Colin wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 2:00 pm
From my reading of the MSB and discussion of it, I would be comfortable having an Austro engine. I never had a flight in the DA40 that I wasn't hunting the ground for my emergency out landing spot. I guess that's the way it should be in a single engine plane, but I feel like the little diesel would have made me feel better than the big tractor engine. (I had one failed magneto, one failed alternator, and one incorrectly wired sensor on our Lycoming during those years.)
My feeling is the opposite. As someone who has had multiple in flight engine shutdowns in my DA42 (coolant related), in addition to a failed propeller governor, and a failed wastegate actuator, I would *not* want to be behind an Austro engine without a backup.
They are great engines when they work. FADEC is amazing, 100h oil change is a godsend (I fly 350h per year), and I love not doing hot starts. But I would not want to trust my life to it. They are complex engines with many moving parts. The Lycosaurus engines are antique and finicky, but there's a lot less to go wrong. The parts that are prone to failure (magnetos) have backups.
Paul wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 12:52 pm
Can you us a little bit more about your mission and experience? Are you learning to fly in this plane? Where wiill it be based? At sea level or in the mountains? What destinations do you think you will fly to regularly?
My primary mission will be to gain flight hours and experiences while working on my instrument rating. I currently have about 80 hours on the DA40 with the flight school and about to get ready for my check ride. My mission destinations will be within 3 hours of flight from the Greater Los Angeles Area, so San Diego, San Francisco, Vegas, Napa, Tahoe, etc.
I chose the Lycoming 4 years ago when I had this decision. I didn’t feel comfortable with the Austro engine. I didn’t have much experience or objective knowledge about the engine but just didn’t feel comfortable with the unknowns. The salesmen tried to keep the focus on “one-lever” FADEC operation and “push-button” run ups. These were shiny and different but didn’t make me feel any better about the engine. They also focused on “cheaper” jet-a fuel. It doesn’t take too many math skills to figure out the any fuel savings over the life of the engine was negated through the maintenance cycle and engine replacement costs.
I’m in the eastern US so the altitude performance is a non-factor
The life cycle and maintenance data on the Lycoming engine is well known and that is comforting to me. The failure points are known. It is less complex. I’m fine with that.
100LL will go away but alternatives are here and will be coming online over the next few years. They may even prove to prolong the Lycoming engine life expectancy.
The final factor for me….I talked to two different shops in large cities and the moment they told me they wouldn’t be able to service an Austro engine that told me about all I needed to know. It’s really hard to fly a grounded plane to a service center 250 miles away.
I made my decision somewhat on gut instinct and comfort with a known entity but I’m very glad that I did. Over these four years I’ve seen multiple costly Austro SB/AD discussed on this forum and none for my plane. I’m happy with my DA 40-180!
Another issue to consider is that up until recently, a cloud has been looming over the Lycoming engines in the long-term related to the availability of an alternative to 100LL. The elimination of lead in all fuels has clearly been in the sights of the EPA for decades.
While it will likely be several more years before it’s widely available, the recent fleet-wide approval of GAMI’s G100UL is significant progress toward a solution that should help mitigate this problem for Lycoming engines.
Paul wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 12:52 pm
Can you us a little bit more about your mission and experience? Are you learning to fly in this plane? Where wiill it be based? At sea level or in the mountains? What destinations do you think you will fly to regularly?
My primary mission will be to gain flight hours and experiences while working on my instrument rating. I currently have about 80 hours on the DA40 with the flight school and about to get ready for my check ride. My mission destinations will be within 3 hours of flight from the Greater Los Angeles Area, so San Diego, San Francisco, Vegas, Napa, Tahoe, etc.
Based on this information, there are arguments for both. What favors the XLT is that it is a more forgiving airplane. It was a slower stall speed and a more balanced feel (less nose heavy). You are a relatively low time pilot and more forgiving matters. The DA40 is arguably the safest single engine piston made so both are amazing in this regard but I would say the avgas version has a slight edge. My sons are learning to fly and I wanted them to learn in the avgas version.
What favors the NG is that some of your proposed missions involve mountain flying and the turbocharging of the Austro will be a noticeable advantage in terms of climb and cruise speed once you fly above 10,000 feet. Also, being in CA, if avgas supply shrinks due to regulation before the UL solution is readily available, it will most likely be felt in CA first.
The other considerations are how easy (local) it is for you to find qualified maintenance for the Austro, if you plan on upgrading at some point, which plane is easier to sell and how much AOG risk you want to take with potential Austro supply chain issues (may or may not be an issue).
pete423 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 8:22 pm
My mission destinations will be within 3 hours of flight from the Greater Los Angeles Area, so San Diego, San Francisco, Vegas, Napa, Tahoe, etc.
Though based in the Bay Area, this is similar to how we use our XLS. A few times a year we fly farther, but the main mission is ~2 hr radius, which covers most of California.
Routinely flying in the Rockies might be a different story, but IMO the Lycoming works great in the Sierra Nevada if you are willing to do some simple tweaks and manage leaning properly: viewtopic.php?t=7409.
I am comfortable departing TVL at near gross except on very warm days. Winds are a *much* larger concern than power.
Where we fly, Avgas cost is similar to Jet-A, but far more widely available at smaller airports.
The whole engine debate is a lot like stick shift vs automatic in the early days. I am sure at some point Austro engines will be bullet proof. I am just not comfortable waiting for them to work out the kinks while having it being my only engine. Thank you everyone for the help to cement my choice.
If you read Mike Busch's many articles on Lycoming and Continental engines you learn that there are a lot of ways to screw up the Lycoming / Continental flat air cooled engines. The downside of the many mechanics who work on those engines is that they have invented a lot of ways to cause them to self destruct. There are daily reports of those engines failing on TO or in flight and many are "maintenance induced" failures. At the same time, Busch has documented how when properly maintained they can go well past TBO.
In the MSB thread, someone reported that Austro stated there had been six engine failures due to the piston sizing problem. Austro has been shipping these engines since 2010.
Right now this debate is like listening to he said / she said in a TV divorce court. This debate would be a whole lot more meaningful if we had the failure rates of the two types of engines.
Boatguy wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 12:19 am
If you read Mike Busch's many articles on Lycoming and Continental engines you learn that there are a lot of ways to screw up the Lycoming / Continental flat air cooled engines. The downside of the many mechanics who work on those engines is that they have invented a lot of ways to cause them to self destruct. There are daily reports of those engines failing on TO or in flight and many are "maintenance induced" failures. At the same time, Busch has documented how when properly maintained they can go well past TBO.
In the MSB thread, someone reported that Austro stated there had been six engine failures due to the piston sizing problem. Austro has been shipping these engines since 2010.
Right now this debate is like listening to he said / she said in a TV divorce court. This debate would be a whole lot more meaningful if we had the failure rates of the two types of engines.
Keep in mind over many decades Lycoming and Continental and various shops have produced, maintained and overhauled engines of these types several hundreds of thousands of times.
. But that’s practically the whole engine debate in a nutshell.
