. This causes the turbocharger to start slowing down, but the controller immediately notices the resulting decay of UDP and closes its poppet valve to command the wastegate to close and force more exhaust through the turbocharger, causing the turbo to spin back up to the point where UDP is steady

at 35". This all happens so quickly that we're never aware that it's going on. Climb As we climb on up to the Flight Levels, outside ambient pressure decreases by about 1" per 1,000' of climb. This decreased pressure would normally cause a corresponding decrease in UDP (and therefore MP), but once again the controller compensates for this decay by gradually closing the wastegate more and more as we continue to climb, forcing more and more exhaust through the turbocharger and spinning it up faster and faster as required to maintain UDP at a constant 35". In the cockpit, we notice that MP is staying more-or-less right where we set it (at 29"), without the inch-per-thousand-feet drop-off that we'd expect in a normallyaspirated airplane. Of course, this can't go on forever. If we were to keep climbing higher and higher, and the controller were to keep closing the wastegate more and more to compensate for the decreased ambient air pressure, eventually we'd reach a point where the wastegate was fully closed and the controller was no longer able to maintain 35" of UDP. In my T310R at 75% cruise-climb power, this occurs at around FL220, while in many other turbocharged aircraft, it occurs somewhat higher (FL250 or more). At this point, when the wastegate is fully closed and the automatic control system is no longer able to maintain constant UDP, the engine is said to be "bootstrapping" because the system is unregulated (and therefore unstable) and large MP variations may be observed. Cruise But we don't want to go that high today. Let's suppose we level off at FL180 and let the airplane accelerate to cruise speed. As the airspeed increases, the ram air effect causes a small increase in induction air pressure and a corresponding (somewhat larger) increase in UDP. Again, the controller notices this happening, and commands the wastegate to open a bit in order to slow down the turbocharger and hold UDP right at 35". Now that we're trimmed for level cruise at FL180, we slowly pull back on the prop controls to reduce RPM from 2350 (top of the green arc on the tach) to 2250 RPM. As we reduce engine RPM, exhaust volume is also reduced, causing the turbocharger to spin slower and reducing UDP. The controller reacts by commanding the wastegate to close in order to spin the turbo back up and restore 35" UDP. Suppose we continue to reduce RPM gradually from 2250 to 2100 RPM, which is the bottom of the green arc on my T310R. As we do this, the controller closes the wastegate further and further in order to compensate for the reduced exhaust

flow and maintain 35" UDP. But at some point around 2150 RPM, the wastegate will reach the fully closed position and any further reduction in RPM will cause the engine to bootstrap (indicated both by loss of MP and instability of MP readings). Upon observing the onset of bootstrapping, we increase RPM by 50 or so and see that the bootstrapping stops. Descent Okay, we've had enough fun, and it's time to head back to the barn. We switch off altitude hold on the autopilot, and roll in enough nose-down pitch trim to start a 1,000 FPM descent out of FL180. As our indicated airspeed rises from its cruise value of 160 KIAS to around 200 KIAS, increased ram air tries to increase UDP above 35", but the controller sees this and opens the wastegate enough to hold UDP steady. As we descend, outside ambient increases by about 1" per 1,000', so the controller must continually open the wastegate more and more to prevent UDP from rising. In the cockpit, all we see is that MP remains rock steady at 29", right where we set it. By the time we get down to pattern altitude, the wastegate is most of the way open. It stays there until we throttle way back for our final descent and landing. When we do that, the reduction in engine power causes exhaust volume to fall, and the controller has to close the wastegate to make up for it and maintain 35" UDP. Eventually, as we close the throttle all the way prior to touchdown, even fullclosed wastegate is not enough to maintain 35" UDP because the idling engine is hardly putting out any exhaust volume at all. The wastegate remains fully closed as we turn off the runway and taxi in to the ramp. It remains fully closed until we pull the mixtures to idle cutoff, at which point engine oil pressure goes away and the wastegate returns to its spring-loaded full-open position. What Can Go Wrong? The preceding discussion is all predicated on an engine and turbo-system that is working properly, of course. A wide variety of mechanical ailments can interfere with the proper operation of the system. These include: Induction leaks Exhaust leaks Internal engine problems Wastegate problems Controller problems Turbocharger problems All of these problems can result in improper operation of the turbocharging system, but each one tends to produce symptoms that are subtly different in

character. Therefore, a careful analysis of the symptoms can often help pinpoint the cause of the problem, or at least rule out some of the possibilities and help narrow the search. But since-as we noted earlier-most turbo problems show up only at high altitudes and seldom on the ground, it's often up to the pilot (rather than the mechanic) to make critical observations of the symptoms and decipher what they mean. Induction leaks One of the most common causes of turbo-system problems are leaks in the induction system. I recall, for example, helping a member troubleshoot his Cessna T310 in which it turned out that an engine control cable had been chafing against the engine's induction manifold in a hard-to-see location. Eventually the steel cable wore a slot all the way through the wall of the cast aluminum induction pipe, creating a fairly significant induction system leak. The pilot squawked the problem when he notice a significant manifold pressure "split" between the two engines while cruising at the Flight Levels. The engines appeared to be operating normally on the ground, during takeoff, and when operating at low and middle altitudes. The problem only showed up when the airplane was flying up high. If you think about the consequences of an induction leak, that's not surprising. Consider what happens during a full-power takeoff at or near sea level. (Once again, let's assume the airplane in question is my Cessna T310R so we can use the same numbers as we did before.) Manifold pressure inside the induction manifold is at red-line (32"), but that's only a trifle greater than outside ambient pressure (around 30"). So relatively little induction air escapes through the leak. What little loss there is will be sensed by the turbo controller as a loss of UDP, and the controller will cause the wastegate to close just a trifle, compensating for the small loss and effectively concealing the problem. From the cockpit point of view, both MP needles are right where they should be and everything appears nominal. At 1,000' we throttle back to 29" MP for cruise-climb. What's the outside ambient pressure at 1,000'? About 29"! So now, the induction leak becomes a total irrelevancy, since the pressure inside and outside the induction manifold are virtually identical, and so there's no loss of pressure through the leak at all. As we continue to climb at 29" MP, outside ambient decreases by about 1" per 1,000' so the pressure differential between inside and outside the induction manifold increases steadily. More and more induction air escapes through the leak. However, the turbo controller senses this loss and keeps closing the wastegate and cranking up the turbo output to compensate for it. In the cockpit,

the MP needle never wavers from 29" and so the pilot remains blissfully unaware of the problem. The wastegate on the leaky engine is closed more than it should be, and the turbocharger on that engine is spinning faster than it should be, but the engine is running just fine and there's no cockpit instrumentation to provide the slightest clue that something's awry. The pilot's first indication of a problem comes as the airplane climbs through 15,000' and the MP on the troubled engine starts to fall and become erratic, while the MP on the other engine remains rock-solid at 29". What's happened, of course, is that the pressure differential across induction leak has become so great (about 15" now) that even the maximum output of the turbocharger can no longer keep up with the loss. The controller, it its now-futile attempt to compensate for the leak, has commanded the wastegate to go fully closed, and the engine has started to bootstrapsomething that should normally not happen until the airplane climbs well into the Flight Levels. These are the classic symptoms of an induction leak problem: normal operation at takeoff and low altitude, and the premature onset of bootstrapping (i.e., loss of MP and MP regulation) at higher altitudes. Unfortunately, there are other kinds of problems (e.g., exhaust leaks) that can produce the same symptoms. So how can you be sure? Good question! It turns out that there's another symptom-one that the owner of this aircraft missed-that can often be used to distinguish an induction leak problem like this one from various other kinds of turbo-related problems. Best of all, this symptom is one that can be checked without having to take the airplane up to high altitude, or even leaving the ground at all! The tip-off is higher-thannormal MP when the engine is throttled back to idle. Consider an engine idling on the ground. The engine is "trying to breathe" but the throttle is retarded to idle, closing the throttle butterfly and choking off most of the available induction air. (It's called a throttle because it chokes off the engine's airway!) The result is a significant vacuum in the induction manifold, as the engine consumes the air in the induction manifold but the closed throttle butterfly blocks the inflow of air to take its place. In the cockpit, this shows up as a very low MP reading (typically, something on the order of 12" to 15") far below outside ambient (around 30" at sea level). But suppose there's a substantial leak in the induction plumbing somewhere between the throttle and the cylinders. What happens? Ambient air rushes in through the leak because of the vacuum in the induction manifold. In the cockpit, this shows up as a higher-than-normal MP indication at idleperhaps 17" instead

of 14". The engine will also be idling leaner than usual-since the leak lets in more air but not more fuel-so the engine may tend to stumble a bit when you throttleup for taxi (at least if the leak is big enough). High MP at idle isn't a perfect tool for diagnosing induction leaks. Some induction leaks won't produce this symptom (e.g., leaks in the upper deck portion of the system prior to the throttle body). Also, the symptom can be produced by other things besides an induction leak (e.g., a non-firing cylinder or a badly misadjusted idle mixture). But certainly if you see both abnormal bootstrapping at altitude and high MP at idle, certainly the odds favor an induction leak, and that's probably the first place you should look for trouble. If you suspect an induction leak (based on the observed symptoms), the first step should be to confirm the diagnosis by performing a critical altitude check. The procedure is described in detail in your aircraft service manual, and consists of a test flight at altitude in which certain power settings are established at certain altitudes, and the MP readings are recorded. The service manual has tables that establish how much MP you should be able to obtain at these benchmark altitudes under specified conditions of RPM, fuel flow and temperature. If your engine falls significantly short, then you can be sure you have a problemand odds are that it's an induction leak (although there are other possibilities that we will discuss later on). If you can't find anything obviously wrong after careful visual inspection of the induction system, a simple pressure check may be in order. All that's required is to pressurize the induction system with a few PSI of air-one good way is simply to pump air into a cylinder as if you were doing a compression check, but rotate the prop so that the cylinder's intake valve is open-then close the throttle and go over the entire induction system with a soapy water spray, looking for leaks that reveal themselves by blowing bubbles. Some leaks are expected at the induction system drains and, to a lesser extent, around the throttle shaft, but the rest of the induction system should be completely airtight. Exhaust leaks

An exhaust leak can produce similar symptoms to an induction leak-the onset of bootstrapping at a lowerthan-normal altitude-because any exhaust that escapes through a leak bypasses the turbocharger just as if it escaped through an open wastegate. Just like with an induction leak, the turbo controller will try to compensate for (and thereby cover up) the problem by commanding the wastegate to close, so the symptoms generally won't show up until the airplane is at high altitude. (Unlike a lower-deck induction system leak, an exhaust leak will not affect MP at idle.) Exhaust leaks are inherently much more dangerous than induction leaks, because of the very serious threat of in-flight fire. Fortunately, exhaust leaks are usually a lot easier to detect because they typically leave brightly-colored exhaust stains (and sometimes also obvious heat damage) that can be detected visually during an engine-compartment inspection. All turbocharged aircraft should have their exhaust systems meticulously inspected for leaks every 50 hours, and this is required by Airworthiness Directive for certain aircraft such as the Cessna T210 and all turbocharged twin Cessnas. Because the exhaust system operates under extreme heat and pressure, and because exhaust gas is so very corrosive, exhaust leaks can sometimes develop suddenly (a "blowout") rather than gradually. The pilot of a turbocharged aircraft who experiences a sudden unexplained loss of manifold pressure in-flight should assume that an exhaust failure may have occurred, and should put the airplane on the ground at the earliest possible moment. If the aircraft is a twin, the pilot should consider the possibility of shutting down and securing the engine to minimize the threat of in-flight fire. I don't mean to frighten you with this statement. I have done extensive investigation of exhaust failures in turbocharged aircraft, and has concluded that

the risk of an in-flight exhaust failure (particularly one of the "blowout" variety) is extremely remote on aircraft whose exhaust systems have been properly maintained and inspected. The vast majority of in-flight blowouts and exhaustrelated fires involved exhaust components with very high time and usually ones with poor-quality weld repairs that failed. Internal engine problems A third possible cause of bootstrapping at a lower-than-normal altitude is an internal engine problem that prevents one or more cylinders from firing. This would most likely be something that reduces the compression of a cylinder to near-zero (such as a valve that's badly burned or stuck open), or something that prevents both spark plugs in the cylinder from firing (such as severe lead fouling of both plugs). A non-firing cylinder reduces the exhaust output of the engine by onesixth (assuming a six-cylinder engine), and this means less flow through the turbocharger. As usual, the controller will try to compensate (and cover the problem up) by closing the wastegate, but this means that the wastegate will go full-closed at a lower-than-normal altitude. You'd think that a six-cylinder engine that was firing on only five cylinders would be very obvious to the pilot, wouldn't you? Well, I can tell you from firsthand experience that unless you have a probe-per-cylinder EGT system that shows one cylinder running ice cold, you're very likely not even to notice the loss of one cylinderparticularly in a twin where any roughness or loss of power is masked by the other engine. Trust me on this one! So if you notice bootstrapping at unusually low altitudes but can't seem to find any leaks in the induction and exhaust, it's definitely worth doing a compression check and having a look at the plugs to make see whether one cylinder is not firing and/or operating at near-zero compression. If so, you've probably found your culprit. By the way, a zero-compression cylinder will generally cause the same abnormally high MP at idle as an induction leak. This is a symptom you should watch for before every flight. If you see it, it's usually a tip-off that something significant is wrong. Wastegate problems The other most common cause of turbo-system problems, besides induction leaks, are problems with the wastegate and wastegate actuator. It makes perfect sense that the wastegate would be one of the most problematic parts of the turbocharging system, because it performs such an unenviable job: regulating the flow of incredibly hot and corrosive exhaust gases.

