Sea Fury crash - Yeovilton

[aeropilot]

BrettMRC said:

Just finished my read through of it...

The final sentence stands out:

"The investigation identified the difficulty maintenance organisations have in accessing
technical information for historic engines, in particular that relating to engine modifications.
The CAA have agreed to meet with the engine manufacturer to discuss whether Modification
Leaflets for the Centaurus XVIII can be made available to maintenance organisations
servicing these engines."

It's a bit of a theme throughout the report: lack of support in terms of access to drawings and specifications?

Yes, all to do with commercial companies reducing their exposure to legal claims in the event of a problem.
This of course wasn't an issue when these aircraft were owned and operated by the military as they got defacto OEM support.
Once outside the military that all disappears.
Its not they don't have it, its that they don't want to provide it, because of the legal ramifications.

Edited by aeropilot on Friday 27th May 14:03

[williamp]

Will this have any effect on the Typhoon rebuild project, with its unique Napier engine??

[BrettMRC]

Lost ranger said:

So the hope is that someone at Rolls Royce can find some paperwork they may have inherited from Bristol Siddeley over 50 years ago?

From the read through, I suspect a lot of documentation is there but purposely withheld for...reasons.

[aeropilot]

williamp said:

Will this have any effect on the Typhoon rebuild project, with its unique Napier engine??

Not really.

The issue with that ever flying is on a whole other level...!!

[Mave]

aeropilot said:

BrettMRC said:

Just finished my read through of it...

The final sentence stands out:

"The investigation identified the difficulty maintenance organisations have in accessing
technical information for historic engines, in particular that relating to engine modifications.
The CAA have agreed to meet with the engine manufacturer to discuss whether Modification
Leaflets for the Centaurus XVIII can be made available to maintenance organisations
servicing these engines."

It's a bit of a theme throughout the report: lack of support in terms of access to drawings and specifications?

Yes, all to do with commercial companies reducing their exposure to legal claims in the event of a problem.
This of course wasn't an issue when these aircraft were owned and operated by the military as they got defacto OEM support.
Once outside the military that all disappears.
Its not they don't have it, its that they don't want to provide it, because of the legal ramifications.

Edited by aeropilot on Friday 27th May 14:03

I suspect that when the aircraft were owned by the military, they had a contract when the OEM to maintain ongoing support. As soon as that contract expires, maintenance of records and personnel with product knowledge may deteriorate.

[hidetheelephants]

Sleeve valve radials were in civilian use up to the 1980s in Bristol Freighters.

[FourWheelDrift]

hidetheelephants said:

Sleeve valve radials were in civilian use up to the 1980s in Bristol Freighters.

And the French (in private hands) still have a 2x Bristol Hercules sleeve-valve radial engined Nord Noratlas in flying condition that does air displays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPDWJD7UZQI
https://noratlas-de-provence.com/

[aeropilot]

hidetheelephants said:

Sleeve valve radials were in civilian use up to the 1980s in Bristol Freighters.

Which is 40 years ago.

It was once the commercial users ended that the demand for the specific oil (as mentioned in the report) dried up.
Shell did another batch for the RNHF, as was still MOD then, and once that was used up there is no more. The guy from RR who was the last guy with product knowledge, wrote an article in one of the warbird magezines after he retired saying that he had tried to get the EU and USA civvie warbird owners and restorers to get together and all contribute to having more oil made up while they still could, but the advice fell on deaf ears...largely as many of the US Sea Fury/Fury operators preferred to swap the big Bristol for a US radial.

That's the other issue with OEM support, in that RR no longer has anyone with experience to answer questions or actually support these old engines, they are all long retired or no longer even alive, so they are not keen on giving data even in the form of historical data.
Its one of several reasons RR withdrew support for the Vulcan, as the only people left with Olympus experience and still working for RR were soon to retire.

[hidetheelephants]

Granted, but not the point I was trying to make; there were civvie sleeve valves in operation long after military ones were scrapped or in museums, so the likes of SAFE had far more real experience operating them than anyone at RR by the end. If RR are gatekeeping whatever historical data they hold it's pretty ridiculous behaviour, not least as most of it was acquired via taxpayer largesse.

[aeropilot]

hidetheelephants said:

Granted, but not the point I was trying to make; there were civvie sleeve valves in operation long after military ones were scrapped or in museums, so the likes of SAFE had far more real experience operating them than anyone at RR by the end.

