With this issue of the magazine focusing on engines and predictive maintenance, I want to highlight the general aviation manufacturing and maintenance industry’s work in these areas. There are many great engine manufacturers in the world, but I’d like to focus on two iconic piston manufacturers – Continental Aerospace Technologies and Lycoming Engines. Each company has been in business for over a century, and with that, they both have considerable collective experience and knowledge in opportunities and advancements of general aviation piston engines in terms of performance, health monitoring, and continued operational safety.
Continental Aerospace Technologies, founded in 1905, has a long history of introducing safety-enhancing technologies that bring engines to market that deliver more performance, increased reliability, and limit aircraft downtime for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. Continental first introduced horizontally opposed cylinder aviation engines, and new technologies such as turbocharging, fuel injection systems, balanced fuel injectors, and full authority digital engine control (FADEC) to general aviation engines. The FADEC systems in its engines radically changed the way aviation engines are maintained and support predictive maintenance practices. The FADEC is a fully redundant system that communicates with the engine many times per second to monitor essential parameters and correct operational inputs that could cause the engine to operate outside of its safe design envelope. Additionally, FADEC provides operators and pilots the opportunity to download all data accumulated during operations for analysis and depicts the performance criteria of each major component of the engine, which can help avoid the time-consuming process of a full engine examination to determine where a potential problem lies. (See more on Page 6.)
Founded in 1845, Lycoming Engines initially produced sewing machines and bicycles. In 1929, the company produced the first aviation aircraft engine (R-680) –– a nine-cylinder, 200-hp, piston-driven radial engine. More recently, Lycoming introduced its Integrated Electronic Engine (iE2), which is the company’s new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certified electronically controlled piston engine. The iE2 combines historical mechanical reliability with state-of-the-art aviation and motorsport technology, and reduces life cycle costs, increases availability, and reduces pilot workload. The engine allows maintainers to review and analyze fault codes as a primary means of diagnosis as well as for preventative or predictive maintenance activities. It also enables pilots to fly a piston engine more like a turboprop or jet powered aircraft, with true single-lever control. The engine can notify the pilot if there is a no take-off condition or a time-limited operation for the engine. Overall, many of the advancements of the iE2 change the interface among the pilot, maintainer, and operator/owner.
At GAMA, we’re proud to represent companies like Continental Aerospace Technologies and Lycoming Engines, which have been creating cornerstone products for the general aviation market for over 100 years. Whether it’s a key product, foundational tool or innovative technology, general aviation manufacturers continually strive to make sure these developments improve aircraft performance and enhance safety.