Most wastegate problems are of the "sticky wastegate" variety in which the shaft on which the wastegate butterfly pivots gets "coked up" with byproducts of combustion (a nasty concoction of lead, carbon and sulfur) to the point that it no longer opens and closes smoothly when commanded to do so by the wastegate actuator. Another somewhat less common cause of "sticky wastegate syndrome" occurs when the wastegate actuator itself starts to bind as a result of the accumulation of oil-borne deposits, O-ring deterioration, and/or scoring of the actuator cylinder. Whatever the exact cause of the sticky wastegate, the result is that the constant series adjustments commanded by the turbo controller-which are normally executed so rapidly and smoothly that they are unnoticeable to the pilot-become jerky and erratic. The result shows up as abnormal MP fluctuations, especially during periods of constant wastegate movement such as climb, descent, and flight in turbulent air. It's easy to confuse the erratic MP fluctuations caused by a sticky wastegate with the unregulated MP fluctuations caused by bootstrapping, but they're really quite different if you know what you're looking for. Bootstrapping (due to a fully-closed wastegate) is a condition that predictably occurs at high altitude and low engine RPM, and which can be made to disappear at will by increasing RPM a bit or descending a bit. On the other hand, erratic MP fluctuations due to a sticky wastegate generally occur at various altitudes and RPM settings, and are most obvious during changes in altitude, power settings, and airspeed (all times when wastegate adjustments are most likely to be commanded by the controller). If you suspect you might have a sticky wastegate, it's easy to check in the shop. Simply remove the oil line that runs from the engine oil pump to the wastegate actuator. Hook a source of adjustable air pressure to the oil inlet port of the actuator-an ordinary cylinder compression tester is ideal for this purpose. Now simply watch the wastegate assembly as you slowly and repeatedly vary the air pressure from zero to 50 PSI and back. As air pressure reaches 15 PSI or so, the wastegate should start to close smoothly, reaching its fully-closed position when the pressure reaches around 50 PSI. As you back the pressure down towards zero, the wastegate should open smoothly. Watch for any signs of jerkiness or binding as you exercise the wastegate in this fashion. Any tendency to stick should be obvious during this test. Also make sure the wastegate butterfly opens and closes fully, a total movement of approximately 90 degrees of shaft rotation. If the wastegate appears to be sticky, it's possible that you might be able to "rescue" it by giving it a good soak overnight in a strong penetrant like Mouse Milk

or AeroKroil. But don't count on it. If a penetrant soak doesn't result in silkysmooth action, it's time to yank the wastegate and send it out for overhaul. Expect to pay around $400 for the overhaul, plus a couple of hours of labor to remove and reinstall. Make sure that the overhauled wastegate is installed with the proper high-temp attaching hardware and new gaskets. Controller problems When the turbocharging system starts acting up, pilots and mechanics alike have a tendency to name the turbo controller as prime suspect. In fact, the controller is hardly ever the culprit, and it's an unfortunate fact that lots of perfectly good controllers are sent out for overhaul in the course of "shotgunning" turbo system problems. The turbo controller is seldom the culprit for two reasons: it has a terribly easy job, and there's not a whole lot that can go wrong with it. Think about it for a minute: the controller never sees hot exhaust gases or high engine temperatures like other turbo-system components. It spends its life in almost air-conditioned luxury, watching upper-deck pressure at one end, and regulating oil flow to the wastegate actuator at the other. If I had to come back as a turbo-system component in my next life, I'd almost surely apply for the job of turbo controller! That's not to say that the controller cannot cause turbo problems, only that it's one of the system last components you should suspect. Before you send the controller out for overhaul (which doesn't come cheap), there are a few things you should try first: If you're flying a twin, try swapping the left and right controllers and see if the problem changes sides or stays put (or goes away altogether). The swap generally takes less than an hour and could save you many hundreds of bucks and a week or two of downtime. If the controller is at fault, it might just be that the poppet valve is sludged up. Disconnecting the oil lines and shooting a few shots of shop air into the oil return port might dislodge the gunk and fix the controller problem. (At least it worked for me last time I tried it.) The controller's upper deck air reference line and inlet port should contain nothing but air. Disconnect the line and inspect for any signs of liquid contamination (fuel or oil). If you see any, purge the line with solvent and shop air, and disassemble the controller's aneroid chamber and clean it out, too. (That's a whole lot less scary than it sounds.) If the problem follows the controller when you swap sides (twins only) and a simple cleaning doesn't resolve the problem (singles or twins), only then should

you consider sending the thing out for overhaul. Turbocharger problems Of course, turbocharging problems can also be caused by-ta da!-the turbocharger itself. I'm listing this component last, not because it seldom fails, but because when it does fail, the failure is more or less obvious. While a turbocharger can last a full engine TBO if the engine is operated with sufficient TLC, it's certainly not unusual for a turbo to need a midterm overhaul. Turbochargers have several failure modes, most of which are more-orless self-diagnosing. For example, turbos sometimes fail catastrophicallythe engine suddenly goes normallyaspirated (or quits from over-rich mixture) and the aircraft starts trailing black smoke (actually, oil being pumped into the hot exhaust). You put the airplane on the ground fast, the tower rolls the equipment, and your mechanic doesn't have much difficulty figuring out what to do next. A catastrophic failure like this generally stems from a turbocharger that suddenly develops a serious out-of-balance condition while spinning at 50,000 RPM or so, often because the turbo ingested some foreign object (like a nut, bolt, alternate air door hinge, or chunk of exhaust valve) that damaged the compressor or turbine wheel. A less spectacular failure mode occurs when the turbocharger center section wears out, generally resulting in engine oil winding up where it doesn't belong: in the compressor and/or turbine portions of the turbo. If oil leaks into the compressor, it will result in oil-soaked induction plumbing (you'll likely see oil dripping from an induction system drain) and oil-fouled spark plugs. If it leaks into the turbine, it will result in an abnormal accumulation of oily deposits on the tailpipe and belly, and sometimes oil dripping from the tailpipe after shutdown. A visual inspection of the turbocharger will confirm oil where it doesn't belong, and often excessive play when the shaft is wiggled. Time to yank and overhaul the beast.

A third turbocharger failure mode is a bit more subtle, and stems from the fact that the turbine wheel operates under tremendous centrifugal forces as it spins at 50,000 to 80,000 RPM, while the metal loses much of its strength at the white-hot 1600F temperatures at which the turbine operates. The result is that the turbine blades develop a very gradual "stretch" over the life of the turbochargerparticularly if it's run hot and hard-and ultimately they can stretch enough that they actually start to scrape on the turbine housing. The turbo should be inspected for signs of blade scrape at each annual (and any other time the tailpipe is removed). If it is noted, it's overhaul time. A Troubleshooting Strategy If you have a turbo-system problem, the best way to avoid falling victim to the expensive, time-wasting "shotgun" approach is to devise a logical troubleshooting strategy. Your strategy should seek to find or rule out potential causes in a sequence that starts with the most common failure areas and the quickest, easiest and cheapest troubleshooting steps, and then gradually works towards rarer failures and more difficult and costly actions. It's impossible for me to suggest a one-size-fits-all strategy, but here's a starting point: The first step in any turbo troubleshooting strategy should be a thorough test flight to document the exact symptoms. By all means do a "critical altitude check" as documented in the service manual for your airplane, to determine if you have a premature bootstrapping problem and to quantify just how serious it is. Be sure to note whether any erratic or abnormal MP indications occur only at high altitudes and/or low RPMs (indicating bootstrapping), or if they occur primarily during climbs, descents, and/or airspeed changes (indicative of a sticky wastegate). Also note whether MP at idle is higher than normal (indicative of an induction system leak).

Do a quick compression check and spark plug inspection to determine whether you have a cylinder not firing or with near-zero compression. Visually inspect the induction system looking for any sign of a leak (chafedthrough manifold, cracked induction coupling, loose hose clamp, etc.). If nothing suspicious is found, pressurize the induction system and use soapy water to search for leaks. Visually inspect the exhaust system looking for any sign of a leak (tip-off is usually brightly colored exhaust stains). If nothing suspicious is found,

pressurize the exhaust system and use soapy water to search for leaks.

Connect a source of variable regulated shop air (such as a cylinder compression tester) to the oil inlet port of the wastegate actuator, and exercise the actuator by repeatedly varying the air pressure between 0 and 50 PSI, watching for any sign of sticky operations. If the wastegate is sticky, try an overnight penetrant soak. If that doesn't free it up, pull the wastegate and have it overhauled. Remove the oil lines from the turbo controller and blow shop air through the poppet valve to dislodge any sludge. Remove the air reference line and inspect for any signs of fluid contamination. In a twin, try exchanging the two controllers to see whether the problem moves with the controller. If it does, and if cleaning the controller doesn't help, send it out for overhaul. Check the turbocharger for signs of FOD, oil in the compressor or turbine, excessive center section play, and turbine blade scrape. If any of those problems are noted, pull the turbo for overhaul.

Mag Check Email this article | Print this article Magnetos are frequently-neglected items, probably because they're so reliable and our engines have an "extra" one. But mags need regular maintenance, and the consequences of neglect can be devastating. AVweb's Mike Busch explains how mags work, what preventive maintenance they require, what can go wrong with them, and what to do about it. June 5, 1999 by Mike Busch This article originally appeared in the May 1999 issue of CESSNA PILOTS ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE. About the Author ...

My recently-completed annual Mike Busch inspection of my Cessna is editor-inT310R included a considerable chief of amount of scheduled AVweb, a maintenance work, as well as several member of significant unscheduled items (i.e., nasty the technical surprises). One of the scheduled staff at maintenance items this year was 500Cessna Pilots Association, and hour magneto maintenance, which is a in a prior lifetime was a relatively significant item on a twin contributing editor for The because there are four mags to do. Aviation Consumer and IFR Many owners aren't aware (and an Magazine. A 6,000-hour alarming number of A&Ps conveniently commercial pilot and CFI with forget) that both Bendix (TCM) and Slick airplane, instrument and (Unison) mags need a minor tune-up multiengine ratings, Mike has every 100 hours and a major disassembly been flying for 36 years and an inspection, cleaning, lubrication and aircraft owner for 33. For the adjustment every 500 hours. The 500past 14 of those years, he's hour major maintenance is frequently owned and flown a Cessna neglected, and it's not unusual to see an T310R turbocharged twin, engine reach TBO without the mags ever which he maintains himself. In having been removed. The fact that mags his never-ending quest to can continue to function in the face of become a true renaissance man such neglect is a testament to their of aviation, Mike's on the verge inherent reliability. of earning his A&P mechanic As we'll discuss shortly, mag certificate. Mike and his wife performance deteriorates significantly if Jan reside on the central coast this routine maintenance isn't done. This of California in a semi-rural area usually shows up as hard starting, highwhere he can't get DSL or cable altitude misfire, and/or general TV. deterioration of engine efficiency. Occasionally, the result is much more serious (e.g., deafening silence). What Makes 'Em Tick? A magneto is a self-contained ignition system that converts mechanical rotation into high-voltage pulses that are used to fire the spark plugs, and does so without the need for external power from a battery or electrical

system. For years, magnetos have been the ignition system of choice for aircraft engines because they continue to function perfectly even in the face of a total electrical failure. The Rotor The term "magneto" comes from the permanent magnet rotor which is spun by the engine's accessory gearing. In a fourcylinder engine, the rotor turns at engine RPM in a sixcylinder engine, it Bendix S-1200 mags are larger and more turns 1.5 times crankshaft speed. This powerful than other models. magnetized rotor, together with the primary winding of the magneto's coil, function as a specialized alternator which generates alternating current flow in the primary as the rotor turns. Each full rotation of the rotor induces two waves of electric current in the primary coil, of opposite polarity. The amount of energy generated in the primary coil winding is a function of how rapidly the magnetic field across the primary changes. This varies with two things: how strong the rotor's magnet is, and how fast it turns. Big mags (like the Bendix S-1200) generate more energy than do little ones (like the Slick 6300 or the Bendix D-3000 dual-mag) because their rotors have bigger, more powerful magnets. As a mag gets older, its rotor gradually loses magnetism, so its ability to generate energy weakens. Fortunately, the rotor can be re-magnetized and this is typically done at major overhaul of the mag. Equally important as the strength of the rotor's magnetism is its rotation speed. Like any alternator, mags generate their maximum energy when turning at full operating speed, and put out a lot less energy at slow RPMs (such as idle). The Coil and Breaker Points

The primary winding of the coil consists of 200 turns or so of heavy-gauge copper wire wound around a laminated iron armature. One end of the coil is permanently grounded to the case of the magneto, while the other end is connected to a set of cam-operated breaker points similar to those used in automotive distributors in the pre-electronic-ignition era. Normally, the breaker points are closed, grounding both ends of the primary coil and allowing current induced by the rotor magnet to flow continuously Basic magneto schematic diagram. around and around the coil. This current flow produces a powerful magnetic field in the coil's iron core. At the moment of ignition, the magneto's cam opens the breaker points, interrupting the flow of current in the primary coil winding, and causing the magnetic field in the coil's core to collapse quite suddenly. The collapse of the core's magnetic field induces a large voltage spike in the primary, which may be as high as 200 or 300 volts. Now, that's enough voltage to give you a nasty jolt if you grabbed a hold of the magneto's low-tension terminal while the engine was running, but it's not even close to enough voltage to jump the gap of a spark plug. That's where the coil's secondary winding comes in. The secondary winding of the coil consists of a very large number of turns of very fine magnet wire perhaps 20,000 or so wound around the same core as the primary. One end of the secondary winding is grounded, while the other end is hooked to the high-tension terminal of the coil. The two coil windings act as a special sort of step-up transformer. Since the secondary winding has something like 100 times as many turns as the primary, the 200to 300-volt spike produced in the primary when the breaker points open induces a voltage 100 times as large in the secondary: 20,000 to 30,000 volts. Now that is enough to produce a nice, hot spark!

The Capacitor One little fly in this ointment has to do with what happens at the breaker points at the moment they're opened by the cam. Since the points are being opened by mechanical action of the cam, it's obvious that the process of point opening isn't exactly instantaneous. During the first microseconds that the cam is opening the points, they're still so close together than the 200volt spike in the primary coil winding can arc across them. Such arcing at the breaker points is a Bad Thing for two reasons. First, arcing causes a tiny amount of metal transfer from one breaker point to the other, and if left unchecked would cause the points to erode and pit quite quickly. Second, arcing causes the magnetic field in the coil to collapse more slowly, resulting in a lower voltage induced in the secondary, and therefore a weaker spark at the plugs. To solve these two problem, mags are equipped with a capacitor connected across the breaker points. Here's how it works. At the moment of point opening, the initial voltage spike charges the capacitor for 50 microseconds or so instead of arcing across barely-separated breaker points. By the time the capacitor is charged, the cam has separated the points far enough that the 200- or 300-volt spike in the primary coil cannot jump the gap. The result is a nice, predictable waveform and much longer-lasting points. The size of the capacitor is critical. If it's too small, arcing won't be effectively suppressed. On the other hand, if it's too large, the coil's field will collapse so slowly that the magneto's voltage output will be seriously reduced. The Distributor The high-voltage pulses produced by the secondary winding of the coil must be directed to the spark plug of each cylinder in sequence. The magneto accomplishes this by means of a mechanical distributor. The high-tension lead of the coil is connected to a rotating wiper electrode on a large distributor gear that turns at half crankshaft speed inside the mag's distributor block, passing in close proximity to individual electrodes connected to the four or six or eight spark plug lead wires. The distributor block is made of insulating (dielectric) material capable of withstanding tens of thousands of volts. It is essential that the inside of the distributor block remain scrupulously clean and dry. The slightest bit of contamination moisture, oil, or dirt can impair the dielectric properties of the block and allow internal arc-over between distributor block terminals,

causing engine misfire...particularly at high altitudes. Once such arc-over occurs, it tends to leave a carbonized track in its wake, facilitating subsequent arc-over events. The P-Lead The "P-lead" is a wire that runs from the ungrounded end of the magneto coil's primary winding to the cockpit ignition switch. (The "P" stands for "primary.") Its purpose is to allow the ignition switch to disable the magneto by grounding the hot side of the Slick 6300-series mags are compact and reliable. primary. As long as the P-lead is grounded through the ignition switch, the breaker points are unable to interrupt the primary current flow, making the mag incapable of generating a spark. The P-lead is normally a 16-gauge shielded wire, with the shield grounded to the magneto case. Shielding of the P-lead is essential, because an unshielded P-lead acts as an antenna that radiates the ignition pulses generated by the magneto and creates interference with aircraft radios. Broken P-leads are a frequent problem, since the lead is exposed to engine heat and vibration and air blast. A broken P-lead center conductor results in a dangerous "hot mag" condition in which the ignition switch is unable to shut off the magneto. A broken P-lead shield usually causes radio interference which disappears when he particular mag is shut off with the ignition switch. Mag Tune-Up Tuning up the magnetos for optimum performance involves two sets of adjustments: internal timing (point gap and E-gap) and external timing (or "timing the mag to the engine"). The internal adjustments require that the mags be removed from the engine and opened up, and should be performed at least every 500 hours of operation. External timing is performed with the mags mounted to the engine, and should be checked

every 100 hours or at annual inspection. Internal Mag Timing There are two internal adjustments that must be set correctly for a magneto to operate properly: point gap and "E-gap." The point gap should be set first. To do this, the drive shaft of the magneto is rotated to the position at which the cam has opened the breaker points to the maximum extent. Then the point gap is measured with an ordinary wiretype feeler gauge. The points are then adjusted until for the specified gap (normally about .018 inch for Bendix mags). Once the point gap is correct, the "E-gap" can be set. First, rotate the rotor slowly until you can feel a "magnetic detent." This is known as the "neutral position" of the rotor. Now, with a timing light ("buzz box") attached across the breaker points, rotate the magneto until the points just start to open. The number of degrees of rotation from neutral to point opening is called the "E-gap" and needs to be set to a specified value (e.g., 10 degrees +/- 2) so that the points open exactly when magnetic field induced in the coil by the rotor is at its maximum. On the big Bendix S-1200 and dual Bendix D2000/3000 mags, this adjustment is made by loosening the screw that attaches the cam to the rotor shaft, and rotating the cam until the "E-gap" is correct. Other magneto models have non-adjustable cams, so the "E-gap" adjustment is made by adjusting the breaker points. These adjustments are essential to ensure that the magneto is able to generate enough energy to produce a hot spark. If the "E-gap" drifts out of limits, the mag will continue to work but the spark it produces will be weak. External Mag Timing

