A64Pilot

It is unquestionably an emulsion, if it weren’t then you would see free water in the oil when you drained it. How many auto engines have you seen with blown head gaskets that the oil looks like a milkshake? That is of course because it’s an emulsion. No question that free water in a running engines oil isn’t happening. Being emulsified is why it takes as long as it does to cook off, I’m sure we have all deep fried something and seen how fast the free water flashes off when the frozen french fries are put into the oil etc. Somewhere I read that for infrequently flown airplane that it was acceptable to put some amount of preservative oil in the oil and leave it there. I don’t remember if it was the engine manufacturer or the oil manufacturer. Without trying to start a “ bun fight” I think that’s pretty much Camguard is.

Interesting, I’ve not seen that wear mechanism on a loose bushing, but sure it’s possible. What I have seen is bushings move in and out and as they loosen from wear, wear accelerates. But you have to go the most conservative response. Maybe it gets brittle from work hardening? So he’s saying pull the suction screen how often? If in fact there were a lateral force the piston pin plugs would gall the cylinder walls because the pin would be displaced laterally?

After I posted I went back and re-read your post. I saw where your using it as another tool I guess I sort of jump to conclusions whenever oil analysis comes up. I’ve even had people tell me they don’t inspect their filter, they do oil analysis, it’s so much better. You may think me nuts but I’m doing oil analysis on my Motorhome but not my airplanes. The engine I have in the Motorhome used an excessive amount of EGR to pass emissions, so it is pumping soot into the intake, but also to burn off the DPF instead of a separate injector they got smart and inject fuel in the exhaust stroke to put raw fuel in the exhaust that way, unfortunately that also puts raw fuel in the oil, this engine has a rep for “making” oil, which is fuel in the oil of course. So I’m trying to establish an oil change interval

For whatever it’s worth. If you seal an engine from air intrusion, a very, very small amount of corrosion will occur, then the O2 is used up and without Oxygen corrosion can’t occur, even if it were filled with water Way back in the 70’s during the oil embargo there was a push to reduce energy consumption by any means possible including houses as of course electricity and heating oil went thru the roof too. One way was by thermal mass, mass in a hot day absorbs heat helping keep the house cool and releases the heat at night helping warm the house, particularly in Desert areas where temp swings are large. One thing that was done to get this mass cheaply was to fill old steel 55 gl drums with water. No matter how long they stayed filled they would never rust out as long as the bung plugs were installed. So in my opinion if you were really very concerned and didn’t want to seal your engine then instead of an aquarium pump pumping air through dessicant and then into the engine you should get a large bottle of N2 and very slowly as in take at least a month to bleed it empty into the engine. The N2 is completely as in absolutely no moisture dry where dessicant will still have some moisture, but also it will purge all of the O2 so. In truth once you get below about 30% RH there is almost no corrosion. Don’t quote me on that number because it’s from memory but it’s why Desert storage works.

See I’m not a firm believer in oil analysis as an indicator of engine health as that’s microscopic. In managing up to 24 helicopters for I guess 15 years or so, not once was oil analysis the trigger for component removal, it was always chip lights and chips etc on the detector and or filter, and often the amount of metal in the oil was scary, draining it it looked like there was silver paint in the oil. Army pretty much invented SOAP (spectroscopic oil analysis) the first oil analysis lab was in 1961 at Ft Rucker Al. So they have an unbelievable database. What I found oil analysis to be excellent for was determining the condition of the oil, especially Diesel’s for soot, fuel dilution, water and coolant etc. I’m not saying don’t do oil analysis if you desire to do so, just I never got a recommendation from the Lab telling me to pull the component out of service prior to me making that decision based on visible metal particles. I’m just saying that it’s not the ultimate indicator of engine health that’s it’s being marketed as, it’s just another tool, but it is the absolute best way of determining the condition of the oil itself, for that it has no equal. I assume that the FAA and Lycoming don’t either as they don’t reference it in the AD as an AMOC

All the throttle, prop and fuel cables on a Thrush we got from a boat cable manufacturer in FL. I thought it funny that the box they came in proclaimed that they were NOT to be used on aircraft. Unfortunately as we had power levers and not vernier controls that won’t work on our recip aircraft. Jacking up prices to increase profits often doesn’t work, often it just means your sales go to almost nothing as people and shops find alternate sources of supply.

