Well i'm about to jump into Turbines, and was wondering what the majority reason was for turbines flaming out.

I also work on corporate jets as a living in Van Nuys, and i noticed that the major difference between turbines in RC jets and the real deal (Besides the size difference) was that the electronics for the RC Turbines don't have shielded wires and controlers that are grounded to anything. With those turbines rotating as fast as they do, they sure produce lot's of static electricity, infact while we do engine runs late in the afternoon durring the winter hours at the airport, you can see hundreds, if not thousands of little sparks in the intake of full sized turbines between the engine fan blades and the engine intake case (Yes you see sparks with the naked eye when it's dark). Of course all the wiring that deals with the engine electronic computers (be it FADAC or DEEC's or what not) have all the wires shielded and the shileds running to ground, all to prevent electronic disturbances which will cause the electronics to act funny shall we say, even the computer case is grounded.

What's your take on this people???

Gene

There is really not much to ground anything to...the airframes are either compostie, or wood, or a combination.....

Flame outs in our small engines are usually fuel related (or lack thereof...) an airbubble in the fuel line is enough to put the fire out. There may be the odd case of electronic problems but generally the ECU's we fly with have a good history of reliability....

All of my flame outs in my Jetcats have been due to (in numerical order): 1) fuel exhaustion, 2) bubbles in the fuel line (i.e., failure to properly purge the UAT after an incident of (1), and 3) dead ECU battery...

Bob

90% air bubbles/fuel
8% ECU doing what is supposed to do - overtemp, over/under speed, low battery, etc
2% Radio lock outs

These are my guesses!

Cheers

Zane

Gene,
Your'e right about the static. In full size aviation its old news. Its worse when there are plastic parts ahead of the air intake and the engine case is not grounded to the ECU ground. In the real world of the jet model you will only be right once a popular rep or jet icon says it is so. No room for reality/science here, only denial and popular misguidance....
Next time you have a static issue on a corporate jet, tell your boss the model jet guys can sell him a fuel additive....
Seriously, if you avoid static fuel tubing like tygon and plastic fuel tanks and UAT's, run a small earth wire around fuel lines, fuel pump and engine it will help. A nice ground to static is a patch of self adhesive copper sheet stuck to fuselage skin and grounded to engine as well. It can even improve RC reception if it forms part of the ground plane. Oops sorry, thats what is already done on real jets. It wont work on models until ??? says it is so.
Jake Beans

From a visual stand point is it generally true that a flame out followed by white smoke is generally caused by the various fuel system issues and a flameout without smoke is electrical, the pump stopping for various reasons.

Jake,
Right on about the "popular wisdom" in jet circles. Don't confuse 'em with the facts!