Once these internal adjustments have been made, the magnetoes must be mounted on the engine and ignition timing set correctly. To do this, one of the spark plugs in the #1 cylinder is removed and the crankshaft rotated until the #1 piston is at top-dead- Checking external mag timing with a timing light. center position. Once this TDC position is established, the crankshaft is rotated to the specified firing position (typically 20 before TDC). Using an ignition timing light ("buzz box"), each magneto is adjusted so that its breaker points open precisely at this desired firing position. The adjustment is made by loosening the two magneto base clamps and rotating the entire magneto on the engine mounting pad until the points just start to open (as shown by the timing light connected to the mag's P-lead terminal). The base clamps are tightened and the timing is re-checked. External timing is critical to proper engine operation. It should be within a degree or so of spec, and should be re-checked every 100 hours. Bumping The Mag When ignition timing is checked routinely at 100-hour or annual inspection, it's not unusual to find that it has drifted off-spec by a degree or two. The drift can be in either direction. Wear on the rubbing block causes the points to open later, retarding ignition timing. Erosion of the breaker points themselves (due to arcing, etc.) causes the points to open earlier, advancing the timing. The usual procedure is to loosen the magneto hold-down clamps and to "bump" the mag a little bit to bring the timing back to specifications. This procedure is fine so far as it goes. The problem comes when mechanics fail to keep track of how far the magneto timing has been "bumped" in the course of successive inspection intervals. You see, the same factors that cause the external timing to drift (rubbing block wear and point erosion)

also cause the magneto's internal timing to drift away from the correct Egap, which degrades the quality of the spark that the mag produces. So, while it's certainly okay to bump the mag timing by one or two or even three degrees to correct timing drift, drift beyond that should be considered a "red flag" that it's time to pull the mag and re-adjust the internal timing. Naturally, unless you keep track of each time you bump the mag timing, you have no way of knowing the cumulative amount of timing drift that has occurred since the E-gap was last set. (One more reason for including more detail in your maintenance log entries.) Getting Started Once the engine is running, a properlyadjusted magneto does a fine job of providing the required ignition. Starting the engine is another matter altogether. There are two major obstacles to starting a magneto-ignition engine. For one thing, our electric starters Slick 6300 mag, exploded view. crank the engine at very low speed typically 10 to 20 RPM. But, a magneto is not capable of generating enough energy to fire a spark plug at less than, say, 150 RPM (referred to as the mag's "coming in speed"), and even at that speed, the spark would be marginal at best. Then there's the problem of timing. Magneto-ignition aircraft engines have fixed ignition timing, typically at something like 20 BTDC (before top-deadcenter). This setting is a compromise between takeoff and cruise (where we'd really like the ignition timing to be advanced even more) and idle (which would be a lot smoother if the timing was retarded). But there's no way that an engine is going to start with ignition timing like this. If you crank an engine at 20 RPM and a spark plug fires 20 before the corresponding piston reaches the top of its compression stroke, the engine will backfire

guaranteed. So, to have a prayer of getting our engine started, we need to do two things: (1) figure out a way to coax the magneto into generating enough energy to fire the spark plugs at slow cranking speeds, and (2) figure out a way to retard the spark enough to ensure that the engine won't backfire during cranking. Two rather different methods are commonly used to accomplish these things one mechanical, and the other electrical. Which you use depends on what kind of airplane you fly. Most Cessna singles use the mechanical method (impulse coupling), while most Cessna twins and many Beech Bonanzas use the electrical method (retard breaker). Impulse Coupling The impulse coupling is an extraordinarily clever mechanical solution to the starting problem. It's a mechanism that's contained within a hub that attaches to the magneto's drive shaft and is driven in turn by the engine. Here's how it works. When the starter cranks the engine, a spring-loaded flyweight in the magneto drive hub catches on a stationary stop pin mounted on the magneto case. This stops the magneto shaft from turning further. As the engine continues to turn, an impulse spring in the hub is wound up for 25 to 35 of engine rotation (the "lag angle") until a drive lug on the coupling body trips the flyweight, disengaging it from the stop pin. At this point, the wound-up impulse spring "snaps" the magneto through its firing position at a speed much faster than cranking speed. This has precisely the two effects desired: the ignition timing is retarded (by lag angle of the coupling), and the magneto rotor is turned fast enough to generate a decent spark. Neat trick, eh? Once the engine starts, centrifugal force causes the spring-loaded flyweights in the impulse coupling to retract so that they no longer catch on the stop pin. When this happens, the engine drives the magneto directly and timing returns to its normal setting of 20 BTDC or whatever. It's easy to tell whether or not your engine uses impulse couplings. If you hear a loud "snap" when you pull the prop through by hand, and if you hear "snap snap snap" just before your engine stops at shutdown, then you have impulse couplings. Some installations provide an impulse coupling on both magnetos. Others use an impulse coupling on only one mag, and employ an ignition switch

that grounds out the P-lead of the non-impulse mag during the start. Because impulse couplings have moving parts, they need to be disassembled and inspected carefully during each 500-hour magneto maintenance cycle. In addition, there have been a lot of Airworthiness Directives against impulse couplings in recent years both Bendix and Slick and these have to be taken very seriously. An impulse coupling failure inflight can result in total engine failure, and some failure modes can cause parts of the impulse coupling to drop into the engine gearbox, causing catastrophic destruction of the engine. So be sure your impulse couplings are not worn excessively and that all applicable ADs are complied with. Retard Breaker An alternative solution to the starting problem is the retard-breaker magneto. This was first pioneered by Bendix in its "Shower Of Sparks" system, but nowadays both Bendix and Slick make retard-breaker mags. As the name implies, the retard-breaker mag makes use of a second set of breaker points to generate a spark at retarded ignition timing during engine start. Generally, only the left mag has the extra breaker points, and starting is done with the right mag disabled in this scheme. While the extra set of points solves the problem of retarding the spark for starting, the fact remains that the magneto is still turning too slowly to generate the energy required to fire a spark plug. To deal with this problem, aircraft battery power is converted into pulses by a starting vibrator basically, a little electric buzzer and those pulses are fed to the magneto coil's primary winding via the P-lead, inducing high-voltage pulses in the secondary winding that do contain sufficient energy to fire the spark plug. This scheme has some advantages. It eliminates the mechanical risks associated with worn impulse couplings. It also produces easier starting because the spark plug fires a dozen times or so during each ignition event, rather than just once. (Hence, the "Shower Of Sparks" trademark that Bendix uses for this system.) Finally, it saves a little weight. There is one big disadvantage of the retard-breaker ignition system, however: You can't start the engine with a dead battery. Don't bother trying to hand-prop a twin Cessna unless you're simply looking for a new and different kind of aerobic workout. SlickSTART In 1997, Unison Industries introduced a product called SlickSTART, which is really a solid-state replacement for the old starting vibrator used in the

retard-breaker system. Interestingly enough, however, Unison got the SlickSTART approved for use with both TCM/Bendix mags as well as their own Slick mags, and also got approval for use with impulse-couplingequipped mags as well as the retard-breaker kind. In fact, just about the only engines that the SlickSTART is not approved for are those that use the Bendix D-2000 or D-3000 dual magneto. The SlickSTART produces a much hotter spark for starting than either a starting vibrator or impulse coupling, and is far better at firing carbon-fouled plugs. (Note that nothing can help if the plugs are lead-fouled, other than removing and cleaning the plugs.) Is it worth retrofitting your engine with the new SlickSTART system? If your engine is hard to start or you operate in frigid temperatures, it's an excellent idea. On the other hand, if you're not having any problems with starting, there's probably no reason to make the change. Flying High Starting is one phase of operation that is especially challenging to the magneto ignition system. Flying at high altitudes is another, particularly when we're talking about turbocharged engines and flight-level flying. When a magneto generates a high-voltage pulse, we want that pulse to create a spark inside the cylinder by jumping the air gap between the electrodes of the spark plug. What we don't want to happen is for the spark to occur anywhere else such as inside the magneto distributor block, or inside one of the ignition harness wires, or between the ignition harness wire and a nearby piece of the engine, etc. Such an undesirable spark is called an "arc-over" and results in what we call "misfire." To ensure that the spark occurs where we want it to occur, we must make sure that the spark plug represents "the path of least resistance" for the high-voltage pulse generated by the magneto. If we set our spark plug electrode gap to 0.018 inch, for example, and make sure that any place else in the ignition system that the spark could jump is a whole lot bigger than 0.018 inch, then we can be pretty certain that the spark will occur at the spark plug electrodes. Here's the problem: Air is a pretty good electrical insulator, but its insulating capability (dielectric constant) varies with pressure. The higher the pressure of the air, the better it insulates the lower the pressure, the easier it is for electricity to pass through it (in what we call a spark). High-Altitude Misfire

Imagine a turbocharged airplane departing a sea level airport. At the moment of ignition, the air pressure in the vicinity of the spark plug electrodes is quite high (since it has just been compressed by the piston), so it's a pretty good insulator. The air pressure inside the magneto is outside ambient, which is considerably lower, so that air isn't nearly as good an insulator. But the air gaps inside the magneto are at least several tenths of an inch wide, a great deal longer than the spark plug gap. So the spark plug gap is the path of least resistance and that's where the spark occurs. Now suppose this airplane starts climbing up to a cruising altitude up in the flight levels. The air in the vicinity of the spark plug remains at high pressure, thanks to the compressive effects of the turbocharger and the compression stroke of the piston. But the air pressure inside the magneto decreases with altitude, making it easier and easier for arc-over to occur there. At some altitude, the breakdown voltage inside the magneto becomes lower than at the spark plug electrodes, and "high-altitude misfire" begins to occur. Let me tell you from firsthand experience that this will really get your attention! If you ever experience high-altitude misfire in flight, the first thing you should do is throttle back. This will reduce the combustion-chamber pressure in the vicinity of the spark plug electrodes, and make it easier for the spark to occur where it's supposed to occur. Your next move should be to descend to a lower altitude, thereby increasing the air pressure inside the magneto and thereby raising the breakdown voltage. When you get back on the ground, you should probably have a mechanic open up the mags and inspect the inside of the distributor blocks for carbon tracking. Such conductive deposits produced by previous arc-over events can make it much easier for subsequent arc-overs to occur, and should be cleaned off. Preventing Misfire

There are basically two fundamental strategies for preventing such highaltitude misfire: make it easier for the spark to occur where it's supposed to, or make it harder for it to occur where it's not. One obvious way to make it easier for the spark to occur where it's supposed to (at the spark plug electrodes) is to tighten up the spark plug gap. The specs Spark plug gaps are critical for high-altitude say that a RHB32E flying. spark plug should be gapped to between 0.016 and 0.019 inch. I gap mine to 0.016 inch to gain increased margin against high-altitude misfire. Of course, the gaps increase as the spark plugs wear, so it's important to clean and re-gap the plugs on a regular basis: at least every 100 hours, and perhaps even every 50 hours if you have a history of high-altitude misfire. Many operators who fly regularly at high altitude prefer to use fine-wire spark plugs instead of the usual massive-electrode type. Fine-wire plugs are more than twice as expensive, but they tend to hold their gaps much longer, so part of their cost is offset by less frequent plug maintenance. Fine-wire plugs also last a good deal longer than do massives. How can you make it harder for arc-over to occur inside the magneto? There are two ways. One is to use magnetos that are as physically large as possible, reducing the chance of internal arc-over between the widelyspaced electrodes. For example, the huge TCM/Bendix S6-1200 mags that I use on my airplane have distributor block electrodes that are spaced 1.2 inches apart, so they're much more resistant to high-altitude misfire than the smaller Slick 6300 mags that are also approved for my engines.

