Please note that this post is sent tongue in cheek and with a great deal of realistic humor applied,


All the manufacturers have problems, as soon as you have sold one engine to a customer you have a problem, IE the customer, let me give you a few examples:-

one customer phones us to say that he was having problems with his engine getting hot and shutting down just after achieving idle, he had done several starts and the engine was ramping up to about 850c on start up then stopping.

Turns out he had made a tail pipe for the engine that fitted directly over the engine exhaust, was about 3 feet long and necked down to just on 2 inches in diameter, gee must be an engine problem.

Another one phoned in to say he had had a rear bearing failure, the engine had been running fine with about 30 runs on it, then he read a post on one of the lists about having to much oil in the fuel mix and this was causing bearing skate, (this can happen) the post was related to another manufacturers engine, but the customer decided that in his engine, although it was running fine with no problems, he would leave the oil out completely as full size turbines don't use oil in the fuel do they, yep another engine problem.

What about the guy who decided to bench run his engine before installation into the airframe, good idea, get used to the engine and its characteristics, but he had already installed the ecu, pump and batteries in the airframe, so he decided to set the engine up on the bench and run it on gas only, using the gas bottle tap to regulate the speed of the engine, he actually managed 15 starts and runs before the bearings failed, yes you got it another problem with the engine.

This one takes the biscuit, customer crashed his bird, and damaged the compressor, Chipped blade, so he decided to strip the front of the engine and cut the tips off the rest of the blades with a pair of side cutters, seemingly it looked great, he re assembled the engine and ran it, this one was sent back to us for warranty with a very distasteful letter blaming the subsequent engine failure as a factory engine problem, yes he was right, our factory should have never let him have an engine, unless it was driven by an elastic band.

Don't get me wrong, if an engine is not fully developed and tested then it should not be released to the market, and in saying this I mean both the mechanical and electronics package, you can have the best mechanics in the world and have them let down by a poor electronics package, you can have the best electronics in the world and have them killed by a poor engine, it is up to the manufacturer to ensure the product is sound and tested, the one thing a manufacturer can not account for is the customer factor.

If any other manufacturers read this please, if you have a story then post it to the forum, it could give us all a laugh and it will show that some of these problems are not really our fault:-)

BRG,
Chris at TJT.