I can’t imagine a piece of bronze coming from the small end bushing being 3/16” without the bushing pretty much coming apart. Pieces of metal even 1/16 would have me very concerned. I’d expect the failure mode to begin with small flakes that progressively get bigger, but good Lord 3/16” “chunks”? Am I the only one that never sees metal in their filters? I need to quantify that as I sometimes see a very small amount iron so small it feels like grease on the magnet

I don’t drop my gear until I’m in the white arc, it’s not at all hard to get a Mooney slowed down, once you understand that one doesn’t go down AND slow down in a Mooney very well. It as simple as you start slowing sooner is all. Back in school getting my Commercial / instrument fixed wing in I think 89 I was taught to get approach flaps before gear. The school taught that way because apparently in larger Commercial aircraft flaps come first so they taught flaps first. It was a little challenging on ILS’s etc until you learned to slow well before glide slope intercept, but once learned it just became the norm Anyway if you wait until your below 111 kts to drop the gear it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference in drag. There is some just not as drastic. As an A&P/IA I’m convinced that if you don’t drop gear and flaps as soon as you hit the max extension speed, that things will last longer. I never have understood why pilots are taught to drop the gear at max allowable speed every time. Truth is my airplane is an antique, and parts are getting hard to find, so I tend to back off the maximums. Does anyone climb at near redline cyl head temps?

I’ve done hundreds mostly during training. I imagine with as much helicopter time as I have I have way more landings than normal. I have more tailwheel than nose dragger time too, and there the concern is ground loops, it really does require more skill to land a tail dragger and once you feel comfortable in one I believe it makes nose dragger landings much easier. Most all of my touch and goes are in my tail dragger just because they are more challenging. Back in the day as in 40 or more years ago when there was sheds lot more flying going on people would go to the airport just to do touch and goes. I guess it was just something to do, or maybe everyone else did so they did too. Or maybe there were many more new pilots as a percentage of the population back then? Or maybe as landing was the most critical phase of flying that it was practiced the most? I don’t know why but it wasn’t uncommon at all for several to be in the pattern just doing touch and goes back then. I can see the argument in a complex airplane to not do touch and goes as it wears the gear, but if you feel that you should brush up on your landing skills, then I think you should go out and do some, but just as an excuse to fly, maybe not. The argument that there are some accidents that occur with touch and goes, so therefore you shouldn’t do them, is as logical as saying that the aircraft should never leave the hangar, because flying causes accidents, in my opinion. From what I have read the overwhelming majority of landing accidents come from pilots that apparently don’t have good skills, and when I watch Mooney’s landing it seems that there are quite a few that would benefit from the practice as I watch them float down half the runway then touch down in a three point and often bounce and have directional control issues. Those seem to be where the accidents come from, perhaps they should be doing touch and goes until they become proficient? From this accident as accidents almost never have one cause but a chain of causes I’d bet age was a contributing factor but I bet lack of recent experience was also and maybe others like weather, fatigue who knows? Plus once in a blue moon, we all make stupid mistakes for no apparent reason, the FAA years ago commissioned a study to determine why and never could, just came up with the acronym of SLOJ or sudden loss of judgement and I bet as I grow older the likelihood of SLOJ striking increases. We all are subject to things like trying to walk through a door that opens the other way etc

I wanted a boat that was above all comfortable and safe, hence the IP, over 40 and a boat is tough to single hand, an IP38 is actually 41’6” overall like most are measured. The code zero really woke it up in lighter winds, but an IP just isn’t a light wind boat, too heavy, but in 6 or so kts of wind and the motor ticking over at 1200 RPM my Autoprop would have her motor sailing at hull speed and burning less than a half gl an hour and charging batteries to boot. I carried four sails rigged, Main that was boom furling, Staysail that was my Storm sail too, 135% Genoa, and the Cruising code zero, cruising because it didn’t meet racing regs, but I was in no danger of racing my house. All sails were roller furling so I didn’t have to leave the cockpit for anything. Speed wise towing a dinghy really slows you down more than you would believe because your dragging the thing above it’s hull speed and forget passage making towing, in any storm the dinghy will at least flip and invert, and not unlikely you will lose it. Best on deck tied down, second best on davits. I wanted a big fast RIB and I didn’t have near the deck space for that so davits was it, but they gave me room for four 250W Solar panels, I ended up being about 45 ft overall, maybe 46. I miss cruising, if you have even the slightest inclination I say go, go now overwhelming majority wait too long and can’t. Don’t wait for the perfect boat, nobody needs a 50’ Condomoran, get a cheap 36’ boat and go if that’s all you have to spend, you’ll have just as much fun as the guy in the big Oyster, probably more really.

