V220 / V300T stillborn?

[the_other_dougreeves]

Originally Posted by rv6ejguy

I got an hour flight in a 912 CT as a birthday present. I'll report on what the Rotax is like soon.

FlightDesign CT? I'd be interested in your comments. Personally, I enjoy the 912S / CT combination (actually, I enjoy it as often as I can find time to fly )

[rv6ejguy]

Originally Posted by RV7Guy

Is Crossflow **** up? If so, I guess it is a good Thanksgiving!!!

This won't make your day but they are setting up a bigger facility in Ontario with new backing (where did that come from) and ...wait for it... they plan to CERTIFY their Sube based engines. ahh... sure. Not sure where the market will be for those engines??? Sorry that I'm so skeptical on this one.

On the CT, yes Flight Design CT. Any tips? They are supposed to be weird to land.

[Andy_RR]

Originally Posted by jcoloccia

...read all about it

http://www.rotax.com/en/Media.Center...1/20061114.htm


It's dead...
deceased....
no longer with us....

Oooh, I do look a bit silly now, don't I?

Never mind! Thanks for the link John.

It's a sad day when any project like that is cancelled, but it does tend to suggest that it's very hard to make a reasonable return on a new aero engine, even at the high power, presumably high profit margin end. We'll be seeing Lycosauri for some time to come then... Not a bad thing, though, at all!

A

[G-force]

Originally Posted by SweetJellyDonut

If someone could come out with a competing product for $5k-$7k less, they would corner the market. (makes me wish took a few more Mech. Eng. classes )

But thats the fly in the ointment...the cost of manufacturing these engines is not going up. With technological advances, volume now to a point that the tooling, r&d are paid off, etc the only equation that is going up is the amount Rotax (and other engine buillders) have to put in the bank to pay for future legal fees. I wouldnt wager they have figured out the estimated volume of future lawsuits and settelements over the next decade or so as their engines find their way behind thousands of new small planes, flowen by low time pilots, or pilots that can't get a medical. Risk assesment at its finest, and we get to pay the $$$ because your right, the Rotax IS an $8-10k motor, with the lawyer surcharge tacked on top

[rv6ejguy]

Originally Posted by G-force

But thats the fly in the ointment...the cost of manufacturing these engines is not going up. With technological advances, volume now to a point that the tooling, r&d are paid off, etc the only equation that is going up is the amount Rotax (and other engine buillders) have to put in the bank to pay for future legal fees. I wouldnt wager they have figured out the estimated volume of future lawsuits and settelements over the next decade or so as their engines find their way behind thousands of new small planes, flowen by low time pilots, or pilots that can't get a medical. Risk assesment at its finest, and we get to pay the $$$ because your right, the Rotax IS an $8-10k motor, with the lawyer surcharge tacked on top

Pretty accurate assessment. The non certified Rotax engines are quite a bit less money. I guess this reflects the lower perceived liability possibilities.
It actually is not really expensive these days to buy the CAD package, design the engine, do FEA on it, CNC machine it and test it for the experimental market. These days you can model airflow, heat flow etc. before it leaves the PC. Should be way cheaper to produce prototypes than in the old days. Even doing the certification trials are not that bad if you read the requirements. (would take a lot of fuel though). The biggy is when you release it for use in certified aircraft, you have to tack on the liability tag and this is the killer.

Textron has been hit with hundreds of millions of dollars in judgements over the last 6 years. Factor that in over only a few thousand engines produced in that time and it is clear that the price will not be dropping any time soon on Lycomings. I'm sure other companies have watched this and just said- why bother?

If Thielert and Mistral can actually last for 5-10 years in the certified market, I'll be impressed. I wish them well and compliment them for doing what they are doing. I do wonder why they don't offer FF packages for experimentals, great, low liability, testing ground to prove/ improve their products while keeping the money rolling in.

[RV7Guy]

Originally Posted by rv6ejguy

This won't make your day but they are setting up a bigger facility in Ontario with new backing (where did that come from) and ...wait for it... they plan to CERTIFY their Sube based engines. ahh... sure. Not sure where the market will be for those engines??? Sorry that I'm so skeptical on this one.

.

This is very scary. I wonder who the Rocket Scientists are who invested money in this company. The king scammer strikes again. It just gets better.

If their business practices continue as they have they thankfully won't last long.

