Failures in properly made modern cars are so rare that for a given individual they mean almost nothing, but mine were
I flew to Milan from the Netherlands, on a DA42, and back.
Weather was great both days, bit hazy but still enjoyed beautiful views of the Alps!
Which airport is this?
👍 yes it is!
I’ve never had a water pump on a car leak or fail, nor replaced one. They certainly aren’t replaced with the auxiliary belt in my world, and these days I’d expect them to last the natural life of the car, say maybe 250-300k miles.
I’ve also never had to replace a radiator. I’ve known the odd cooling issue, usually due to leaks or sludge of some sort, but the incidence decreases with more modern cars.
That said, I don’t really want liquid cooling on small aero engines. There’s enough crammed into a small space with air cooled engines.
Wasn’t planning on flying GA this weekend but a call to do an intro-flight which was cancelled soon after made me decide otherwise.
The airplane was available so we made quick trip to EBSP
This was the 1st flight with both kids on the back seats and the crew isolate function of the g1000 is a blessing.
Our son is also learning to keep the headset on. Which was probably the reason i used the isolate function so much.
The crew
The plane 
Happy with my parking skills (just a bit more forward)
The sunset back at homebase
Graham wrote:
I’ve never had a water pump on a car leak or fail, nor replaced one. They certainly aren’t replaced with the auxiliary belt in my world, and these days I’d expect them to last the natural life of the car, say maybe 250-300k miles.
Cam belt replacement, not auxiliary belt. The pump is cheap, doesn’t actually last forever, access is simple once you’ve got the radiator etc. out of the way to do the cam belt and labor hours are the real cost. The plastic/aluminum radiator is only $100 (mass produced high volume replacement item) so its not unheard of to replace it at the same time as the cam belt and water pump, just to prevent future labor cost. Wish I’d done that last time. Plastic tank radiators don’t go forever either – like everything else on ‘modern’ vehicles they are a disposable item with a lifespan, either mileage or calendar time or heat cycles.
This BTW is on a Japanese sports car that is renowned for its reliability and longevity in comparison to say a Triumph Spitfire 
Graham wrote:
That said, I don’t really want liquid cooling on small aero engines. There’s enough crammed into a small space with air cooled engines.
All I wrote above is irrelevant to an air cooled aircraft engine, and thank goodness for that. “Don’t really want” hardly covers it for me. “Would give up flying” is closer to the case if I had to maintain a liquid cooled aero-engine in a state that I could trust in the air without hesitancy.
Oh well I suppose the 16000 or more pilots in ULMs here should give up flying as the vast majority fly behind liquid cooled engines.
The majority of Diamond owners need to stop flying too.
No wonder young people don’t like engineering despite the high pay reported here.
Silvaire wrote:
Cam belt replacement, not auxiliary belt.
Ok got ya. Never known people replace water pumps as a matter of course like that, nor radiators.
But then I’ve not had a car with a timing belt for a while, partly because of the labour involved in replacing them and partly because of one prior instance of a catastrophic failure well inside the specified life.
1> Late to the table. But, as they say, better late than never. Took my parents out for a spin in NE Spain, SWish France for a sightseeing flight. Departed/Arrived Empuriabrave (LEAP) airport, which I find to be an exciting and awesome airfield. Pretty good food and some action packed scenery with the parachuter´s and twotter. Good stuff.