The other way to minimize the chance of arc-over is to pressurize the mags by pumping bleed air from the turbocharger into them. RAM Aircraft, for example, fits pressurized Slick mags on all its TSIO-520 engines. For really high altitudes, a pressurized version of the big Bendix S-1200 mag the S1250 is available, and used by RAM on their GTSO-520 engines used on the Cessna 404 and 421. Pressurized mags are a mixed blessing, however. Although the pressurization is an effective way to eliminate the highaltitude misfire problem, it also creates a new problem internal contamination of the magneto New-style pressurization line filter helps keep particularly when moisture out of pressurized magnetos. flying through moisture (rain or clouds). As a result, pressurized mags need to be opened up and cleaned a lot more frequently than do non-pressurized ones. In fact, Slick Service Bulletin SB1-88A recommends a teardown and internal inspection of pressurized mags every 100 hours (compared with 500 hours for nonpressurized mags). The smaller Slick pressurized mags also do not produce nearly as energetic a spark as do the big TCM/Bendix S-1200s. While they certainly produce an adequate spark, they have less margin for misadjustment (E-gap drift, etc.). If you do have pressurized mags installed, make sure they receive frequent maintenance, and change the filter in the magneto pressurization line often. TCM has an improved large green pressurization line filter (p/n 653386) that is more effective than the small, clear ones at removing moisture from the pressurization air before it reaches the magneto. RAM Aircraft also sells an improved filter. Both of these filters provide a sump and drain line for moisure. Putting It All Together

Every 100 hours or annual, check ignition timing (i.e., external timing) with a magneto timing light. If the timing has drifted off by more than a degree, "bump" the mag to return the timing to specifications. Keep track of how far the timing has been "bumped" at each inspection, and in which direction. Cumulative "bumping" of more than about three degrees is good reason to remove the mags from the engine and readjust the internal timing, even if the normal 500-hour maintenance interval hasn't yet arrived. Every 500 hours, remove the mags from the engine for major maintenance. For TCM/Bendix mags, it's easy enough to perform the 500-hour inspection and adjustment procedure locally, and replace the wear-prone parts (points, carbon brush, and distributor block). For Slick mags, consider simply exchanging the mags at 500 hours for reconditioned units from Unison. (Slick tends to discourage field maintenance of their mags by setting parts prices high and offering very reasonable prices for overhauled-exchange units.) If your engine uses impulse couplings, be sure to inspect them very carefully for excessive wear, and make sure all ADs have been complied with. If hard-starting is a problem, consider installing the SlickSTART solid-state unit, which will work with almost any installation except for the TCM/Bendix dual-mag. If you fly at high altitudes (especially if turbocharged), you need to take extra precautions to prevent high-altitude misfire. Clean and gap your plugs frequently (every 50 to 100 hours) and keep the gaps at the low end of the allowable range. Consider using fine-wire spark plugs. For high-altitude operations, you should be using either the big TCM/Bendix S-1200 mags, or pressurized Slicks with the big green TCM or RAM line filters to keep moisture out of the mags. For even more information about magnetoes, I recommend John Schwaner's book The Magneto Ignition System.

Continental's Cram Course: TCM's Aviation Technician Advanced Training Program

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How would you like to learn more about your TCM piston aircraft engine than 99% of your fellow Continental owners will ever know ... and maybe even more than your A&P knows? All it takes is five days in Mobile, Ala., and $750 in tuition. AVweb editors Mike Busch and Jeb Burnside (both of whom fly behind Continentals) recently went through TCM's Aviation Technician Advanced Training Program and lived to tell about it. December 23, 2000 by Mike Busch

About the Author ... Mike Busch is editor-inchief of AVweb, a member of the technical staff at Cessna Pilots Association, and in a prior lifetime was a contributing editor for The Aviation Consumer and IFR Magazine. A 6,000-hour commercial pilot and CFI with airplane, instrument and multiengine ratings, Mike has been flying for 36 years and an aircraft owner for 33. For the past 14 of those years, he's owned and flown a Cessna T310R turbocharged twin, which he maintains

I recently returned from Mobile, Ala., where I spent a full week at the Teledyne Continental Motors factory going through TCM's Aviation Technician Advanced Training Program (ATATP). I attended the course with AVweb Executive Editor Jeb Burnside (who owns a TCM-powered C33A Debonair) and my good friend Chris Wrather (who owns a TCM-powered V35 Bonanza). All three of us are very maintenance-involved aircraft owners Chris and I do virtually all the maintenance on our respective airplanes, and Jeb does a lot of the work on his and all of us found the program to be a fascinating and highly educational week of total immersion into TCM piston aircraft engines. The course is held during the last full week of every month at the factory located at Mobile Downtown Airport and tuition is $750 for the week. Program details and enrollment instructions can be found on the TCM Link Web site. (You might want to bookmark this URL, since it's not particularly easy to find from the TCM Link home page.)

himself. In his never-ending quest to become a true renaissance man of aviation, Mike's on the verge of earning his A&P mechanic certificate. Mike and his wife Jan reside on the central coast of California in a semi-rural area where he can't get DSL or cable TV.

I'm Not An A&P (But I Play One On The Internet) Although TCM designed the ATATP syllabus primarily for professional aviation maintenance technicians, they encourage maintenance-involved aircraft owners like Jeb and me to attend. (Chris actually holds an A&P certificate, but we try not to hold that against him.) Participants spend a full week being taught by TCM subject matter experts, surrounded by disassembled engines, components and cutaways. Mornings are devoted to classroom discussion, while afternoons are mostly spent performing hands-on activities ranging from changing cylinders to adjusting fuel injection systems to setting magneto e-gap. The classes are small limited to about 15 students providing plenty of opportunity for Q&A with the TCM instructors, as well as exploration of offsyllabus subjects. A great advantage of holding the course at the factory is that all the technical resources of TCM are near at hand. If a question comes up in class that the instructors can't answer, they have ready access to the appropriate expert, and generally come back with a definitive answer after lunch or the next day. As a an active wrench swinger, writer of maintenance-oriented articles, and member of the technical staff at Cessna Pilots Association, I arrived in Mobile knowing a fair bit more about TCM engines than your average A&P, so I had modest expectations for what I would derive from the class. However, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised, and came away learning a good deal more than I anticipated. All in all, it was a terrific week, extremely worthwhile and highly recommended. Welcome to Mobile

Chris and I flew from California to Alabama in my Cessna 310, arriving at Mobile Downtown Airport [BFM] on Sunday afternoon. The former Brookley AFB is now Mobile's GA reliever and home to the TCM factory (see diagram). Jeb, who'd flown commercially to Mobile International [MOB] because his Debonair was in the avionics shop, was there to meet us in a rental car. After transferring our bags from the 310 to the car, the three of us headed for the hotel. In addition to the $750 course tuition, students attending the ATAP are responsible for transportation and lodging costs. TCM has made hotel arrangements with the TownePlace Suites at an astonishingly low room rate: $40 per night. TownePlace is an attractive hotel located about halfway between MOB and BFM airports, specializing in extended-stay business travelers. Chris, Jeb and I all found the accommodations there to be more than adequate, and the price unbeatable. A rental car is a must, however, since it's roughly a 15-minute freeway drive from the hotel to the TCM factory (which is located on-airport at BFM). After checking into the hotel, the first order of business was to find a place for dinner. For a small city, Mobile has a remarkable variety of places to eat. The emphasis seems to be on fresh seafood and New Orleans-style cuisine, and we chose the Original Oyster House on Mobile Bay for our arrival night dinner. But you can pretty much find any sort of food that strikes your fancy we had marvelous steaks one evening at Ruth's Chris, for example, and some interesting Nouvelle Mexican cuisine another. In the interests of time, catered lunches are provided by TCM each day of class, and consumed in the classroom. Suffice it to say that none of us lost weight during our week in Mobile. The course was sufficiently intensive that none of us mustered the energy to check out the nightlife during our weeklong stay in Mobile. The locals assured us that there was plenty to be had, including riverboat gambling in nearby Biloxi, Miss. We decided to take their word for it, and our late-night prowls were pretty much limited to the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop near our hotel. Let's Get Started Bright and early at 7:30 a.m., we met up at the rental car to head for our first day of training. About 20 minutes later (after missing our off-ramp and having to double back), we arrived at the TCM factory, parked in the small visitors parking area just outside the main entrance to the plant, and signed in at the guard building. A friendly (but well-armed) security guard directed us to the classroom facility, located in an undistinguished industrial-looking building adjacent to the factory. Fortunately, we'd allowed some

extra time for getting lost, so we didn't embarrass ourselves by arriving late. Class begins each day at 8:00 a.m. and runs until 4:30 p.m. The first session started off with some introductions of both instructors and students. Class size is limited to approximately 15 students, and our class was full (as is usually the case). Most of the attendees were full-time professional AMTs attending the course at their employer's expense. Some had traveled a long way to attend, with the hands-down prizewinner being a delightful fellow from a GA maintenance facility in Finland. Also participating as students were a couple of TCM employees, including a production test cell technician and a specialist from the marketing department. Together with we three amateur wrench swingers, it was a rather diverse and interesting group. Five TCM instructors participated in our seminar:

Billy Beam, lead ATATP instructor, nine years with TCM, prior to which he owned an overhaul shop for five years. Bob Robbins, founder of ATATP and longtime TCM engineer. Don Fitzgerald, former ATATP lead instructor, now works for TCM marketing and in charge of the TCM Link program. Don taught the fuel injection system segment of the course. Tim Davis, head of tech support for TCM's ignition systems division (formerly Bendix/Scintilla), who taught the ignition systems segment. Pat Pierce, long-timer in manufacturing at TCM, who conducted the factory tour segment.

All were very knowledgeable and personable instructors, and all were extremely well-prepared. I was impressed that each instructor made a point of giving us their email addresses and telephone extensions, inviting us to contact them directly should we have any questions after the course was over. Training Materials: Worth The Price of Admission The next order of business was a quick overview of the course organization and a walk-through of the training materials furnished by TCM to each ATATP student. The training materials are extensive most of our group agreed they alone were worth the $750 tuition and their sheer weight and volume caused many of us to express concern about how we would manage to get them home after the course was over. Billy Beam anticipated our concern, and quickly assured us that TCM would arrange to pack and ship the materials to us at the end of the class.

Most of the course materials were organized into three mammoth 8.5x11-inch loose-leaf binders. The first of these is the ATATP Training Manual, containing detailed study text for each technical topic covered by the course, more than 90 11x17-inch foldout diagrams (many in color), and a workbook section containing a series of study questions. (While there are no formal exams or quizzes during the course, instructors would often pose questions from the workbook to check our comprehension and see if any subjects needed repeating.) Also included in the Training Manual are model-by-model engine installation procedures, a detailed discussion of what should be covered during 100-hour/annual inspections, and an assortment of reprinted technical briefs from various engine component vendors, including a particularly fascinating one from Glacier Vendervell on bearing failure analysis. The second binder contains a complete compendium of all TCM aircraft engine service bulletins filed in reverse chronological order (newest first), together with a very useful set of cross-reference indexes that make it easy to locate the service bulletins that relate to any particular subject. We found ourselves referring to this binder frequently throughout the course. The third binder contains the TCM Ignition Systems Master Service Manual, including overhaul manuals, illustrated parts lists, service bulletins and application data for all TCM/Bendix magnetos, harnesses, ignition switches and starting vibrators. This was the "bible" for the fourth day of the course, which was devoted to the care and feeding of Bendix mags and related ignition components. In addition to these three big loose-leaf binders, we also received a compact binder containing a series of handy "ready reference guides" covering TCM engine specifications, torque specifications, fuel injection system adjustment and cylinder installation. Two videos are also furnished: one covering cylinder removal/replacement and the other fuel injection system adjustment. Also provided are a TCM Link CD-ROM, an assortment of TCM decals, and perhaps the most heavily used of all during the course an official TCM-logo coffee mug. TCM Engines, Then... Before getting into the meat and potatoes of the current TCM engine product line, instructor Billy Beam provided a brief but fascinating history of the company. Continental, we learned, was founded in 1905 in Muskegon, Mich., by two brothers-in-law, Ross Judson (who provided the engineering knowhow) and Arthur Tobin (who provided the seed money). Their initial product was a four-cylinder, four-cycle automotive engine featuring an in-line, singlecamshaft, L-head configuration patterned after the European auto engines of the time hence the name "Continental Motors." It took 22 years before Continental produced its first aircraft engine in 1927, and that was not an original design but rather a converted Wright nine-cylinder radial. In 1929, when many small companies were going out of business, Continental Motors introduced its first clean-sheet-design aircraft engine, a seven-cylinder radial dubbed the Model A70. Two years later, in 1931, Continental introduced its first "flat" aircraft engine, the Model A40. This was a 40horsepower, four-cylinder, horizontally-opposed engine with bolt-on heads and a single ignition system. One of these original A40s was on display in the classroom, and although it was pretty primitive by today's standards,

the resemblance to the later A-50 and A-65 and C-90 engines (used in Piper Cubs and Taylorcrafts) and the O-200 and O-300 (which power Cessna 150s and older 172s) is obvious. In 1939, Continental adapted its air-cooled aircraft engines to power British and American tanks. Then, in 1945, it introduced its first "big bore" engine, the six-cylinder E-185 developed to power the original Beech Bonanza. The E-series engines evolved into the O-470 used in the Cessna 182 and, with the addition of fuel injection, the IO-470 used in the Cessna 310 and Beech Bonanza. The IO-470 was later bored (creating the IO-520), stroked (creating the IO550), turbocharged (creating the TSIO-470, -520, and -550), and geared (creating the GTSIO-520). Along the way, the company was acquired by Henry Singleton's Teledyne Corporation, the first American "conglomerate." In 1970, when TCM was looking for space to expand, the City of Mobile made the company an offer it couldn't refuse: all the space TCM could possibly ever need at the recently-closed Brookley AFB (now Mobile Downtown Airport) on a 99-year lease at the rate of $1 per year. The move from Muskegon to Mobile was made in incremental steps (the union local in Muskegon wasn't exactly thrilled), but by 1980 the Michigan facility was history. The "new" TCM plant isn't much to look at mostly huge old WWII-vintage hangars that look like Quonset huts on anabolic steroids but there's lots of space and it's hard to beat the rent. ...And Now The balance of Monday and the first part of Tuesday were devoted to an in-depth discussion of TCM's current engine product line. We first reviewed some basics that apply to all TCM engines: model nomenclature (GTSIO520 means geared turbo-supercharged fuel-injected opposed 520 cu. in.), data plates (blue means rebuilt, black means new, silver means a "Platinum-series" or "Raytheon Special Edition" engine), and numbering of cylinders and crankshaft cheeks and journals (all numbered from back to front, the opposite of Lycoming). Then, we started dissecting each of the five engine series in TCM's current product line: 240 series, 360 series, 470/520/550 "sandcast" series, 470/520/550 "permold" series, and GTSIO series. Despite external appearances that are fairly similar, each of these five engine series has quite profound differences. For instance, the 240 series has kidney-shaped wet sump mounted directly underneath the engine crankcase, while the other models all have integral wet-sump oil pans. The 240 and 360 series use a separate bolt-on accessory case and a front-mounted fuel pump, while in the big-bore engines (470/520/550) the accessory section is an integral part of the crankcase casting and the fuel pump is mounted to the rear of the engine. The "sandcast" and "permold" families of big-bore engines employ surprisingly different lubrication systems the sandcast engines (front-mounted oil cooler) use an asymmetrical oil system in which oil flows forward through

