My first Kingtech failure
 

Well. Its been 2 years since I started using, and selling Kingtech turbines, and last week at First in flight saw the first failure of a turbine that has resulted in me sending a turbine back to the factory for work. Thats after running them in 11 airframes, and selling a decent amount to customers. Even then. The fault with my K100 has turned out to be a sticking solenoid valve which I am sure that I could fix myself. ( Would rather send it back and have peace of mind that its done right )
I thought that I might also add that before I diagnosed what the issue was, I spoke to Barry a number of times ( Long distance ) on his cell phone. He tried to help me diagnose what the issue maybe. He even went out of his way to overnight a new ECU to my hotel whilst I was at the event. That arrived next day by 1030am. Unfortunately this did not rectify the issue, but 10 out of 10 for effort.
Before anyone suggests that this was only the case because it was me, or I am getting special turbines. Please rest assured that all my turbines, and my customers turbines are coming from stock. Also, I have had similar type issues with other brands in the past, and never received service such as this. I have also never come close to matching Kingtech's small numbers in failure rates. They are miles in front of any other brand that I have sold/ used. These are just my personal experiences based on real life operation and sales. No wanting to start a turbine war or a flaming post succession. I just see a great product, and service to match and feel that it deserves recognition.
My thoughts are that every product that we use will fail at some point. Every turbine, every radio, every aircraft manufacturer. They will all have an issue at some point or another. It makes me chuckle when people say they use brand X, Y or Z because they believe it will never fail… For me its all about how that company acts upon the failure and what that failure rate is at.
Just sayin….. :rolleyes:
Regards Al

Same here Ali, i own 3 of them my first one a 2010 model K80E had only 6 hours on it all flawless the reason of low hours being due to an accident that kept me away from flying.
This year i started flying again and flown the engine 3 times and suddenly shut down in flight. On the 10th of April i emailed Barry/vera and got a reply to send it direct to factory.
Around the 20th i believe the factory got the engine....then silence....i thought hey it must have been a big damage not to have a response from the factory !! Then 5th of May i got an email from Vera to give my address as the engine is ready to be shipped!!! 10 days later i got the engine with new ecu wires and i believe a new outer case and god knows what else.!! All these cost me 30 euro shipping from Cyprus to Taiwan...need to say any more for this excellent service?

I had a minor issue with a Kingtech engine and Barry sent me a new engine before my old engine was even pulled from the airframe. Barry's service is by far the best I've experienced. Ali, your last statement about what a company does after a failure is critical. The companies that step up and take care of their customers will get all the rewards.

I think it would give me a bigger piece of mind with all my turbines to NOT run a fuel solenoid.

A fuel solenoid is like a triple redundancy option that, if it fails, can ruin your whole day.

I've have since stopped using them when ever I can.

The Kingtech G's have them in under the can, so no way to skip them.

And yes Ali, I've heard about Barry's service from Dubd and I was a believer.

i agree, i dont use the fuel solenoids either.

i like how things are becoming easier to install and operate, but they are also seeming to be less owner friendly when it comes to simple repairs/ parts replacements.

I've been running one for two and a half years now off and on without one failure. Barry offers great service. These are great turbines and I don't shy away from recommending them to anyone.

+1 with Barry! UPS sent my K180G to the wrong address & Barry sent me out another right away. I'll be purchasing more Kingtechs:cool:

Very impressed with Barry. He shipped my K100 even before the check got to him. Just started it up on the stand for the first time today- And it was a non event-Everything went just as if it had started 100s of times before.Scotty

Ali,

Did this fault cause a flameout or just a no-start situation? Glad to hear about the great service from Barry.

Craig

It was a no go on the start. All worked fine, just no fuel going through to the turbine.

The valves on the engine are easy to change also if you dont want to send your engine back. Some of the older kingtechs had faulty valves but when they get serviced Dirk has been replacing them all to get them out of circulation rather then waiting for them to fail.

Back the Kingtech side of things....

My 140G had an issue on the second startup (I believe it was a preload issue) Barry just swapped it out with a brand new one since it was new. He happen to be out of stock so he expedited one form the factory for me. Awesome service! I met him for the first time last weekend at LA jets and he is a great guy in general and awesome to deal with!

Brian

My 140 had to go back to taiwan after 5.30 hrs. front bearing pre load failure. Took all and all 5 weeks to get it back…..