Isn’t the recurring oil inspections not oil but oil filter? It did include screens etc., my read is that was for non oil filter equipped engines, and suction screens are really rock catchers, the kind of wear particle that would come off of a bushing would surely flow thru a suction screen but be caught in the paper filter pleats or maybe in a filter screen. Doesn’t it correspond with the normal oil change interval? Aren’t we supposed to be cutting filters open and inspecting at every filter change anyway? Amazon has filter cutters as cheap as $18 for those that may not have one. It’s a ten minute task, personally I let a filter drain overnight before I cut but there is no need to. If I knew I had a non compliant engine I’d test all the bushings and unless it was a perfect cylinder I’d re-ring it or have the cylinder IRAN if it’s old and getting tired since I had it off. But if it was just possible that I may have a non compliant engine but no way to know short of disassembly I’d likely fly it and watch it, but I certainly would understand if anyone said nope only way to be sure is test them. Expense wise I wont argue because I don’t know, but I doubt $4,500, if it’s a good engine it’s very few parts. Parts would come in if you wanted to refresh the cyl while your there. I could do it on a 4 cyl in a long day, but probably two as I’m old now and don’t work as hard as I used to.Longer of course if we are talking rings or going to the engine shop for valves etc. Of course then you could easily get to $4,500 I guess.

I’m familiar we cruised an IP 38 and lived aboard for four years. Then my knees gave out, and Covid so I swallowed the anchor But stainless steel in aluminum give you corrosion especially in salt water. It’s galvanic corrosion. I put Tefgel on any SS that came into contact with aluminum, it helped Maules the sheet metal parts like the wings are built using cheap hardware store type SS pop rivets, if you look at the wings of most any Maule with a few years on it the rivets will have a ring of missing paint around them and if you look close that ring is corroded aluminum. Cherry Max rivets of any decent size you need a Cheery Max gun, it’s pneumatic, you can shoot a couple with a good hand puller and then you’re done. At $1,400 ea they aren’t real common for people who rarely need one https://www.aircraft-tool.com/detail?id=G704B Huck bolt guns put them to shame though https://www.blindrivetsupply.com/hucktools.html

“Blind rivets” are any rivet that is set by pulling on a stem and that covers everything from cheap dept store “pop” rivets to Cherry Max rivets. So you just can’t make blanket statements about them as a group. However Cherry Max rivets are a structural rivet and can replace an aluminum solid in any application that the drawing doesn’t specify a particular rivet. ( that I’m aware of anyway) Understand the drawing always takes precedence, if the drawing specifies something then that’s what you must use unless you get DER approval or similar. On edit, now that I think about it that’s not always true either I’ve deviated from drawings several times like installing nut plates where the drawing called for PK screws for example and if I had riveted on inspection covers I’d likely install nut plates and put them back on with screws too. A Cherry Max rivet has a steel stem that when the rivet is pulled breaks off of course but there is also a steel collar that locks the stem in place, so the rivet has a steel “core” that makes it stronger than an aluminum solid, both in shear and tension although a rivet should never be put in a tension load. However they are heavier and in my opinion uglier, a lot more expensive, often require special pullers to install, and are a PIA to drill out to remove. That steel locking ring must be removed, then you can punch out the steel stem, then you can drill the rivet. I grind the ring out of a button head one, but a countersunk one you can’t and it’s very difficult to drill out steel surrounded by aluminum without buggering up the hole, then it’s oversize rivet time. In other words in my opinion a Cherry Max rivet is never used if a solid can be driven without excessive work to do so.

Ref shooting rivets with paint on them, by all means do so. I’ve had troublesome rivets on a fleet that I used to manage that replacing the Cherry Max rivets was a temp fix, but if we drilled them out cleaned out the hole with Trichloroethane (strong degreaser, I’m sure bad for the ozone layer) and dipped the rivets in Epoxy primer and shot them wet it was a permeant fix. Pretty sure oil or hydraulic fluid was getting into the rivets and that was allowing them to work, the primer sealed the rivet we think. The other side of the vertical fin that was shot with solids wasn’t a problem. Ref can a blind rivet replace a solid, yes a Cherry Max can replace an aluminum solid, but many special rivets like Monel I don’t think so, but a Cherry Max is a real PIA to remove so my advice is don’t use them unless there is no other way.

Republic built a turboprop that the prop was supersonic, it was nicknamed the “Thunderscreech” do to its horrible sound level. Scroll down to the section entitled noise, because if I told you, most wouldn’t believe me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XF-84H_Thunderscreech

The warp speed calculator also corrected for temp and maybe DA, I know temp changes Mach quite a bit but don’t know about DA. Seems like it would because the speed of sound in water is quite fast, I assume due to density? Speed of sound is variable and the warp speed calculator took that into account. Anyway I think from memory our little airplane had a 108” prop and we turned it at 2200 RPM, that gave it a Mach number of about .9 and made it the loudest airplane we manufactured, for whatever reason Ag planes are exempt from noise regulations, but that airplane is also the only Ag plane that’s also Certified in the normal category, and it’s restricted to 2000 RPM then, but we increased the allowable torque limit so that the HP remained the same at 750 SHP. Of course the Ag drivers aren’t stupid and understand that the higher torque is the gearbox limit and the gearbox doesn’t care about RPM, so they turn both the higher RPM AND the higher torque and get 825 SHP out of the 750 SHP certified engine

Mine too, but if it gets hot it stops working

Oh, and never turn off your anti smash and crash lights, except maybe if your in IMC, they are your last defense against accidentally leaving your master on.