[bumblebee]

Originally Posted by rv6ejguy

Pretty accurate assessment. The non certified Rotax engines are quite a bit less money. I guess this reflects the lower perceived liability possibilities.

Basically correct.

Originally Posted by rv6ejguy

It actually is not really expensive these days to buy the CAD package, design the engine, do FEA on it, CNC machine it and test it for the experimental market. These days you can model airflow, heat flow etc. before it leaves the PC. Should be way cheaper to produce prototypes than in the old days.

It's a funny thing....The CAD/FEA tools definitely provide the ability to get a lot closer to final design before the chips fly. And the "tools" are indeed amazingly inexpensive compared to the CATIA-type systems of 20 yrs ago. However, the amount of metal that STILL gets cut, burnt, baked, blown up and thrown out is astounding. For a clean-sheet design, it WILL take double the time and money originally budgeted.

Originally Posted by rv6ejguy

Even doing the certification trials are not that bad if you read the requirements. (would take a lot of fuel though).

If only it were so!! Certification of the ENGINE is relatively easy; it's getting the PMA certificate for manufacturing that causes many hairs to go gray and many bank accounts to go barren. Been through a few of these; it ain't fun.

Originally Posted by rv6ejguy

The biggy is when you release it for use in certified aircraft, you have to tack on the liability tag and this is the killer.

The liability premium is a total guess based on market, and it never comes close to covering the real liability. Without a major parent company, no engine mfr can afford to be certificated b/c the first crash WILL bankrupt the company. Thielert paid a miniscule 2.5 million for Superior; about the cost of a few CNC machines. Once they started selling Vantage (certified) engines, Superior had no shelter against liability. It's no accident that they sold to a non-US company.

Originally Posted by rv6ejguy

I'm sure other companies have watched this and just said- why bother?

For certified engines, yes.

Originally Posted by rv6ejguy

I do wonder why they don't offer FF packages for experimentals, great, low liability, testing ground to prove/ improve their products while keeping the money rolling in.

This is the single greatest mystery. With the single exception of Thielert, none of the companies we work with are interested in working on FWF. We've had shouting matches over this, to no avail. It baffles my mind to no end because any profit is in the FWF, not the engine.

[rv6ejguy]

Originally Posted by bumblebee

It's a funny thing....The CAD/FEA tools definitely provide the ability to get a lot closer to final design before the chips fly. And the "tools" are indeed amazingly inexpensive compared to the CATIA-type systems of 20 yrs ago. However, the amount of metal that STILL gets cut, burnt, baked, blown up and thrown out is astounding. For a clean-sheet design, it WILL take double the time and money originally budgeted.

I always amazes me that people can throw so much money into this stuff. The projects always seem undermanaged, out of control and wasteful in resources and funds. You need the right group of people and not too many to get this done quickly and cheaply. I've done engine development programs for a small fraction of the cost of what other bigger organizations have done and beaten them at the racetrack year after year.

Get the thing running, flog it, see what breaks and fix it. We had very few failures in testing and experience showed the way in fixing any of these problems next time around. Took a 70hp design and got it to 360 reliable hp in just 2 seasons. Total spent was under $20K including all the flow bench and dyno studies.

Today you can get a custom billet crank made for under $3K, 4 alloy steel custom rods for $500 and pistons for about $75 each. My CNC guy could turn out cylinders for $500 each and a case for $4-$6K I would guess. This would be first run cost. Higher production would bring this down considerably. Use off the shelf stuff in the design and many of these prices could be cut in half or more. You'd certainly use existing valve springs, valves etc.

I'd stick to the experimental market exclusively. It would appear at a glance that this market is bigger than the new certified market anyway. Why go down the liability path?

[gmcjetpilot]

You guys miss the one 800 lb gorilla in the corner of the room, snort snort. The Lycoming or clone is relatively cheap (Yes! cheap), light and efficient; I say relatively because unless the NEW BETTER engine is lighter, cheaper and more efficient, than its going to be a hard sell.

The economics to get a new design engine with Lycoming performance for less money would be a real breakthrough. Lycoming set the bar high, and you can also blame inertia. There are so many airframes and engines out there, the GA world revolves around Lycoming and TCM, good, bad or ugly, its life. I know you guys hate that, but its true. No one cares if it was designed on a computer or drafting board or if the part was cut with a CNC or cast, if its more expensive, heavier and no more or less efficient.

