Would you bet on it? I know, it’s the german PPL textbook logic, but I wouldn’t care and land very very soon if I had a zero oil pressure indication.
I never quite followed the logic that a loss of oil pressure would necessarily go along with a change of oil temp.
It might, but it might just as well not.
A hangar mate of mine had the engine break and oil all over which reduced it to 0/0 visibility. He barely survived.
One keeps hearing that an engine will seize within minutes when lubrication stops. However, one would probably not turn off the engine in such a situation.
A few minutes is a few thousand feet extra in altitude. Worth having, generally.
On 2-stroke 1970s Yamaha motorbikes (lubed via oil in the fuel) when the oil ran out the engine would reportedly run really well (very little friction) for a few minutes and then suddenly seize up 
I do not think one can rely on oil temp or pressure to indicate a leak. It depends on where the leak is. Probably, one or the other figure will indicate something unusual, however, if you are getting a major oil leak and the oil has run out.
But if you have just a hole in the sump (say, the oil drain has popped open – which is why it should always be wirelocked) you will definitely know nothing about that until the sump level falls below the oil pump inlet hole and then the engine will be getting zero oil.
A hangar mate of mine had the engine break and oil all over which reduced it to 0/0 visibility.
What actually happened? Did a piston or conrod come up through the upper cowling? Otherwise, there is no reason to get oil over the window. On the TB20 upper cowling there is a silicone seal at just the right point, presumably for that very reason.
I would never turn an engine off until I landed, or it seized.
The precautionary events in the last twelve months or so include rough running, luckily over Thurrock, and oil pressure loss/ temperature rise near Earls Colne. Both recovered under partial power to these airfields.
Cranfield lost a Tomahawk to rough running – serious injuries to both occupants.
In the last three years one donkey did fail and landed in a field. No injuries and aircraft safely recovered.
A syndicate lost an Arrow last year after a go around at Panshanger when the pilot forgot to switch tanks.
Water contamination makes a regular appearance in the Aaib reports. So fuel related events can take various forms.
These aircraft run every day, nearly, and should, possibly, have a better MTBF than less frequently used engines.
Super Cubs aside, a 172 with a Sportsman STOL wing cuff will be able to carry out a forced landing at 35-40 knots into wind, which with airbags (and BRS ) makes for a compelling practical safety package.
Ideally you do want the engine shut down, secured, fuel off and electrics off in a forced landing.
Ideally a SE would either have low kinetic energy in a landing configuration, or BRS, or both.
I would also fly to an airfield if a saw zero oil pressure. If the prop stays at the set RPM then it’s clearly still getting oil pressure. In any event sudden zero readings are most often instrument or sender failures, It’s the pregressive drop in oil pressure with increasing temp that is really worrying, I’d still head for an airfield under low power though – engines can run for some time with no oil pressure.
Over the years I’ve had about 1 power loss per 300 hrs. – no catastrophic failures though. Never had to land off airfield.
Well, okay – it depends on other factors too. And, no, I have no idea what’s in the german PPL textbook (not anymore), it’s been experience with engines back from the time when I was still restoring sports cars. There was always a pretty linear connection between oil pressure and oil temperature. The higher the oil temperature gets the lower the pressure will be, and in engines with an oil sump (vs. dry sump) the oil temperature would go up when there was too little oil.
The logic is that the oil gets hotter if there is less oil circulating in the engine and cooling it,
But I guess I wouldn’t cross the Alpes or the Mediterranean either if i wasn’t completely sure.
Cirrus Engine Stoppage Statistic
Hi there,
The Rockefeller crash had me on the aviation safety site this morning looking at engine failures (not necessarily what happen in this crash but just doing some reading…). I noticed Cirrus SR22 appear to have improved their accident rate quiet a bit but 5 out of 9 accidents reported so far this year relate to loss of power / engine failure. That’s 56% of accidents for the type caused by a component. IF these could be eliminated, the Cirrus fleet would start to have quiet spectacular safety statistics. I wonder if a will exists to bin the 1960’s junk for something decent up front that doesn’t fail?
DMEarc
Yeah but the 1960es junk is reliable if you fly it no more than an hour per week at a time (preferably at 65% rated power)….
Are these Cirrus figures really right?
Such a high engine failure rate would be an astonishing statistic, which is not matched by any other sector of GA except maybe microlights with 2-stroke engines.
“quiet” and “spectacular” do not go together… 
But as concerns the so called 1960’s junk: I am not defending the stuff, not at all, but “will not fail”, while obviously impossible to meet completely by ANY technology, is not met better in the statistics by anything else. Mostly because everything more recent still has to show its long term reliability.
As for “decent” : that is in the eye of the beholder, just like beauty. Not a measurable factor.