The way the wing tips are you may be right, but my 81 J still has the factory wing tip strobes, no tail strobe was installed. I think as bad as this sounds but as far as lights are concerned that basically as long as there is an attempt, no one cares, no one as in FAA. On my C-140 I put Whelen wing tip strobes on years ago as I didn’t have to pay for them, but kept the silly winking light that had replaced the original Grimes rotating beacon years ago, I figured more lights couldn’t hurt and if I removed the winky light then I’d have a hole to patch and paint. It’s tough I think to find a place to put one light that will give all around coverage for instance, yet before strobes that’s all there was.

I think the new AD the pilot can accomplish assuming of course they do their own oil change, if they have someone else do it, then there shouldn’t be any additional charge, because any licensed mechanic should be inspecting the filter anyway, and saying you complied with the AD is just another line in the oil change entry. However I wouldn’t be surprised if some do add some additional charge, it’s getting tough to make a living, just like where we eat Breakfast every Sun morning the coffee costs $2.50 now as they try to sneak in charges to stay afloat. If in fact and I think it is, but if an Automobile dealer gets $100 an hour more labor than an Aviation shop, no wonder why there is a shortage of good aircraft mechanics. Anyway just an opinion, but if you fall into the possible for the 2017 AD and are worried I’d do the AD. But as the 2024 AD does not require disassembly and should provide the same level of safety with just filter inspections it does make one wonder if the tear down is required. I couldn’t post last night, kept getting this message, was I the only one?

Now that you say it that’s what I remember, but didn’t until you posted and jogged my memory

Me, I’d comply with the 2024 AD, which I’m already complying with if I understand it, and I’d hope everyone else is too, and Ignore the 2017 until or unless it rears it’s ugly head. I don’t think it’s going to amount to much because if it was, especially since it’s been ongoing for what 7 years and pretty much none of us have heard about it the likelihood of a rash of failures is pretty remote (in my opinion). This AD sounds to me like a CYA for I guess the FAA, or maybe Lycoming, who knows which, perhaps both? Truth is we are all just finding steel in the filter away from something much more expensive than this, and the gear worry me. We have ALL heard of cam / lifter failures, how many have heard of these bushings failing? Does insurance cover a gear up if the actuator quits? I don’t honestly know but I think maybe they don’t cover material failure or it would cover a bad cam too? So as I see it we are all flirting with disaster as it is, you either deal with it whatever way you can, or you sell. Not trying to be nasty, but Certified aviation has always been like this and no aircraft make that I know of is Immune. At least we don’t have a wing spar AD etc, but as the fleet continues to age we are likely to see more AD’s. The C-210 I had a wing spar AD to deal with and honestly I suspect failing it would condemn the airframe as I don’t know what it would cost to fix it as opposed to the value of the aircraft, no idea. But small end rod bushings ought to not be all that hard or expensive honestly, not compared to what it could be.

I’m failing to understand the Angst here? I agree I wouldn’t want a defective part in my engine, but If I understand it and I’m not saying that I’m an expert because full disclose I’m going off only what I read here, but this AD isn’t requiring anything to be done that shouldn’t already be done anyway? IE inspecting the oil filter and suction screen? It doesn’t even require it to be done by a licensed mechanic. Heck it even tells you where to go because before this AD if I found bearing material I would immediately suspect the worst and remove the engine and split the case, it could be a large money saver. How much less intrusive would you like it to be and how? Ref the I don’t know if the new ones are any better or not, again I can’t be 100% certain, but using a tool to determine if the bearing has enough interference fit screams to me that either the rod bore is oversized or the bushing undersized and not a materials defect issue. Now this thing could grow arms and legs like the crank AD did, but as it began in 2007 seemingly I think it’s unlikely to do so.

The R-1340 RPM red line is 2250, usual cruise 2000. I’m pretty sure the T-6 airshow planes are turning faster than 2250 just for the noise. How much I’m not sure but the old Thrushes ran the same motor and prop and while they were loud, they weren’t that loud.

One thing that kills the aerobatic engines is the prop is a big gyroscope, and doing all that flipping around etc is hell on the crankshaft, the lighter the prop of course the less effect so the wooden MT’s are I think very popular, and an aerobatic prop does just the opposite pitch wise from oil pressure loss, they increase pitch where out props go flat, reason is imagine running wide open at High RPM, lose oil pressure for a sec and the prop go flat, RPM would get excessive, but if it increases pitch then it loads and slows engine and it’s safer. Turbine props do the same, they got to feather at loss of oil pressure. In this video a Reno air racer loses oil pressure, prop goes flat, explodes, engine RPM goes to god know where and engine rapidly disassembles itself, listen to the audio, engine sounds like an air ratchet.