If there was a void and no competition in the 125hp - 350hp class of aircraft engine, that would be different, but every want-to-be new engine maker has to go up against the air-cooled Lyc Gorilla, spacifically in the 115-350 hp range. Less than 100 hp or more than 400 hp the "paradigm" shifts. Low HP engines is a great place for Rotax, 1.8L Subaru's, VW and so on. Above 400 hp you're getting into turbines/turboprop land or very old out of production radial engines. That's probably why Rotax/BRP and Orenda where going for that high HP +350HP market, less competition.

If you are shooting at the new 125-250 HP aircraft engine market, its going to have to be better than a Lycoming. Modern HOG IT OUT of forged blocks does not make better engines. With my engineering background I can appreciate that many things where designed with slide rulers and can't be improved and still appreciate CATIA and "sold digital product definitions" with "parametric elements", which are great but actually take longer. I can tell you computers do not make it cheaper, but follow on modification and changes become so much easier after the product is digitized. Trust me I know and would not lie to you.

Lycoming uses precision high grade A1 castings on things like heads and cases, which is lighter and cheaper to mass produce then CNC for complex part like these. In fact Boeing is encouraging their designers to use more structural castings for many parts now made by CNC or built up part assemblies. Castings lost favor in recent years, but are making a come back. Boeing and designers recognized its still a great way to manufacture complicated structural metal parts. The loss of recent popularity was just that in the CNC age many designers had no experience w/ castings or understood the capabilities, which are even better today. The down side is tooling cost of castings. Lycoming castings may look crude comparied to smooth CNC parts, with their rough surfaces, but they are awfully refined light and structurally efficient designs. They where designed by smart people.

A computer is no substitute for a brain. Just because it comes out of a computer does not make it better. The man is the creative element. You can make pretty CNC parts but Ho-Hum so what. It'll not be automatically better or cheaper.

Sorry, the value is in the design. Its hard to beat air cooling in an air plane.

[Andy_RR]

Ross,

I agree that there's a lot of percieved waste in production engine development programs, but much of it is unavoidable without 'perfect' project planning and management.

Now I've seen and done bad project management, attempted good project managment, occasionally experienced great project management, but never seen anywhere near perfect!

If you wait for everything to be spot on before you order any parts, you'll never get anything done, so it becomes time and cost-effective to order/manufacture your prototypes at risk in many cases. Some of these decisions will fail, but you won't know which ones up front.

Also, you have experienced taking a current engine and making it different, but have you ever done a clean-sheet design? If your ambition is to make a Lycosauri-beating design, I'll bet you'll be overwhelmed by the permutations that a blank sheet of paper presents. All the things that can be changed to give 'improvements' but always have a down-side and must be managed. A clean-sheet design will always be compromised, but with careful management, it can be less so that the benchmark engines you select. Whether this is enough to convince the market is a moot point.

Also, you have to design with your production volumes in mind. If you start out with billet cranks and 'cases you will make design decisions to optimise them for their strengths and weaknesses, but you have no chance of cost-effectively winding the volumes up to large numbers needed to recoup the development costs. If you design for a high-volume production method, then not only are you making different design decisions and having to pay for the development costs, you will eventually saddle yourself with a huge tooling bill that has to be amortised somehow.

And the right group of people? That's such a tall order! Unless you've got yourself some financial sound backing, then the creme-de-la-creme that you'll be wanting will generally stick to their day jobs that guarantee the mortgage payments and school fees. Not every high-calibre engineer is also entrepreneurial!

Existing parts? You'll have a **** of a time convincing most non-aerospace suppliers to give you anything for your aero engine. The volumes will always be too small and they just don't want the risk that's attached. This is one of the reasons that engine management is so fantastic in the automotive world, but FADECs are a bit of an expensive damp squib.

Anyway, Rotax, Honda et al have been through this mill and decided they want out. They are all successful at doing engine-y things in many areas, but choose not to in the aero engine world. That must ring some alarm bells. And as for the experimental market, you could do worse than use Jabiru as a case study. They do exactly what you are describing and are relatively successful. They aren't putting a major dent in Lycosaurus sales though.

I agree with most of what bumblebee and George M say above, with the exception that FWF kits, whilst maybe areas with high profit margins, are also areas requiring the most customer support, which could rapidly eat your profit margins if you don't get it right. In the experimental market, many builders won't 'leave well alone', so chances are one engine sale to an experimenter will result in dozens of phone calls - which the purchaser won't want to pay an hourly rate for!

A