TECNAM P2008

Almost nobody will replace a Lyco engine outright, unless

it is more than 12 years and is to be used in a school… Fact here in Sweden, don’t know about the rest of Europe.
Also, if you calculate an overhaul of a Lycosaurus from a flight training perspective it will be similar to a new Rotax, but then you can actually overhaul a Rotax at half the cost again.

At 12 years, to meet some odd offshore legal requirement you would presumably overhaul a Lycoming or Continental, I don’t think you’d replace it. The cost for that varies hugely by who does it and how its done: I can and have done a major overhaul on a small four cylinder Continental for well under $5000. Any idiot could do it, even me And he could do it three or four more times, ultimately taking the engine to perhaps 10,000 hrs total time in service. Its a design that is intrinsically serviceable, with the economy that implies, and only becomes expensive if field service is outlawed.

I’ve also overhauled engines with old fashioned needle bearing built-up crankshafts like the Rotax, and done the crankshaft assembly and truing myself with new rods and bearings. Its quite a tricky procedure – the crankshaft work would be more difficult for most people than the entire process of overhauling a Lycoming. If you want to avoid that, you buy a replacement Rotax crank/rods, in other words the whole bottom end, and that’s the start of an engine overhaul that might cost $10K total in parts and outside labor. Rotecomplex engines are not cheap.

At 12 years, to meet some odd offshore legal requirement you would presumably overhaul a Lycoming or Continental, I don’t think you’d replace it.

As I said, if you want to train or do anything commercial up here, get a new one, it’s not optional.

A NEW engine every time, no overhauls??? Hard to know how to respond to that, obviously its contrary to the engine manufacturer’s recommended practice.

With a Lyco, unless it is excessively shagged or damaged, an overhaul is a lot cheaper than a new one. For example an OH (done by a top US shop) of an IO540-C4 is about $25k (assuming new cylinders etc) versus something like $70k for a new one.

An overhauled Lyco should always meet any public transport / AOC etc requirements, because it is effectively zero-timed. If some European CAA mandates a brand new engine at 12 years, that is absolutely outrageous and I would suggest that it is a mistake.

There are some new engines here in Europe with no overhaul options. You do a “new exchange” replacement. I don’t recall the names (no immediate interest) but I have heard of a few.

Does any one know if this example has the fuel injected rotax engine fitted

“For example an OH (done by a top US shop) of an IO540-C4 is about $25k (assuming new cylinders etc) versus something like $70k for a new one”

Begs the question of how a 1960’es vintage engine can possibly be worth more than a 2014 vintage top-line Swedish or German car.

Build quality perhaps.

Begs the question of how a 1960’es vintage engine can possibly be worth more than a 2014 vintage top-line Swedish or German car. Build quality perhaps.

This only shows how much we’re ready to pay for our hobby.

I think the main part of the answer is that all this gear is made by very big old firms who never slimmed down much after the mega boom days of the 1960s and 1970s. How can you justify a crankshaft costing say $20k? For that money, you could find somebody who would file it out by hand out of a solid lump of steel Their gross margins are massive – probably over 90% – but the money made pisses out of every orifice. Same with avionics. They are all very fat companies, hugely over-staffed with a load of geezers wallowing around trying to look busy, and with extremely low productivity.

Recently I had an email exchange with some “character” at Lycoming who over about 20 emails (plus some phone calls) simply could not answer a direct question. That completely useless waste of space man is probably on $100k, plus another $200k fixed costs. And there is probably a dozen of them, spending their days being completely useless and costing the firm $3M a year. Lyco’s staff costs are probably c. $30-50M and they have to recover this across a small number of new engines made each year (most engines get overhauled, and major steel parts like cranks and conrods last essentially for ever). Clearly they have zero management oversight of what people are actually doing. Same at Honeywell/King – the place is stuffed with complete dross checking their pension fund values. Garmin are probably a bit leaner but they own the world now so can charge what they want. A GTN750 costs about $300 to make.