the main gallery in the right case half and then rearward through the main gallery in the left case half, while the permold engines (front-mounted alternator) use a hollowed-out camshaft as the main oil gallery. And so forth. We also reviewed the two basic induction system configurations used on TCM engines. While TCM's older designs (including the engines used on my Cessna 310, Jeb's Debonair and Chris's Bonanza) use an updraft induction system, the GTSIOs, 240s, 360s and some 550s use a top-mounted induction system with cross-flow cylinder heads. The latter design provides several advantages, including improved mixture distribution, volumetric efficiency, and scavenging. By lunchtime on Tuesday, we found that we'd learned the various TCM engine models so thoroughly that we could pretty much draw the lubrication schematics and drive train configurations from memory. We could look at an oil pump and tell whether it was from a sandcast or permold engine, or look at an oil cooler and tell whether it was a standard or non-congealing design. This was starting to get scary! After lunch on Tuesday, we got to our first hands-on session. After reviewing the TCM video on how to remove and reinstall a cylinder, we broke up into teams, rounded up the necessary tools (cylinder base wrenches, ring compressors, pushrod tube spring compressors, etc.) and set about doing some actual cylinder R&R under the watchful eyes of instructors Billy Beam and Bob Robbins. In addition to yanking and hanging jugs, we practiced measuring cylinder fits and limits, measuring ring gaps, and the like. There was lots of kibitzing and swapping of favorite hints and kinks among the students and instructors that I found very useful. There were also a few comments about how much easier it is to change a jug on a stand-mounted engine in the classroom than in an actual airplane, where small details like baffles and cowlings get in the way. Before we knew it, 4:30 had arrived and it was time to quit for the day. Fuel Injection System Wednesday was devoted entirely to the TCM continuous-flow fuel-injection system. TCM's Don Fitgerald, a very gifted instructor, was our guide for this segment, which I found to be one of the most interesting and useful parts of the course. As before, the segment began with a theoretical overview of the system that applies to all fuel-injected engines. Conceptually, the TCM fuel injection system is very simple (compared, say, to the Precision/Bendix fuel injection system used on injected Lycomings). The TCM system begins with an engine-driven fuel pump whose output pressure is basically a function of engine RPM. The fuel pump output ("unmetered fuel") then goes to a fuel control unit ("FCU") consisting of two metering valves, one controlled by the cockpit-mounted mixture control

and the other controlled by the throttle (along with the induction system throttle butterfly). The output of the FCU ("metered fuel") which is therefore a function of engine RPM, throttle position, and mixture setting then goes to a manifold valve that divides it into four or six equal parts and sends it to continuous-flow injector nozzles located in the intake port of each cylinder. The nozzles incorporate tiny air orifices that mix air with the fuel at reduced throttle settings, improving atomization. Conceptually simple, yes ... ah, but as usual, the devil is in the details. Turns out that there are at least five different varieties of fuel pumps used in TCM fuel-injected engines. There's your basic pump for naturally-aspirated engines it has two adjustments: one to set the maximum fuel pressure at takeoff RPM and another to set the minimum fuel pressure at idle RPM. A different pump is used for turbocharged engines, with the high-pressure output controlled by an aneroid referenced to upper-deck pressure. The latest vintage IO-550s use yet a third pump with three adjustments the usual two for high and low RPM, plus a third for an altitude-compensating schedule controlled by an aneroid referenced to ambient pressure. As if this were not enough, the 240- and 360-series engines use special versions of these fuel pumps in which the mixture-metering valve is part of the pump assembly rather than the FCU. The manifold valve is also a lot trickier than it looks. In addition to its basic role as a four- or six-way flow divider, the manifold valve is responsible for providing a clean fuel cutoff when the mixture control is retarded to the idle cutoff position. It takes a bunch of moving parts a spring-loaded poppet valve and a spring-loaded diaphragm to accomplish this function. The fuel nozzles come in two basic varieties, one for naturally-aspirated engines and the other for turbocharged ones. The basic difference is that the former has air bleeds vented to ambient air, while the latter has air bleeds plumbed to upper-deck pressure. The nozzles are available in a wide range of orifice sizes, and the proper size to use depends on the particular engine model and which flavor of manifold valve is installed. There's a lot more engineering wizardry in the various fuel injection system components than meets the eye. In addition to the training manual diagrams, the back of the ATATP classroom is taken up with tables covered with various TCM engine parts, including cutaways of the fuel system components. Diagrams are great, but there's nothing like fondling the parts in your hands to ensure you understand how they are constructed and how they work. Once we felt we understood how the fuel injection system works, it was time to move on to the practical matter of how to adjust the system. Proper fuel system adjustment is a major bugaboo of TCM engines it's

astonishing how many engines in the field were not properly adjusted when they were installed, and have never had the adjustment checked since. It's imperative that the adjustment be performed on the airplane, and misadjustment can cause hard starting, rough idle, premature exhaust valve failure, etc. TCM Service Information Directive SID97-3 is the definitive reference for making these adjustments. The adjustment procedure requires that accurate pressure gauges be teed into the fuel system in two places at the fuel pump output (unmetered pressure) and at the manifold valve input (metered pressure). There are four different adjustments to make two fuel pressure adjustments on the fuel pump (high and low RPM), plus two adjustments on the FCU (idle mixture and idle RPM). These adjustments interact with one another, so it's vital to make them in the proper order, and then to re-check them iteratively until all are within required specifications. (For IO-550-powered aircraft with the altitude-compensating fuel pump, a fifth adjustment is required, and must be made by reference to test flight results at altitude.) After reviewing the adjustment procedure in detail on paper, the class adjourned to TCM's fuel system test cell for some hands-on practice. This is a special room built specifically for testing and calibrating fuel injection components. Since actual avgas is used for these procedures, the room contains all sorts of OSHA-required protective devices to eliminate the risk of electrical sparks that might ignite fuel vapors, and an extinguishing system that can fill the room instantly with carbon dioxide should someone be foolish enough to ignore the no smoking signs and flick his or her Bic. (Regrettably, we didn't get any photos of the test cell for some reason, TCM frowned on our request to use flash photography.) The test cell contained an actual TCM fuel system. The fuel pump is driven by a variable-speed electric motor that can simulate any desired engine RPM. Instead of typical pressure gauges, the cell uses pressure transducers connected to a PC that displays digital pressures and RPMs and logs and graphs the data. Each of us took turns adjusting the high and low fuel pump adjustments, getting a good feel for the adjustment sensitivities (PSI change per turn of the adjustment screw) and how the adjustments interact with one another. By the time the day was done, Jeb, Chris and I couldn't wait to slap some gauges on our airplanes and tweak the fuel injection systems into perfection. Ignition Systems Thursday was ignition system day. This course segment was taught by Tim Davis, manager of technical support for TCM's Bendix division, which manufactures magnetos, ignition harnesses, starting vibrators, ignition switches, alternators and starters. Tim previously worked for Bendix/Scintilla prior to its acquisition by TCM about 1980. Basically, he's lived and breathed magnetos since puberty, and there's nothing about TCM/Bendix mags that he doesn't know. Tim teaches with a laconic delivery that sounds precisely like Jimmy Stewart (it helps to close your eyes, since he looks nothing at all like Jimmy Stewart). Tim also has an extraordinarily dry and subtle wit that

consistently had us in stitches throughout the day, making what sounded like it might be a dry subject anything but. We started off with an hour-long short course in the basic physics needed to achieve a first-principles understanding of how a mag works. He covered the electrical properties of matter (such as insulators vs. conductors), the fundamentals of magnetism (magnetic poles, lines of flux, the inverse square law, and magnetic properties such as flux density and retentivity), and the basics of electromagnetic induction. Since this was stuff that most of us hadn't thought about since our high school days (and promptly forgot after finals), we found it to be an excellent and interesting refresher. Next, Tim used these principles to explain the operation of an aircraft magneto. The mag consists of four basic components: a permanent-magnet alternator, an interrupter, a step-up coil, and a jump-gap distributor. The permanent-magnet alternator induces a modest alternating voltage (on the order of plus/minus 20 volts) in its primary coil. The interrupter (cam, points and capacitor) interrupts the current flow in the primary coil and causes its electromagnetic field to collapse suddenly. The collapse generates a high-voltage pulse (up to 35,000 volts) in the secondary step-up winding (typically a 75-to-1 turns ratio to the primary). The jump-gap distributor sends this high-voltage pulse to the appropriate spark plug lead. While magnetos provide a highly reliable ignition source independent of the aircraft electrical system, they present some unique problems during engine start. For one thing, a mag needs to be turning at least 150 RPM to generate the 10,000 volts that is the minimum needed to produce a decent spark unfortunately, the starter motor turns the engine at only a small fraction of this speed. Also, starting requires that the spark occur at approximately TDC, rather than the usual 20 to 24 before TDC to which mags are normally timed. Two alternative approaches are used to solve these problems. One approach is mechanical: the impulse coupling. The other is electrical: a retard breaker and starting vibrator usually referred to by the Bendix trademark "Shower of Sparks." Each scheme has its advantages and disadvantages, and we discussed them. The session next transitioned from theory to practice. Tim passed around an assortment of TCM/Bendix magnetos and watched over us as we disassembled and reassembled them. There are three basic families of TCM/Bendix mags: the compact S-20/200 series, the big S-1200 series (a favorite for turbocharged aircraft because of its outstanding high-altitude performance), and the unique D2000/3000 dual mag (providing two independent magnetos in a single package with a single drive shaft). Each of these mag families uses significantly different construction, and by the time we were done, each of us had the chance to take each of these mags apart and put it back together again at least once. Tim also taught us how to disassemble, inspect and reassemble an impulse coupling. (Reinstalling the impulse coupling spring was easy for him, but elicited lots of colorful verbiage when we tried it.)

All TCM/Bendix magnetos require 500-hour major maintenance that includes lubricating the internal gears and bushings, and resetting the internal timing ("e-gap") and point gap. We practiced the internal timing procedure under Tim's watchful eyes. We also practiced timing the mags to the engine, using a "buzz box" and timing gauge. And we learned how to use a harness tester to identify a faulty ignition lead. Throughout all this, Tim provided a constant stream of hints and kinks. Never file tungsten points when they get pitted ... always replace them. Pitted points often indicate that the capacitor is bad and needs replacement. High-altitude misfire can be caused by excessive e-gap, excessive spark plug gap, or contamination inside the distributor cap. Spraying ignition harness "cigarettes" with an aerosol release agent called MS-122/22 (Miller-Stephenson Chemical Co., Danbury, Conn.) before inserting them into spark plugs make them much easier to extract next time the spark plugs are removed. I took lots of notes. Before we knew it, 4:30 had arrived and it was quitting time. Factory Tour The fifth and final day of the course was largely devoted to a factory tour. I'd toured the TCM factory several times before, but those tours had been limited to an hour or so and only hit a few highlights. This tour was completely different. We literally got to see every step involved in the creation of a new TCM engine and the number of discrete steps required to make a crankshaft or connecting rod or cylinder assembly is truly mind-boggling. Despite TCM's huge investment in modern computer-controlled (CNC) machine tools, building these engines remains an amazingly labor-intensive process. The tour began at the beginning in the receiving area, where crates of raw crankshaft, camshaft and connecting rod forgings and rough crankcase, cylinder barrel and cylinder head castings arrive from TCM's forging and casting suppliers. Each of these major engine components goes through literally dozens of separate machining, grinding and polishing steps in the TCM factory to produce finished parts ready for final inspection and assembly. (In contrast, TCM purchases various other engine components, such as pistons, hydraulic tappets, pushrods, and some gears, in fully finished form.) We must have spent at least an hour following the various steps required to produce a crankshaft, for example. The rough crankshaft forging must go through stage after stage of coarse grinding to create each main journal and rod journal, each operation performed by a skilled operator at a grinding machine. The operator grinds, measures, grinds and re-measures, until the particular journal is within the required dimensional specifications. When all the journals have finally been coarse-ground to the proper dimensions, the crankshaft repeats the whole sequence on a succession of fine grinding operations to obtain the final dimensional tolerances. The crankshaft is also gun bored on a horizontal boring machine to provide the required hollow center, and the counterweight hanger blades are machined and drilled. Then the crank is

manually balanced on a computerized balancing machine, with metal ground off the crank cheeks as necessary to achieve the required balance. Once the machining is completed, the crank goes to the nitriding ovens where it's baked in hot ammonia gas for some 40 hours to harden its surface. After nitriding, the crankshaft goes through several stages of cleanup and polishing. The counterweight hanger bushings are inserted, and the crankshaft goes to final inspection (where a surprisingly low number wind up being rejected and scrapped). And that's just for one engine part ... the crankshaft! Camshaft production is a similar, but somewhat less tedious and more automated process. At the time of our tour, roughly half of TCM's camshaft production was being done on a brand new state-of-the-art CNC machine that TCM acquired just this year, while the other half was still being done on a pair of vintage mechanical cam grinding machines. Once cam production is completely converted over to CNC, we were told, TCM will be making some engineering improvements to their cam lobe contours that could not be accomplished using the old equipment. After grinding and polishing, the camshafts are case-hardened (carburized) in an oven, then cleaned, polished, and coated with manganese phosphate for corrosion protection. Production of connecting rods among the most highly stressed components of the engine was particularly interesting. Each con rod starts out as a single rough forging. The crankshaft end of the rod is sawed in two to separate the rod cap. Then semicircular sections are "hogged out" of both the rod cap and the big end of the rod on a giant vertical mill to rough out the big-end bore. The rod and cap are then reassembled, the rod bolt holes drilled, the rod and cap mated up, and then the bores are precision milled, chamfered and polished. Again, it was surprising to learn how many individual machining steps are required to produce a finished connecting rod. The story was much the same for cylinders and crankcases, except that TCM has pretty much fully converted to modern CNC equipment for machining case halves, cylinder barrels and cylinder heads. One of the most mesmerizing sights, however, was to watch the heads and barrels being mated together in decidedly low-tech fashion. A factory worker wearing protective gloves removes a hot cylinder head assembly from the oven and quickly places it in a fixture. The worker then inserts chilled intake and exhaust valve seats into the head before it begins to cool. (As the head cools, it creates a permanent interference fit with the barrel and valve seats.) Then, he positions the cold barrel against the hot head and spins it to mate the threads. We just couldn't get enough of watching this particular factory worker's rhythm as he processed about one new cylinder assembly per minute. (Later, we were sad to learn that TCM was about to reassign the job of inserting the valve seats to a new CNC machine. The result will undoubtedly be more consistent positioning of the seats, but it'll sure take away the romance.)

