Hey guys,

I just wanted to share with you my very first turbine flights. It is a stingray with a Full auto start JJ1400. I will try to post a flight video on putfile and post the link here.

The JJ is the part that has a very long story to tell. I bought it about 6 months ago, and have been messing with it ever since. At first it wouldn’t start, then once that got straightened out, it would idle, but it would flame out whenever I would go to accelerate quickly. I tried increasing the acceleration delay up to 120, but still no luck.
At this point I had been messing with it for about a month. I finally got up my courage to open it up and see if I could figure out what was causing the trouble. To make a long story of troubleshooting short, my bearings had been fried, my preload was stuck, I wasn’t getting enough lubrication, the rotor assembly was way out of balance, my CC wasn’t melting yet, but the fuel injector needles were badly blocked, and I had massive air leaks all around the outer cover seam.
First I sent the rotor assembly to RTI to get it dynamically balanced and fitted with new bearings. Then I fixed the preload system by removing the rear O ring permanently and sanding/polishing the inside of the shaft tunnel to the point where the preload sleeve wasn’t “dancing” with plenty of room, but so that it would simply glide back and forth. I knew that once the lubrication entered the tunnel and coated the sleeve it would slide even better. At this point I decided to order a new Inconel CC just so that my engine would be “up to date” and potentially last longer too. When I got the Inconel CC I checked the needles, and they were all free of blockage.
Before I put the engine back together, I needed to take care of the lubrication line. Mine was obviously too small. So, I made a new one out of the tubing from the old CC that used to be in the engine. As per Airbuspilot’s post, I crimped the end of the line so that the flame was three times bigger than any one of the fuel injector needles while they were both hooked up to a gas supply at the same time.

Finally I was able to put the engine back together. At this point I had taken apart and put the engine back together about 30 million times, so I was getting it down to a method of madness. LOL!! To take care of the air leak problem, I got some High temp silicon and forced it into and under the outer cover’s front seam. This took care of the air leak completely. Now I could be sure that the CC was getting all of the air that it was supposed to be getting.
I started the engine, and everything seemed to be awesome, but about three starts later, you could see small and varying puffs of black smoke and sparks come out the tail cone somewhat at random. It was getting worse; I was losing the ability to accelerate without excessive flaming. It finally got to the point where the engine would start, but as soon as I went to accelerate, the flames would roar out the tail cone forcing me to shut down the engine. I was very disappointed. So I once again took the engine apart and my worst fear was affirmed. My brand new Inconel CC was incinerating. (see pictures)
I contacted Mr. Brown who is our US Jet Joe rep, and explained my situation to him. In the end, he got me a brand new replacement Inconel CC, and now I am up and flying.

Currently the engine has plenty of power, the acceleration time is unbelievable, and I finally have a turbine engine that I can trust my airplane to.

I just wanted to post and tell you guys that I was very impressed with the support and service from Mr. Brown.


Brandon