Haven't run it jet cause it is still at the dealer but guess that the problems are solved. (i hope :p)

k-170
 

I am slowly converting my turbines to kingtech! I got tired of out of control repair costs and loooong delays in service with the other brand. Last year I had a rough weekend in July. 2 out of 3 of my turbines acting up. One was my K-170 with 17 hours. I called Dirk at Kingtech on Sunday and he returned my call right away. Didn't waste my time trying to call the other big name turbine company that was acting up.after trying a few things we decided the best action was to return turbine for service. The next day both turbines went out for service. my K-170 and brand x 100. My Kingtech was diagnosed with a bad selenoid repaired and returned to me with a repair cost including return shipping of less than a 100 dollars. Total time door to door was 12 days!!! And has run perfect ever since. The other turbine despite being purchased new that year in January and now returned a second time Stijl not one good flight on it was not sent back to me untill the season was over in late October!

I've got a bunch of flights on my K60 here at the Princeton Jet Rally (happening as I type this). So far excellent. My K80 was great as well. Kingtech are fantastic and the entire field here seems to be adopting them. Even the JetCat dealers who couldn't get engines because of whatever delay Jetcat seems to have these days are switching.

This does seem to be a common theme of some within the RC forums, not sure why, perhaps in some cases it is the anonymity of the internet that makes some people take up what appear to be personal vendettas against other posters or organisations, I do understand that it is in the interests of those who may be contemplating the purchase of an item from these organisations/dealers to be informed by prior users of both good and bad experiences (nearly always appears to be bad), but as far as personal attacks are concerned they really do not have any redeeming value to the reader other than to show how petty some can be. Some really do need to step back a bit and take a good look at what they have said in their posts; would they like to be on the receiving end of their comments, methinks not?

Having said that, I apologize for hijacking this thread but I do have some relevant comments to make.

I have two KT turbines, a 170F and a 140G, both perform extremely well (especially after finding that issues I was having were self induced), however with my 140 I experience an occasional flame out, the motor will perform as expected for many flights and then inexplicably cut out, I am thinking that it may be a static issue but not sure on how to determine if this is the case, other than this one small issue I am very happy with KT.

Regards to all
Peter

Glad to read about the Kingtech turbines. Thanks for sharing the information.

Sorry to hear about the off topic stuff. Ali, I hope it saves you some headache.
Dave

I was holding off and hoping I could post on this thread...and I can after having a superb weekend at my first time flying at a 2 day public show at Long Marston in UK. Took my K140F powered Futura and it didn't miss a beat over the whole weekend. If an engine can perform that well despite my poor installation skills it MUST be good. :cool:

Just did an test run with my 140 after i got it back from repair on a bearing.

I'm in tears of happiness ;) What a brilliant little toy ;)

What does this have to do with Kingtech?

I have removed a number of posts and the responses which were not related to the topic under discussion.

Kingtech service
 

Just wanted to add to the unreal speed and communication that Barry, Derick and Vera getting my K-180g serviced. I don't have any connections to any commercial side of this hobby. I sell vehicles for a living. I am not a team member of any manufacture either. So not that I have made full disclosure here is my story.

I have purchase one used k-80f, one new k-100g and the K180g that I purchased new back in December of 2012 from Dreamworks. The is one this story is about. I flew in a FB F-18f for about 12 flights and had some hard landing. I had a really hard crash landing that I should have sent it back but I really want to use it another jet that was ready to fly.

I finally purchased a Skygate Hawk and was just finishing it up when I crunched the F-18 pretty good. I looked over the turbine and bench ran with no problems or noises. I flew it in my Hawk for 3 flights on the 4th flight at the First in Flight event it shut down in flight. I landed with no issues.

I call and emailed Barry on Monday memorial day. He told me to send it end and lets see what is up. I sent it out overnight shipping to them letting them know I really want it back fast to make Va. jets. Long story short I have it back and it looks like new with zero time. Vera handled the billing and shipping super fast and I am so happy just with there service alone. I am sure it will do great. All 3 of the kingtech turbines I have own work flawlessly and I am sure this 180g wouldn't have failed if I had sent it in after my mishap.

Yea I am the reason for the post in the Kingtech form on sending them back for a check out after a hard bump. Yes I would have save a lot of money if I had.

Again Kingtech is awesome. Thanks again to Barry, Derick and Vera.

I will continue to do business with companies like Kingtech when they really car and deliver what they promise.