After many fascinating hours spent watching how these various engine components are produced, we proceeded to final assembly where the engines are actually built up. A job in final assembly is perhaps the most prized position to which a TCM factory worker can aspire, in large measure because the final assembly area (which occupies only about 2,000 square feet of TCM's enormous plant) is one of the very few places in the factory that has air conditioning. Half of the final assembly area is devoted to a classic production line, in which engines move from station to station and as buildup progresses. There is only a single assembly line that accommodates all engine models, new and rebuilt alike. (I found this to be a marked contrast to Lycoming, where new and rebuilt engines are built on two separate lines.) The other half of the final assembly room consists of small assembly bays accommodating one engine each. If assembly of a particular engine is delayed due to parts availability, for example, it will be pulled off the assembly line and moved to one of the bays so as not to hold up the rest of the engines on the line. The same is true of any engine that requires special attention for whatever reason such as the special one-of-a-kind ultra-highhorsepower TSIO-550 engine that TCM built up for use at the Reno National Air races. Our tour ended at TCM's production engine test facility, where is run through a programmed series of test procedures. The bays, and the test sequences are controlled and monitored by technicians who use mouse clicks rather than knob twists to Each cell is monitored both by computer instrumentation and computer readouts are also piped to a central control room can keep track of the goings on in all six cells concurrently. This was a genuinely fascinating day for all of us, and we came just how much effort goes into the production of a piston aircraft engine ... and why they cost as much as they do. every engine that comes off the TCM line facility contains six computerized engine computers and supervised by test regulate what's going on in the test cells. by closed-circuit TV. The TV pictures and where the production test supervisor

away with a far better appreciation of

Time To Go Late Friday afternoon, as we said our goodbyes to our instructors and fellow classmates and packed up our precious course materials to be shipped home, Jeb, Chris and I compared notes. We all agreed that the course had been extraordinarily worthwhile, and that we'd learned far more than we'd expected. Beyond the formal curriculum, we remarked on how valuable it was to have the chance to get to know so many subject matter

experts at the factory on a first-name basis. The week had been educational, stimulating, fascinating and fun, and we were all sorry to see it come to an end. Without question, we all felt it was time and money well spent. If you'd like to become a real expert about your TCM powerplant and can find the time to spend a week in Mobile, I can't recommend this course highly enough. If you can drag your favorite mechanic along, so much the better. I promise you won't be sorry. The ATATP classes are typically booked up months in advance, and pre-registration is a must. Contact Billy Beam at 1-334-436-8660 or by email at billy_beam@teledyne.com.

Getting Good Paint Email this article | Print this article Two top rated shops tell us what separates the average paint job from the exception. As Paul Bertorelli reported in Aviation Consumer, here's what you should expect. December 24, 2001 by Paul Bertorelli This article originally appeared in the January 2002 edition of AVIATION CONSUMER, and is reprinted here by permission. About the Author ... Paul Bertorelli is a professional aviation journalist and editor. He's Editorin-Chief of The Aviation Consumer and editorial director of AVweb and Belvoir Publications' Aviation Division. He's a 4,500-hour ATP and CFIA/CFII/CFIME. He owns a Mooney 231. The Aviation Consumer

Painting anything well especially an airplaneis as much art as science. It takes experience and skill to get it right and, in the end, the customer might not appreciate the work because many owners have never seen a good paint job. Yet it doesnt take a trained eye to separate good paint from bad, a well-detailed master work from what one shop owner we visited recently calls a 50-footer; glossy at a distance, a mess up close. Over the years weve been doing our periodic aircraft paint-shop surveys, a handful of shops consistently draw rave reviews with not so much as the slightest complaint about quality, scheduling, warranty or customer service, the things most owners consider important. Armed with the question: what goes into a good paint job?, we recently decided to visit two of those shopsDial Eastern States Aircraft Painting in Cadiz, Ohio and Reese Aircraft at Trenton-Robbinsville, New Jersey, just southwest of the New York City area. Dial Eastern First, that odd name; not exactly something youd draw out of a hat. Dial Easterns Dick Guenther told us that the shop was first established in the late 1980s by another owner under the name Eastern States Aircraft. When Guenther bought it about 12 years ago, he was operating his own aircraft repair facility called Dial Aircraft and merely combined the two into Dial Eastern States. The shop is located at Harrison County Airport, just across the Ohio line from Wheeling, West Virginia. Given the length of the runway and the size of the two-bay hangarits smallDial Eastern handles only singles and twins up to about the size of a Cessna 421. (Even thats a tight fit.) Over the years, Aviation Consumer readers have heaped praise on Dial Eastern almost to an embarrassing degree. Words like superb and true

craftsmen come frequently to mind. What exactly is Dick Guenther doing out there to merit that sort of adulation? In short, the shop pays attention to detail, lavishes time and effort on prep work, stays on schedule something owners consider importantand charges a fair price. And thats not to say cheap. For singles, Dial Eastern wants between $7000 and $11,000, putting them on higher side of average. The shop paints twins for between $13,000 and $20,000, quite a bit higher than average, according to our surveys. We asked Dick Guenther and his shop liaison, Chris Hollis, to walk us through the typical Dial Eastern paint job, from start to finish. (That's Dick on the left and Chris on the right in the above photo.) We were a little surprised to learn the job starts with a detailed inspection and, sometimes, digital photos. We figured the pictures would come later. Half the time, says Guenther, the owner is in New York or D.C. or somewhere and he cant come out here to look at what we find. Photos of hidden damage or proposed items to be fixed are e-mailed and the shop consults with the owner. Not every shop does this but a savvy owner might do it for himself, just for reference. Next comes what Guenther and Hollis say is a must for any paint job, whether premium-priced or not: All control surfaces should be removed, something thats often not done. Indeed, after our shop tour, Hollis inspected the company Mooney and within seconds noted a telltale wedge of overspray behind an aileron, sure proof that the controls hadnt been removed during our last paint job. Guenther and better shops insistrightlythat controls be removed, stripped, inspected and, most important, rebalanced after painting. On some controlsBonanza ruddervators and Mooney aileronsthis is a critical task and shouldnt be skipped. But it should still be standard on all

aircraft. Guenther goes so far as to record the balance data in the aircraft logbook, along with the signoff for the paint itself. Stripping: Chemicals vs. Blasting

Painting an airplane-that is, the actual laying on of the color-is the quickest part of the process; a couple of good spray techs can base coat an airplane in under an hour. But their work will only be as good as what's under the paint and that's where prep work comes in, specifically stripping, arguably the most tedious and time-consuming

aspect of the job. Considering that aircraft paint has to withstand exposure to sunlight, extremes in temperature and the abrasive effects of rain in flight, it's tough stuff and equally tough to remove from aluminum. Various schemes-mostly chemical-have been tried but these days, most shops rely on either chemical stripping or bead blasting, a mild abrasive method using plastic media blasted onto the surface with compressed air. When it first emerged nearly two decades ago, we published a couple of horror stories about bead blasting gone bad. Although the process "cuts" the paint off with tiny plastic beads that are softer than both the paint and the underlying metal, the process inevitably creates friction and heat. Since aluminum has a high coefficient of expansion, heating aircraft skin causes it to pucker and once distorted, it doesn't return to its original tautness. Before blasting was refined, a few aircraft were seriously damaged by the process. A second significant problem with bead blasting is that those little beads-like dust-go everywhere and if the aircraft isn't sufficiently protected, they'll turn up inside the cabin, wing compartments, instruments and everywhere else they don't belong. Reese Aircraft is unique in that it does both chemical and bead blasting. Reese has two shops, one in Robbinsville and a second at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, New York. The latter paints mostly turboprops and jets and strips via blasting. The Robinsville shop strips chemically. Ken Reese told us that in the early days, there were problems with bead blasting, mostly related to operator error and a tendency to use too much air pressure. "You heard the horror stories about blasting, no question," Reese says, but it was never as bad some claimed. "There were stories about blasting holes through the skins and that just never happened."

Stripping Blasting is a skill akin to painting itself and Reese says it's As noted in critical to keep the blast nozzle moving over the painted the surface being stripped. Reese actually treats the surface sidebar, with a chemical stripper first, then clears the paint away there are with bead blasting, which goes quicker thanks to the paint two methods of being loosened first. At least some blasting media does find its way into the stripping, airplane. "Do we keep every little grain of media out of the chemical airplane? No, we can't" says Reese. "We do keep it out of and bead critical areas," he adds. That means the airplane's blasting. openings are sealed, the engine is wrapped and the glass And within and fiberglass are masked before blasting begins. chemical Not that blasting media is especially damaging if it does stripping, get into moving parts. Reese once commissioned a lab test several in which increasingly large amounts of blasting beads were products injected into greased bearings, which were then spun and are used, measured for wear. Reese says the plastic blasting media some caused no wear until so much of the stuff was injected benign and that it displaced the grease, causing the bearing to dry some not fail. so benign. With proper precautions, Reese says he doesn't stay up Dial nights worrying about blasting media contamination and Eastern given the utter lack of complaints we hear about the uses plain process, neither, we think, should anyone contemplating industrial having an aircraft bead blasted by a knowledgeable shop. methylene chloride mixed with a soap or wax carrier. Although methylene chloride is considered hazmat and requires special disposal methods, its not corrosive. Guenther tells us hes re-painted his own work on a number of aircraft in which stripper found its way either between lapped skins or inside a structure but wasnt entirely flushed out. In that case, he says, you find a slippery, waxy coating but no corrosion. Thats certain not to be the case if the aircraft was stripped with acid stripper, which some shops still use because its faster than any other method, including blasting. However, no stripper can be entirely flushed especially from lapsand if its not removed, acid stripper will cause

corrosion, sometimes enough to cause expensive damage that wont be obvious for years to come. Guenther says he has no beef with bead blasting and believes it will produce as good a job as chemical stripping in the hands of the right shop. On the other hand, like most shops, he can tell war stories about blowing blasting media out of the airplane years after it was stripped and painted by another shop. Which led us naturally to this question: How about forgetting stripping and just scuffing up the paint and spraying on a fresh coat? Will Dial Eastern do that as an alternative to an expensive strip and paint? No, he says, the controls need to be removed and balanced, thats one thing. The other thing is that when you paint over someone elses work, youre counting on a mechanical bond not a chemical bond between the two paints. Sand-and-sprays might last but many dont and later, Hollis showed us a Bonanza that had been flown in for an estimate. It had a sand-and-spray and where the paint had worked around the rivets, the top coat was peeling away from the older paint. It was, in short, a mess. Its a warranty issue, too, according to Hollis and Guenther. Stripping the paint down to bare metal is the only chance were going to get to see whats under the old paint. If anything needs to be fixed, well want to do it before we put color on. Spotless Guenther believes that when a paint job has problems, its often due to whats doneor not doneat the next stage. Following stripping, the airplane has to be exhaustively pressure flushed and cleaned of even the tiniest contaminants, for any foreign material will complicate the laying on of color and may ultimately cause adhesion problems later on. Careful attention is paid to skin laps, so any weeping of stripper or anti-corrosion compound is removed. Speaking of the latter, this is a sore point with most paint shops, including Dial Eastern. Anti-corrosion compounds such as ACF-50 and Corrosion-X are generally seen as a good thing, unless you run a paint shop. The stuff weeps out of rivet holes and between laps and no matter how careful the shop is, if theres enough of it on the surface, the paint will form little non-adhering craters called fish-eyes. If you even think youre going to get your airplane painted, dont have it treated with anti-corrosion compound for at least six months before, says Guenther. A year would be better. And while youre at it, have any engine

oil leaks taken care of. A leaker can fill the skin laps with oil, causing the same problems. True, itll be confined mostly to the belly, but the better the paint adheres everywhere, the better the airplane will be protected. Etching, Priming Following stripping and flushing, the next operation is etching, treating the surface with a mild solution of phosphoric acid to thoroughly clean the metal deep into its surface structure. At Dial Eastern, Guenther uses stainless brushes and mild, non-corrosive abrasives to do the etching, followed by more flushing. Contrary to popular belief, airplanes get their share of body work, even new ones. (Some say especially new ones.) Body work is similar to what goes on in the auto industry, dent and blemish filling and fine sanding. And yes, they use Bondo, albeit a specialized polyester type mixed with an aluminum paste. When its applied correctly, primed and painted, youll never know its there. After body work, the aircraft is alodined, a so-called chromate conversion process that serves as both a base corrosion protector and an adhesion improver for subsequent coats. Were told that alodining is a routine process by most shops but weve also heard that some shops skip this step. We think its worth asking about and that it should be done. Following a short curing period, the shop can move on to the next step, which is priming and painting. As we reported on our paint shop survey article in the November issue of Aviation Consumer, shops tend to pick a paint system theyre comfortable with and stick with it. Having heard from hundreds of readers and dozens of shops, we dont see much difference between the quality of the major paint systems. At Dial Eastern, Guenther uses DuPont products, specifically Imron over Variprime primer and, in demanding applications where oil or corrosion compound seepage might cause adhesion problems, a tough epoxy primer called Corlar. Three hundred miles to the east at Reese Aircraft in Trenton-Robbinsville, Ken Reese uses JetGlo, late of PPG but recently bought by Sherwin Williams. Each speaks highly of the other product line, leading us to conclude that which one a shop uses revolves more around customer service and convenience than quality issues. When we bounced that observation by Ken Reese, he agreed, but added this: If a customer asks and the airplane is going to be outside, Ill

recommend AcryGlo over JetGlo. AcryGlo, also in the Sherwin Williams line, is an acrylic urethane with better UV protection than JetGlo. JetGlo, on the other hand, is more resistant to hydraulic fluid and jet fuel and the wide temperature swings jets see in normal operations. To Reeses eye, JetGlo, however, holds out better, meaning that it retains the total wet look high gloss of a fresh paint job. Eyeballs On Which leads us to ask Reese how he judges a good paint job. If you really want to examine a paint job, dont do it outside. Bright sunlight will hide every flaw and itll look great, says Reese. Get it into a hangar lit with sodium vapor or fluorescent and grab a towel and wipe it down. Huh? Thats right, says Reese, if you really want to see the details of another guys paint work, eyeball the entire surface of the aircraft as you wipe it down. What are we looking for, exactly? Viewed obliquely, the surface should be evenly glossy and wet looking, with no dull spots. If you see the latter, says Guenther, the shop may have been working with a single spray man who couldnt keep up with the paint, thus the fresh paint wasnt worked into the wet stuff on the surface. Look for crispness around stripping, with no paint built up along the edges or roughness where the rules were masked. If the airplane has curved stripes, they should be fair and smooth, with no quick turns. It goes without saying that you shouldnt see any runs, sags, fish-eyes or orange peel in an otherwise pristine surface. (Nonetheless, we still do.) As Chris Hollis noted, lift the control surfaces and look around the counterweights, horns and control rod ends. If the control surfaces werent removed during painting, youll see it and its the kiss of death against a quality paint job. Check details such as window glass, moldings and other contrasting surfaces. If theres stripper burn around the window edges, the shop wasnt very good at masking. And every contrasting surface should be free of overspray. Some paint jobs look good on top or at a distancewhat Dick Guenther calls a 50-footerbut a quality job should look just as good on the belly, meaning the gear wells should be shipshape-and-bristol and there should be no sign of painted over grease blobs or corrosion, an indication that the shop thought no one would ever look underneath. The Extras Most reputable shopsand both Dial Eastern and Reese qualifywill firmly

insist on certain details and will recommend others as nice-to-haves. At Dial Eastern, for example, some external fasteners are included in the price of the job but many customersespecially those driving high-zoot singles and twinsopt to replace everything with new stainless steel. On a twin, that can cost a couple of thousand bucks. But if youre spending 10 times that on paint, why put the old, corroded fasteners back on? Guenther also recommends replacing any worn control parts, such as rod ends or the nylon locking nuts. Youve got the controls off, it doesnt make sense to go through all that again just to put in new nuts later, he says. Both Reese and Guenther advise asking the shop about what exactly the price includes. At Dial Eastern, you get a base color and two stripes; anything beyond that is an extra and extras can add up. Also ask if door jambs, baggage doors and other quasi-interior elements are included in the paintwork. Generally they arent, but you may want them done so get a price. Having visited both these shops, we can recommend either without reservation. But whether you go with Dial Eastern, Reese or any other shop, we also recommend a visit for a walkthrough of the shops process. If nothing else, youll educate yourself in what goes into a good aircraft paint job. Contact Dial Eastern States at 740-942-2316 or www.desapi.com. Reese Aircraft is at 609-586-9283 and www.kdaviation.com.

