Click Here To Help Improving This Blog !When evaluating the value of an aircraft, one of the key factor is the TBO: Time Between Overhauls. Engine and propeller manufacturers define maximum time-in-service. The closer the engine / propeller is to this maximum age, the lower the plane value. This is rather logical, as the new owner will have to replace them sooner […]
For the last years, the Jet-A1 piston engines makert has been dominated by Thielert with its Centurion family. Another german company, Zoche, achieved to create some buzz, but unfortunately none of their engines got certified yet (read here).
With Cessna and Diamond using their engine, Thielert is in a good position, and even the French SMA […]
Thielert engines have been around for quite a while now - my personal flight time on Thielert equipped planes is close to 68 hours over two years. As far as I’m concerned these engine perform well. The only negative feed-back I can think of is about the high pressure pumps the engine uses to bring […]
It’s winter time in Switzerland, as in half of world, and we go through the first very cold days of the season, with temperature below freezing 24 hours a day. This has many consequences for pilots, like frozen fingers when towing planes, an absolute necessity for light aircraft flying IFR to stay out of clouds […]
I had this interesting comment as an answer to the “Trust the FADEC… but monitor it”
“Hi, yesterday a plane crashed into a bay in Flensburg - north Germany, and 4 people died. If the press ist right it was the DA40 with the Thielert-Diesel from a sports clup in Flensburg. So I googled the word […]
Sorry Thielert boys, but as any system, your contains some flaws. I will not put apart my “Plastic Evangelist” cap, or deny all what I wrote before, but will just report here a problem I had.
This happend after taking of from a 3500ft AMSL mountain airport. During climb, we (I say we because I was […]
I must say something here before starting discussing plastic performance. I did not had the opportunity to fly the same aircraft with classical and plastic engine, so I can not compare pure engine performance. It is obvious that performance does not depend of engine only, but I will give here some engine performance figures.
As mentionned […]
When flying diesel engine, you have to trust the FADEC. In fact you have no other choice as it controls the engine.
This seems obvious, but if you’re used to the classical three levers (throttle, prop, mix), you will probably feel out of control, or out of the loop, on your first FADEC single lever flights. […]
Black box in light aircraft ? Affirm !
This is not by design, it is a byproduct of electronic engine management. As the FADEC controls the engine, it knows each and every engine parameter (temperatures, pressures, voltages, …) and monitors all of them.
As a consequence, each time a parameter is out of the normal rage, the […]
Let’ s have now a closer look to plastic engine operations. The first change compared to classical engine appears during pre-flight check. The good old oil level check is still present, but an additional check is needed: the level of coolant. This is because these engines are water cooled, so a visual check of the […]
