As my engine is being overhauled (was just about ready for re-assembly when the UK was shutting down afaik) it got me thinking a bit more about it. Is a completed engine in a crate in a room in a factory at say 22C/40% RH safe indefinitely? Are engine components shipped in vacuum bags or covered with silica, or is it only when you get to outdoor, or quasi-outdoor conditions (cavernous un-heated hangar) that these effects start to make themselves known?
Ha, forgot about this. Who is the largest airline? Lufthansa? No, its Widerøe 
And I think they still are, even though they also have had a 50% reduction.
As my engine is being overhauled (was just about ready for re-assembly when the UK was shutting down afaik) it got me thinking a bit more about it. Is a completed engine in a crate in a room in a factory at say 22C/40% RH safe indefinitely? Are engine components shipped in vacuum bags or covered with silica, or is it only when you get to outdoor, or quasi-outdoor conditions (cavernous un-heated hangar) that these effects start to make themselves known?
As I posted some way back, when Lycoming ships new engines to OEMs, they preserve them and the customer has 365 days to install it, otherwise there is a mandatory overhaul. This may not be current info (it is from speaking to Lyco in the US some years back) and there may be other preservation options available.
There is no spec on how long before it is run, however 
This has been used to good advantage by OEMs because they need only to enter the right date in the logbooks, with the engine still in the wooden crate…
Socata got caught by this badly some 20 years ago, delivering a load of TB20s and 21s with corroded engines, as some old-timers here will be able to confirm. Fortunately most of these will have been opened by now for the SB569 crank swap.
IMHO, +22C / 40% RH will be ok for a few months without preservation. Engines are assembled with all interior parts oiled or greased. But as with all these questions, I don’t think anybody really knows… it’s a matter of attitude to risk. I would stick the engine in a big plastic bag and chuck some 0.5kg silica gel bags in there and tape the bag up.
At the other end, I am 100% certain, having spoken to various US engine shops, that an engine flown for an hour every 2 weeks will never corrode.
In relation to recent pronouncements by the UK CAA and LAA, it is perhaps worth noting that neither of these organisations is a “Relevant Person” for the purposes of the The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020.
The CAA’s guidance, whether well-intentioned or not, carries all of the legal weight of a newsletter published by the Sunbeam Alpine Owners Club
Of greater relevance, perhaps, is this parliamentary briefing paper which states at paragraph 37:
It is therefore important that the list of reasonable excuses in Regulation 6 is not treated as exhaustive by police so that members of the public retain a level of personal autonomy and discretion over what is ‘reasonable’ for them.
Jacko wrote:
Time to talk to CYMA or Warter ?
The problem is getting it over on the boat. I know people in the UK do it on the quiet, but since we have to deal with the Steam Racket it would mean having to be licenced to store fuel to get past the yellowjacket brigade, which might be a bridge too far for the amount of avgas we actually get through.
I know one person (now deceased…) who did do it – they just drove a bowser onto the boat, and would have got away with it had some idiot not driven into the back of it and broke part of the pipework, causing avgas to go pissing all over the deck of the Ben-my-Chree. The government confiscated it, about 4000L of it!
@zuutroy your engine should be ok in a heated space for quite a while. This is some old oil analysis data
The engine was newly overhauled Jan 2017 so as one would expect iron etc is well up afterwards. I think some oil samples got lost in the post after Jan 2017. Then it sat for about 6 weeks Jan 2018 for the TKS installation. If you look at the metals immediately after that point, particularly iron, and relate them to the total time on the oil (the top line) you see no obvious problem due to the Jan 2018 non-running.
The TKS was done in a heated hangar and I paid the hangar owner extra for having the heating running all night, so the 2 pack sealant we used to attach the TKS panels would cure in some sort of reasonable time. The installation writeup is here.
From avweb
I wonder, are there any places now with a real ban on GA?
It’s rather odd, the psychology of things. Right before the VFR ban in Norway, there were lots of discussions about the “moral” aspects of recreational flying while a “war” was going on. Then came the VFR ban which killed all flying, but also all discussions.
About 3 weeks later (I think, or was it longer, can’t remember anymore ) the ban was lifted, but the discussion has not started. Now the discussion is about how AVINOR (ATC) effectively instructed the CAA to close down the airspace. What was that all about exactly? Is the CAA not in charge of things? I don’t think a single pilot thinks a single thought about any “moral” aspects. Now the “moral” is to go out and fly as much as we can.
The authorities say the rationale is that they don’t want air traffic services to be burdened by handling non-essential flights and they don’t want an accident to divert rescue and medical resources away from the COVID fight.
Like so much of what we’re being told by the UK Government and it’s agencies, the above is arrant hogwash. I use my airplane instead of a car (as always) and from Essex to Scotland the British airwaves haven’t been so deathly quiet since the infamous 2010 Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud panic.
And, setting aside the question as to just what percentage of UK police time is normally taken up attending GA accidents, I’m sure the Rozzers could spare few of their wannabe-Schutzstaffel colleagues who have recently been twittering about “non-essential” Easter egg purchases or even the one of Lancashire’s finest who was filmed shouting into a man’s face that he would “make something up” to justify an arrest. Strange times…
Jacko wrote:
And, setting aside the question as to just what percentage of UK police time is normally taken up attending GA accidents, I’m sure the Rozzers could spare few of their wannabe-Schutzstaffel colleagues who have recently been twittering about “non-essential” Easter egg purchases or even the one of Lancashire’s finest who was filmed shouting into a man’s face that he would “make something up” to justify an arrest. Strange times…
If Top Gear had an aviation equivalent, Jacko would be our Jeremy Clarkson
Gets my vote. Of course it would have to be called ‘Top Undercarriage’ :)