The Zero-Time Myth Email this article | Print this article Only the factories have the legal right to declare an engine "zero time." As Coy Jacob explained recently in Aviation Consumer, that doesn't mean all new parts. A zero-time engine can contain used parts perhaps many used parts of unknown service history. Here's what you're really getting for your flying dollar. March 11, 2002 by Coy Jacob This article originally appeared in the March 2002 edition of AVIATION

CONSUMER and is reprinted here by permission. What's in a name? Or a label? About the Author ... When it comes to aircraft Coy Jacob is a contributing engines, a simple label or, editor to Aviation Consumer. He more properly, a logbook operates the Mod Squad, notation can carry an impressive formerly the Mooney Mart, in cache that, in reality, may not mean Venice, Florida. what you think. A case in point is the value a buyer or owner puts on a "zerotime" engine as opposed to a freshly overhauled powerplant from a field shop. Hands down, the zero-time is thought to be a better engine, since it has all new parts. Except, of course, it might not have all new parts. In some cases, a field overhaul could have more new parts than a zero-time factory engine. Obviously, excluding test-stand time, new recently manufactured engines are fairly and properly termed zero-time. All the parts will be factory new. However, the FAA also allows the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to label their rebuilt engines "zero time," a minor sleight of the pen that has some field overhaul shops fuming. We don't blame them, frankly. As far as engine longevity, "zero time" versus "stated total time" may make little difference in the outcome. But if you think you're getting something you're not, the term is misleading at best. OEMs Only, Please

No one but the OEMs have the official, FAA-blessed right to term any engine zero time, even if the scope of work done on the engine by a field shop is exactly the same as the factory's rebuild process. Actually, even the OEM's own overhaul shops can't call their overhauled engines "zero time." Lycoming, of course, offers factory overhauls and new engines, while Continental sells new and remanufactured engines only. A terminology note here: FAA regs don't recognize the term "remanufactured" but use the term "rebuilt." In this Click on photo for larger image. article, we have used the terms interchangeably. In Canada, the rules are a little different. The Canadian Aviation Regulations don't have an equivalent to our FAR 91.421, which allows "zero time" to be recorded for a factory rebuilt engine. So in Canada, the actual time or the term of prior duty time is considered "total time unknown." Only a new engine is zero time. Even though the factory's actual remanufacturing/rebuilding process may be functionally identical to what most competent engine shops offer on new limits overhauled engines, buyers seem enamored with the idea that a zerotime engine from the factory contains all new parts. That's simply not the case. For years, field shops have complained about this practice an "exalted privilege granted from on-high" as one engine shop owner puts it. One industry activist, Bill Schmidt of Cincinnati-based Signature Engines, believes that zero-timing is paramount to false advertising and has officially

petitioned the FAA to change the rules. He even has his own Web site to carry the cause forward, www.stopzerotime.com. The site includes Schmidt's petition to the FAA. How It Works From the FAA's point of view, the OEMs have access to the original production drawings, thus they can theoretically attest that each engine component conforms to new specs during the rebuilding process, whether it's a new part or one with 2000 hours of flight time. In other words, your "zero-time" crankshaft can legally be undersize due to wear but still treated like new because the factory allows it. In practice, how important are these production drawings? Not very, in our estimation. Except under the most unusual of circumstances, everything any competent shop needs to know about how to overhaul the engine is contained in the OEM Service and Overhaul Manuals. Having the production drawings is a nice technicality but unconvincing as basis for building a better engine. In fact, we're told by industry insiders that the drawings are rarely used anyway, since the principal specifications are in the overhaul manuals, for all to see. Drawings are, however, critical when building new engine components from scratch. Most reputable engine shops not only believe the term "zero time" means nothing, but some even consider it blatant false advertising. Jimmy Broad, of Sebring, Florida-based JB Aircraft Engines Services, says that, while the OEMs may not admit to it, it's entirely possible for a factory zero-time rebuilt engine to contain parts having more total time than the engine it's replacing. Engine modifier Terry Capehart of High Performance Engines Ltd. in Mena, Arkansas and Zephyr Engine's Charlie Mellot in Zephyrhills, Florida, say there are instances in which internal components involved in sudden stoppages or accidents have found their way into zero-time engines. (The same is true of field overhauls, by the way.) At present, there's no legal obligation for anyone turning an engine in for a core charge to inform the factory of such abuse. The typical independent shop may actually have a better handle on the past history of the engines they offer than does the factory, which receives cores by the pallet load. Of course, the factories do inspect the parts for wear and damage before reusing them, just as overhaul shops do. Just why did the FAA allow this practice to get started? Probably because,

until about the late 1980s when new airplane production was less anemic than it is now, the engine makers only built new engines. They left overhauls to field shops. When the new engine business declined, the factories went after the overhaul business with two distinct advantages: the economy of scale conferred by volume and the cache of holding the engines' birthright. In other words, with minimal FAA oversight, the factories declared the standard and passed it down to the field shops doing overhauls. When the factories began overhauling and remanufacturing, exchange engines were returned to the factory, disassembled and parts inspected, sorted and put into bins of identical parts to be reassembled later. Similar parts were then sorted as being within OEM new specs, serviceable, or outright junk, which was discarded. Because any future re-assembly into engines could actually be somewhat of a mix of used and new parts, the end result would bear little resemblance to any specific run-out engine from whence the parts came. Major components such as crankshafts, cases, gears and so on are typically re-used if they meet specs. However, the OEMs claim they can't keep track of every used component's total time in service, nor do they typically make any effort to do so. In fact, as exchange cores are passed through the rebuilding process, individual engine components are typically not kept together as a functioning parts group. Volume, Numbers From a volume/manufacturing standpoint, this makes sense. Keeping a group of non-serial numbered parts together can be a logistical nightmare and, even if you could do it, how would you log the time for each component and what meaning would that have? The part total time designation loses its value unless all the components are kept together as one functioning engine, sans those components replaced by new parts. This, too, is logical, given the sloppy state of paperwork that passes for logging these days. Our audits of engine and airframe logbooks turn up all kinds or errors, great and small. It's not uncommon to see gaps of thousands of hours in an aircraft's history. That said, if you opt to have your engine overhauled by Lycoming and you specifically decline an exchange, you'll get your own serviceable core parts back, plus any new parts installed during the overhaul. If you opt for an exchange overhaul from Lycoming, the engine could be composed of used core parts of widely varying times.

Continental doesn't overhaul, per se. It sells new and remanufactured engines or, in FAA parlance, rebuilt. As we've reported, Continental bought Mattituck Aviation Corp., a respected overhaul shop, in 1999. Mattituck does sell overhauls and, in that sense, is no different than any other field shop. What the Factories Say For the OEM view, we contacted Continental and Lycoming, both of whom obviously have a different take on the zero-time issue. For its part, Lycoming says the company does enjoy advantages over overhaul shops. Lycoming's VP and Chief Engineer Rick Moffit argues that, in general aviation recips, Click on photo for larger image. the notion of time-limited parts doesn't exist, although manufacturers do publish recommended TBOs which are mandatory only for for-hire operations. Lycoming doesn't serialize the majority of its parts, thus there's no mechanism in place to keep track of the duty times of internal parts. This means that while the "parts bin" argument may have had some merit in influencing the FAA some years ago, the need to track duty time of reinstalled components is neither necessary nor perhaps meaningful. Although it wasn't mentioned specifically in our conversations, we're sure the lawyers have some stake in the "zero-time" argument as well, especially as it relates to the factories' publishing minimum/maximum time specifications for certain parts. Were they to publish specific accepted minimum times for components, field shops might then be able to call their engines "zero time." But this might also increase the company's liability exposure. In effect, any part that failed before the replacement time could be construed as being officially okayed by the factory. Teledyne Continental's chief engineer John Barton and Jay Wickham, who oversees the Mattituck operation, support the view that having production drawings gives the factories a meaningful advantage. And while it's true that the drawing themselves aren't always on the factory floor, TCM says the drawing requirements are increasingly controlled by a computer system

called CAPPS for computer aided process planning system. This system makes dimensions and requirements readily available in the factory to a level of detail not included in overhaul manuals. Further, the CAPPS system contains the latest drawing revisions, which overhaul manuals may not. Indeed, say Wickham and Barton, it's not unusual to find factory overhaul manuals not in evidence at an overhaul shop, a way of work that may be effective for shops but would prohibit Continental from factory authorizing such a shop. Of more material import, says TCM, is that parts used in zerotime engines are subjected to the rigorous requirements of factory new components. For example, reworked crankshafts are examined and undergo the same 40-hour nitriding process that all factory new crankshafts get. If field overhaul shops provide this service, says TCM, it's not likely to be the same process the factory uses. TCM says that during its rebuilding process, it routinely destroys all cylinders and many other components that might otherwise find their way into overhauled engines, legally or not. Many rejected parts may in fact meet service limits overhaul requirements but not new requirements. Continental says one of its rebuilt engines is likely to contain more new parts than a field overhaul. The confusion and to a degree, the deception, is there for the taking by all parties over the "zero-time" issue. TCM's Wickham notes that many facilities that compete with Continental use intentional "factory disparagement" to create favorable buyer impression of their products. Since the factory doesn't sell direct, it relies on distributors and shops with potentially conflicting sales interests to sell its products, thus a detailed understanding of what goes into a zero-time engine is not necessarily conveyed to the potential buyer. The PMA Market Gary Garvins, CEO of Engine Components, Inc., a major PMA house, sees both sides of the argument. He agrees with the Lycoming line of reasoning but he also agrees with shop owners who believe the zero-time claim is misleading at best, false advertising at worst. But, says Garvins, the zerotime privilege for the factories was set in stone four decades ago and it would take an act of Congress to change it. (One engine shop owner told us, "if the FAA could drop the zero-time issue without un uproar, it would.") What Garvins and engine shops object to is that OEMs are essentially

allowed to "throw away the logbooks" on used but serviceable components and then to use the zero-time claim in advertising, which gives them a distinct advantage in the minds of buyers. Tim Archer, who is senior vice president for Superior Air Parts, another big PMA supplier, says there are more issues at stake than just the zero-time claim. Archer, by the way, worked for Continental for years, so he has seen the argument from both sides of the fence. He says the real issue shouldn't be the logbook verbiage but what it implies. In other words, do you want to know the history of all the parts used in building up your rebuilt/overhauled engine or not? The OEM's would have us believe that they're the only ones who can accurately determine if the used parts should be reused and that they have unique inspection ability. But is that true in the real world? Archer says no. He says there are many quality engine shops fully capable of assembling engines equal to or better than anything turned out by the factories. In fact, says Archer, the "one man, one engine" build-up method used by field shops has the advantage of allowing closer inspection and checking of each phase of the overhaul. Zephyr's Mellot argues simply for more truth in advertising: "My suggestion would be to allow the factory to use the term 'zero-time since remanufacture' due to the fact that they're the only ones with the proprietary manufacturing drawings. After all, these are their drawings and I can't blame them for not wanting to release them." This would alert the buyer to the fact that the engine is not zero time since new but contains used parts. To some buyers, it's important to know this. Our view is that many buyers don't make the distinction. What It All Means Even though engine shops chaff at the advantage enjoyed by the OEMs and Bill Schmidt is trying to get his Zero-Time Coalition off the ground, don't look for anything to change soon. In researching this article, we sensed that this issue is a hot potato that the OEMs and the FAA would very much like to ignore. The engine factories, like the airframers, are struggling to retain profitability and we doubt the FAA is going to propose rulemaking to make the job any harder. To be fair, the engine factories do retain the mother lode of detailed information on the engines they build and are often the only source of information critical to overhauling an engine correctly. Both Lycoming and

Continental rightly point out that their factory drawings contain information not found in overhaul manuals. On the other hand, the best field shops have been doing nothing but overhauls for decades and we know from experience that they know tricks the factories don't, because building an engine is not the same as overhauling one. It is true that a zero-time engine is different from an overhauled engine, but only by a degree determined by how many new parts it might have and, as TCM says, additional inspection processes. Both engines will have used or reconditioned parts. The cold reality is that, in terms of durability, safety and value, there's little difference between a zero-time overhaul from the factory and an overhaul from a reputable field shop. To us, the more critical factor is how the builder supports its work with warranty performance. Given the product recalls from the factories mostly recently on Lycoming crankshafts we don't think either OEM is in a position to claim the high ground on superior quality control. The bottom line? When you see a logbook with a claim of a zero-time engine, know that, unless it's a factory-new engine, it contains used parts. Perhaps many used parts of unknown service history. This isn't a bad thing; nor does it mean the engine is blemished. But if you buy an engine labeled "zero time" and expect to get all new parts, you won't. If all new parts are important, buy a new engine.

A Hangar of Your Own Email this article | Print this article If you cant find a rental, building or buying a hangar might be an option. But a good investment? As AVweb's Paul Bertorelli wrote in Aviation Consumer, dont count on it. January 19, 2003 by Paul Bertorelli Editorial Director About the Author

This article originally appeared in the March 2001 edition of Aviation Consumer.

Maintenance

Definition of a crying shame: returning home from the refurb shop with your $9000 paint and upholstery redo only to lash the thing down in a mudhole masquerading as a tiedown. Welcome to the real world of aircraft ownership, where most of us tough it out in a tiedown that, if were lucky, has a thin veneer of pavement over the mud. Yes, a hangar would be ever more preferable, if you can both find and afford one. Yet as the boomer generation ascends into financial security, a surprising number of owners are seizing the day, buying or building their own hangars, either because none exist at their home airports or because theyve grown weary of the ramp riffraff. But what are the particulars here? Do the numbers work in favor of buying or building a hangar? No way, say some hangar dwellers; absolutely, say others. To sort out the arguments pro and con, we recently interviewed more than a dozen owners and builders of hangars. Herewith is their advice on investing in a barn for the baby. No Way, No How

Paul Bertorelli is a professional aviation journalist and editor. He's Editor in Chief of The Aviation Consumer and editorial director of AVweb and Belvoir Publications' Aviation division. He's a 4,500hour ATP and CFIA/CFII/CFIME. He owns a Mooney 231.

