AE300 Cost

[michael.g.miller]

It’s much more complicated than Lycoming overhaul and requires expensive test bench. If Austro concluded that it’s cheaper to produce new engine than to overhaul the old one then the same mathematics applies to any company.

I have read of tours at CMI, and the CMI throws out almost everything except the camshaft and the case. Cheaper to melt everything else down and use new parts.

Tim

And I'd imagine a lot of the cost of the engine is liability.. if they're able to destroy an engine to get a new one, they probably save on insurance costs.

[ememic99]

It’s much more complicated than Lycoming overhaul and requires expensive test bench. If Austro concluded that it’s cheaper to produce new engine than to overhaul the old one then the same mathematics applies to any company.

Mike Miller and I spoke with Glenn about this when we were at SouthTec on Tuesday. Glenn said the issue is with EASA who would not allow the same facility that manufactures engines to overhaul the same engines. Seems a bit silly given that's what Lycoming does, but I guess that's the issue.

I’ve never heard of such rule. I tried to find some reference to this but without success.

So Austro could certainly license someone in the US to perform the overhaul, but I'm not sure that'd be lucrative enough to get over the start up cost.

I believe this is the main (only) reason.

[neema]

Is there anything you can share about the reasons for the engine "letting go?"

Nothing. No weird results from oil analysis. Nothing showing up in oil filters. No engine hiccups. No oil consumption (1 qt/40-50 hours). Short of failing a TVD or gearbox check almost every inspection and the occasional sensors going bad, the engines ran okay.

I wasn't flying, so regurgitating what our pilot told me. It lost power on climb out around 4500 feet AGL. Hiccuped a bit, so he pulled back. He smelled "something." Then oil pressure kept dropping off and he saw it streaking back on the nacelle.

Take a look




It had ~1600ish hours on it.

Here's the G1000 data log: https://apps.savvyaviation.com/beta/sha ... 94bbe9c6b1

This engine wasn't treated like a school plane. 1000 hours of flying at 75% cruise, the remainder at 85% cruise (to get more miles in between failed TVDs/gearboxes).

Maybe a little throttle jockeying in formation flights but generally boring flight profiles.

[Chris]

Wow, that is pretty sobering. Glad everything turned out OK and that it waited until 4500 AGL before giving up the ghost.

[tjmoody]

Is there anything you can share about the reasons for the engine "letting go?"

Nothing. No weird results from oil analysis. Nothing showing up in oil filters. No engine hiccups. No oil consumption (1 qt/40-50 hours). Short of failing a TVD or gearbox check almost every inspection and the occasional sensors going bad, the engines ran okay.

I wasn't flying, so regurgitating what our pilot told me. It lost power on climb out around 4500 feet AGL. Hiccuped a bit, so he pulled back. He smelled "something." Then oil pressure kept dropping off and he saw it streaking back on the nacelle.

Take a look




It had ~1600ish hours on it.

Here's the G1000 data log: https://apps.savvyaviation.com/beta/sha ... 94bbe9c6b1

This engine wasn't treated like a school plane. 1000 hours of flying at 75% cruise, the remainder at 85% cruise (to get more miles in between failed TVDs/gearboxes).

Maybe a little throttle jockeying in formation flights but generally boring flight profiles.

Oh wow, that's a lot of oil! Do you know where the oil came from? Apologies for the thread drift.

[neema]

I was told just "out the breather."

My look at the engine didn't show any holes in the block or catastrophic signs of engine failure. It was messy, but turbo, lines, fittings, block we all intact. Something internal: ring or piston failure is my guess.

[MWC]

So the Austro engine has doubled in price in 36 months.

For those out there that bought into the " cheap to run - low DOC " , here's a sobering FACT:

JUST THE INCREASE IN THE REPLACEMENT ENGINES (DA42NG) AMOUNTS TO $1,800 / MONTH, OVER THE LAST 36 MONTHS

[MWC]

Running some quick numbers: Assuming 200H / Year usage, that's 600 hours spread over 3 years which works out to $66 / hour INCREASE in DOC ...