And I think you missed the point I was trying to make as well.
Who do you think these commercial operators went to for support for the engines...? As I said, once there were no more commercial use of these engines, or military, then the OEM no longer spends the money on its resourcing to support the operation, hence why Shell stopped making the oil.
And these commercial users only stopped within a decade of the last military use as well. Once there are no significant commercial use, the engine shops setup for the engine work start to move to other things or turbines stuff and they still used RR/Bristol supplied documentation and manuals, and it was the engine OEM that still provided updated documentation to these commercial operations. Most of all that is now gone, and the point the AAIB were making is that its hard for any newer organisation setup since those days to acquire the relevant up to date documentation, as they can't get it from the OEM in the same way.
None of the engine refurb companies that were certified to overhaul civvie Centaurus engines are still in business, so the few places that will do so now, are doing so not from decades worth of type experience.

[Mave]

hidetheelephants said:

Granted, but not the point I was trying to make; there were civvie sleeve valves in operation long after military ones were scrapped or in museums, so the likes of SAFE had far more real experience operating them than anyone at RR by the end. If RR are gatekeeping whatever historical data they hold it's pretty ridiculous behaviour, not least as most of it was acquired via taxpayer largesse.

It doesn't matter how much operating experience you have - if you want to, for example, use a different oil type, you need to go back to the design authority to get it cleared.

[hidetheelephants]

Mave said:

It doesn't matter how much operating experience you have - if you want to, for example, use a different oil type, you need to go back to the design authority to get it cleared.

Does anyone want that? Would-be operators are compelled to use different LO because Shell are gatekeeping worthless information they acquired at the expense of the taxpayer. RR as DA is laughable; they have no corporate knowledge beyond historical reference data and maybe some phone numbers to call nearly dead people who might remember.

[Mave]

hidetheelephants said:

Mave said:

It doesn't matter how much operating experience you have - if you want to, for example, use a different oil type, you need to go back to the design authority to get it cleared.

Does anyone want that? Would-be operators are compelled to use different LO because Shell are gatekeeping worthless information they acquired at the expense of the taxpayer. RR as DA is laughable; they have no corporate knowledge beyond historical reference data and maybe some phone numbers to call nearly dead people who might remember.

The amount of historic reference data you need to keep to maintain design authority is massive, with a significant cost to manage. You can see why a company doesn't necessarily want to maintain that data for decades without any kind of contract.

[Penguinracer]

Is it my imagination or do engineering facilities in the U.S.(and Australia / New Zealand / Canada) work with the FAA (& CAA) to engineer their way around these obstacles?

Aren't there a few Centaurus-engined Sea Furies flying in Australia & the U.S.?

Need oil? Analyse the original, test unused samples, obtain the original specification & take it to a boutique specialist oil company to reproduce, run it an aircraft in the "Experimental category", provide your test evidence to the FAA & apply for certification.

Can do attitude!

[BrettMRC]

The CAA tend towards the opposite approach here with anything like this in civvie hands... not so much "can do" more "Don't you dare!"

[aeropilot]

Penguinracer said:

Is it my imagination or do engineering facilities in the U.S.(and Australia / New Zealand / Canada) work with the FAA (& CAA) to engineer their way around these obstacles?

Aren't there a few Centaurus-engined Sea Furies flying in Australia & the U.S.?

Need oil? Analyse the original, test unused samples, obtain the original specification & take it to a boutique specialist oil company to reproduce, run it an aircraft in the "Experimental category", provide your test evidence to the FAA & apply for certification.

Can do attitude!

As said already, CAA in UK have a very different approach to USA. What you can do there, can't be done here.

I don't think there are now any Centaurus engines aircraft flying in the USA anymore, I think all are now converted to american engined radials, largely because of this issue. Makes them better suited to Reno racing anyway.
There was a rumour (no idea if true) that the remaining stock of the correct oil held in the UK was stored at Buncefield deport and was all lost when that all went up in smoke 20 years ago. No idea if true of not.

No idea about any Centaurus still flying in Aus or not?

[Penguinracer]

https://warbirdsnews.com/warbird-restorations/aust...

https://www.warbirdsonline.com.au/2018/11/06/hawke...

I remember seeing this Centaurus-engined aircraft at "Warbirds over Wanaka" in the early - mid '90's.

[hidetheelephants]

Penguinracer said:

https://warbirdsnews.com/warbird-restorations/aust...

https://www.warbirdsonline.com.au/2018/11/06/hawke...

I remember seeing this Centaurus-engined aircraft at "Warbirds over Wanaka" in the early - mid '90's.

CASA do seem to be a little more flexible than the CAA in certain areas, maybe war birds with big round engines are one of them.

[Penguinracer]

...nothing like a bit of jet racing:

https://warbirdsnews.com/airshow-news/jet-racing-r...

[V41LEY]

Just read the report as well.
There was clearly some issue with the oil pressure as the dials were telling the pilot that although levels seemed to fluctuate within allowances and sometimes not. Wouldn’t you err on the side of caution and abort a take-off that day and get it checked out ?
This probably isn’t unusual but 14 gallons of engine oil !