Hank Galpins $400,000 big box includes a furnished apartment. Every owner desperately wants a hangar and the reasons for that are obvious and compelling. Its simply more convenient. No ice and snow to remove, no hot sun blistering the paint nor rain sopping the innards, causing all sorts of mayhem, major and minor. The standard assumption that hangaring retains value is a straw man, in our view. Although a hangar will protect the paint and keep the upholstery spiffier, the phrase always hangared ranks with the checks in the mail and Im sure I put the gear down. No, the real reason you hangar is pure convenience and nothing more. Unfortunately, rare indeed is the airport that has any hangars available at all, let alone a ready surplus. Waiting lists for hangar space are common across the country, according to our survey. The most widely available type of hangaring is also the least desirable, in our view: group hangaring that requires line-crew towouts. Owners who have gone this route tell us its not a question of if youll suffer hangar rash, but

when. Moreover, in colder climes, group hangars are often heated, which is nice, but this comes at a high cost, which isnt nice. Owners quoted group hangar rates between $300 and $1200 a month, depending on location and aircraft size. Next on the pecking order are t-hangars; individual condo-style boxes that are rented or bought outright, with some kind of lease arrangement with the airport for the land they occupy. Average rental rates seem to hover around $200, with the lowest about $125 and the highest in the $600 range. Buy one for $10,000 to $40,000, depending on size and location. T-hangar plusses: Theyre cheaper to buy and less involved than box hangars, putting them within reach of many owners. Minuses: tight fit in some increases hangar rash risk, and theres not much room for the extraneous airplane junk for which most owners want a hangar in the first place. Last, the best of all worlds: the so-called box hangar, a high-ceilinged, broaddoored behemoth of a structure often capable of accommodating two or more aircraft. These hangars are more the province of owners than renters and cost from $20,000 up, whether you build or buy. Theyre sometimes standalones or in condo arrangements. Plusses: lots of room and amenities; no hangar rash worries; good resale value, usually. Minuses: large box hangars can be expensive and, if heated, pricey to maintain through a winter. The Land Deal Unless you live on an airport residence arrangement, you dont exactly own a hangar in the same way you own a house, which is generally fee simple ownership. Subject to zoning laws and bank lending restrictions, you can do what you like with fee simple property. But not with hangars. On airport property, these are generally in leasehold ownership, which means someone else -- usually the airport owner or town -- has fee simple title while you merely have a long-term right to use the land for an agreed-upon monthly or yearly fee. For that fee, the airport may provide some services, such as snow plowing, water and sewer and electrical hook-up. Or maybe not. Leasehold arrangements vary all over the map, literally. We would characterize some as benign, almost favorable, for the aircraft owners while others clearly favor the airport owner or developer of the hangar complex. An example of the former is the arrangement Paul Thomas has on his home

airport at Anoka Country Airport, near Minneapolis. Thomas built his own hangar but leases the land for a nominal $200 a year long-term fee. He owns his $35,000 40X60-foot hangar, which he bought already erected. Should the lease terminate, he can sell the hangar for market value or move it somewhere else. Presumably, the new owner gets the same long-term leasehold deal. As deals go, thats not a bad one, in our view. Less attractive are the long-term leasehold arrangements that revert the hangar ownership status back to the airport, another owner or the hangar developer. We found a number of those, including one that Saratoga owner Brian Peck bought into in Oxford, Conn. Heres the part thats hard to swallow, Peck told us. We do not actually own the hangars. After 30 years, we must, by contract, sell the hangar back to the FBO for a dollar. This means that the hangar has good residual value for about 15 years or so, but then, my resale market is restricted to guys who only have a decade or so of flying ahead of them. Obviously, the problem with this deal, says Peck, is that the longer he stays in the hangar, the less value it has. No 35-year-old rich guy is going to be stupid enough to plunk down whatever Im going to ask when Im 70 years old only to have the hangar yanked out from under him when hes 50 years old. Nonetheless, say Peck and others who have entered into such arrangements, theyre satisfied if not happy with the deal. It would have been better if we owned the hangars free and clear at the end of the 30 years, but the state didnt see it that way, says Peck. Okay, How Much Money?

Scott Witschgers box hangar was erected near Albuquerque, N.M., and

cost $60,000 for 2880 square feet. Buying or building a hangar can range from a moderate investment -$10,000 on the low end -- to well over $100,000 for some of the finest ramp palaces imaginable. Since total construction costs vary with size and style of hangar, not to mention region of the country, we think its useful to consider some average, per-square foot costs, less the monthly leasehold arrangement. Given the results of our survey, we think estimating average hangar costs at $22 per square foot is realistic, although the costs will be much higher in some areas. Here are some for-instances: 60X60 box hangar, heated, with two doors in leasehold ownership: $70,000 or $19.44 per sq/ft. -Marshall Carter, Plymouth, Mass. 50X60 box hangar, bi-fold door, insulated roof and wall for shop, in fee simple ownership on residential airpark: $28,600 or $9.53 per sq/ft. -Jerry Jackson San Geronimo Airpark, Texas 50X50 box hangar, bi-fold door, no insulation in leasehold ownership: $34,800 or $13.92 per sq/ft. -Todd Underwood Muscle Shoals, Ala. T-hangar, 920 square feet; insulated with heat and bi-fold door in leasehold ownership: $23,000 or $25 per sq/ft. -Rick Rodkin Rogers, Ark. 75X125 box hangar with 60-foot bi-fold door, heat in floor, insulated in 20year leasehold ownership: $400,000 or $42.66 per sq/ft. -Hank Galpin Glacier Park, Mont. 40X60 box hangar; steel with sheetrock finish inside; leasehold ownership: $34,800 or $14.50 per sq/ft. -Paul Thomas Anoka County Airport, Minn. 60X60 steel box hangar; insulated with roof skylights in fee simple ownership on an airpark: $69,000 or $19.16 per sq/ft. -Chris Kelly Pine Shadows Airpark, Fla. 50X50 box hangar with sliding door; self-erected in fee simple ownership on private air park: $14,500 or $5.80 per sq/ft. -Mike Miles Little Rock, Ark. 48X90 steel hangar with doors at each end; insulated and heated: $148,000 or $34.25 per sq/ft., including considerable paving outside the hangar. -Joanne Arbaugh Pellston Regional Airport, Mich. Construction Notes Hangar construction options vary, but the most desirable new hangars are metal with concrete pads and aprons. Some such hangars are merely metal

buildings -- say a Butler or a Mesco -- adapted for hangar use while others, such as Erect-A-Tube, FulFab or Port-a-Port are purpose-designed for airplanes. The latter is important if an inexpensive t-hangar is your goal, since generic steel building companies generally dont make nested structures and thangars occupy the bottom price strata. Otherwise, a building is a building and whether it houses airplanes or farm equipment is immaterial except in one regard: the door. Hangar owner/builders told us that door design dimensions are near the top of the list in hangar construction considerations. Says Chris Kelly of Pine Shadows, Fla., Once you select the door and the building, the manufacturers of both have to talk to each other so the dimensions are right and the front wall is designed to accommodate the load; youll need a load reaction data sheet from the door company. There are a handful of door designs but three are practical for small GA hangars: sliding doors with tracks, bi-fold doors and swinging doors which pivot outward. Each has its pros and cons but aside from cost, climate drives door design. In warm climates, a sliding door is a good choice, since its the cheapest option if theres no risk that snow and ice will clog the tracks, making winter pullouts a nightmare of shoveling and chipping. Track doors with outriggers are even worse than nested sliders when a foot of snow hits the ground. Where snow is a worry, a bi-fold is desirable because it pivots into the hangar initially, so you can open the door then ease a plow blade across the door threshold, clearing the snow without heroic shoveling. Speaking of snow shoveling, several owners said that if they had it to do all over again, they would add an overhang to the front of the hangar to keep snow from butting against the door. I have a south-facing hangar, so when the snow melts, it slides off and piles up in front of the door and now Ive got four feet of snow to shovel, says one Vermont hangar owner. Even in moderate climates with no snow, overhangs and/or gutters are advisable to keep moisture away from the base of the building. It seems a minor thing, but owners say it makes a difference. Dont Scrimp

At $5.80 per sq/ft., Mike Miles hangar (top) was the cheapest we found while Jerry Jacksons $28,600 box hangar in Texas (bottom), was closer to the norm. Some steel building companies sell a complete package, both the raw steel and labor to erect it, usually a subcontract crew. Or you can hire your own contractor to erect the structure. In either case, say experienced hangar builders, make sure the door company and building company are dancing cheek-to-cheek so that the building is engineered to support the door. Moreover, find out how complete the building suppliers drawings are. Are they good enough for the local building department to issue a permit? Some building companies will provide engineers stamps on the drawings, which local building departments will accept without question. Others may provide only the crudest schematics. Without this critical data, progress can grind to a halt. One surprise for me was that I had to get a local architect to finish up the

plans, which added cost, says Scott Witschger, who built a hangar near Albuquerque, N.M. Even if the drawings are complete, a local architect or builder may have to be engaged to do drawings for concrete footings and pads. Speaking of concrete, it represents a more significant portion of total hangar cost than some hangar builders expect. Yes, the hangar cost more than we figured, says Scott Witschger, because of footings, which are quite large. I was off by a third on the concrete. Some owners think its a good idea to be present when the concrete is poured. One owner told us the construction company that poured his slab failed to include a plastic vapor barrier: Our floors are cracking and leaking and will have to be re-poured in the spring. Concrete specs are dictated by local code but most require 3000-pound mix poured at least four inches thick, with steel mesh reinforcing. Scrimping may cost money in the long run, says Todd Underwood, who operates a steel building business and builds hangars throughout the southern tier states. You can trade your car in for a new one every year but if you cut corners on a hangar, youre going to have trouble fixing it, Underwood told us. Scrimping on steel quality and construction may be shortsighted, too, says Underwood. Code dictates minimums but these can and sometimes should be exceeded. For example, the main frame uprights, which support the walls and roofs, are often placed on 25-foot centers. Adding an additional main frame on 20-foot or less centers costs perhaps 10 percent more but pays off in a stiffer structure thats more wind resistant, a plus in hurricane country. Likewise, says Underwood, dont go cheap on the steel sidewall sheeting. He recommends at least 26-gauge galvalum sheeting, fastened with long-life or stainless drill screws that wont corrode, staining the sheeting with rust rivulets. Underwood says sheeting pre-coated with polyester paint weathers well. When specing the building, get costs on the code-required basics first, then ask about additional structural and weather-resistance enhancements, with particular attention to the door hardware and function and anything that helps keep the hangar dry. Adding these later if you need them may be costly or impossible. <> From the things-Id-do-differently file came these tidbits: In a large hangar, install a door at both ends. The convenience of single-

airplane pullouts without tedious repositioning of others is worth the cost. Plan for as much lighting as you think youll need, then double it. Owners say theres never enough lighting in hangars. The same applies to electrical outlets. Think about this: Hangars are high. How are you going to change the lightbulbs? Install as many skylights as you can afford; theyll add natural light and save on lighting costs. Shiny gray epoxy floor finishes are nice but slick when wet. Add grit to the paint or ask your concrete finishers about a smooth surface with some tooth. Even if you dont plan a sink or bathroom at the outset, install the plumbing anyway. You can always finish out the bathroom later. Minimal roof insulation -- even in warm climates -- will eliminate condensation, something which many hangar owners complain about. For heated hangars, roof and walls will have to be insulated. Aluminumfaced bats and panels are best. If the hangar is heated, install a closable continuous ridge vent. In warmer climates, an always-open ridge vent will reduce condensation. In a heated hangar, ceiling fans will dramatically improve heating efficiency and comfort. If you have a choice, consider site orientation carefully. Higher is dryer; lower is wetter. In warm areas, a south-facing hangar will be hotter to work in during the cool mornings. In colder areas, south/east facing will clear ice and snow from the door more readily, but the runoff will freeze at night. In a low, wet area, foundation drains may be the only way to keep the hangar dry. Installing them during construction will be cheaper than after the fact. Before signing a leasehold agreement, try some hardball negotiation for better terms. Some airports will be flexible; some wont. Avoid reversion deals that award hangar ownership to the airport. Smart Money?

Chris Kelly probably has good investment value in his steel box hangar built on Pine Shadows Airpark, Fla., for $69,000. Finally, the bottom line. Is a hangar a good investment or, at the least, can you get out of it whole? Not too surprisingly, the owners we interviewed have no illusions about investment value of hangars. An investment? Oh, no says Hank Galpin, who built a 75X125 hangar at Glacier Park, Mont. Its kind of like owning a house; a repository for your money without much growth. And from Marshall Carter, a banker and hangar developer in Plymouth, Mass.: Youre not going to make a lot of money at the small end, if any. However, says Carter, large hangars hes built will be profitable because theyll accommodate jet operators able to pay high rent in the hangarscarce Boston area.

A modest hangar on an airport with good demand for hangars will probably appreciate more than an expensive one, with limited market appeal. If we sell, I think well lose said Joanne Arbaugh, who built a $148,000 hangar on a small regional airport. Nonetheless, there are success stories in hangar purchases and we wouldnt call them rare, just not all that common. The best hangar investment scenarios seem to be in t-hangars bought five or 10 years ago and flipped for a 20 to 50 percent gain in value. These deals seem limited to airports with high demand but little supply. Otherwise, hangars may be more like equities than real estate. The longer you keep them, the higher the value but spikes and valleys in value may be determined by the national and local economy. Equivalent real estate purchase may be more stable. Long term, says Scott Witschger, I do think its a good investment. Absolutely. I do my own maintenance and in some rental hangars, you get a hassle for that. Ultimately, our impression is that most owners who buy or build hangars consider it an emotional, feel-good purchase and dont give a hang about the investment value. Besides, any savvy aircraft owner knows that if youre interested in investment value, keep your money as far away from airplanes as possible. We like Brian Pecks outlook best: Obviously, if I had to depend on the resale value, I would not have bought the thing. But having my airplanes and tools and oil cans and rags in my very own hangar with a refrigerator full of Coke and beer makes me happy. Theres no reason not to buy a hangar, except money.

August 31, 2000 Email this article | Print this article The Aircraft Owner's Tool Kit It has been said that one of the most dangerous things in general aviation is an owner with a Phillips screwdriver. As a result of owner-performed preventive maintenance, technicians often find themselves working on something that an owner tried to fix, but only made worse. Clearly, some guidance for homebuilders and owners contemplating work on their aircraft is necessary. With that in mind and with tongue firmly in cheek AVweb

presents this list of definitions for common tools that should be a part of every homebuilder's and owner's tool kit. August 31, 2000 by Peter Egan (?) Editor's Note: The following came to AVweb's attention without an author's attribution. Since publishing it, we've learned that Peter Egan of Road & Track magazine is possibly its author. AVweb regrets the oversight. Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside Executive Editor HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit. ELECTRIC DRILL: Normally used for spinning rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works well for drilling mounting holes just above a fuel line. PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools based on the chaos principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes. VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads if nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand. OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your hangar on fire. WHITWORTH (Metric) SOCKETS:

Once used for working on older British engines and airplanes, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16-inch or 1/2-inch socket for which you've been searching the last 15 minutes. DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your drink across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted aircraft part you were drying. WIRE WHEEL: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws the bolt somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouch!" HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an airplane to the ground after you have installed your new tires, trapping the jack handle firmly under the landing gear leg. EIGHT-FOOT-LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2x4: Used for levering an airplane upward off a hydraulic jack. TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters. TELEPHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack. TROUBLE LIGHT: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under airplanes at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads. AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last tightened 60 years ago, and rounds them off.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding the clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50-cent part. HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2-inch too short.

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