aart wrote:
Our aircraft are basically prototypes
I wouldn’t necessarily call any Jodel/Robin a prototype. The thing has been manufactured with minimal changes since early ‘60s. It’s a mature design. Or rather it was, until it was “improved” with electric flaps and a Mercedes A Continental Diesel engine. Those things bite already. In 10 years people will see what the new “swiftwing” will become…
The point I’m trying to make is that we as customers are at least partially to blame for our own problems. I’m pretty sure that people at Robin aircraft would not spent time and $$$ on incorporating Diesel engine if we wouldn’t expect it there. If I for one would opt to skip a perfectly reliable Lycoming O360 and choose a Mercedes A Continental Diesel I would certainly blame myself for consequences. And wouldn’t expect Robin Aircraft to come in a van with a replacement engine.
From a design standpoint you are right, many aircraft are not prototypes. But from a production standpoint they are. You simply cannot expect the same level of consistency in quality as in mass produced goods.
In any manufacturing business you can ship products with major defects which most customers never find, but some % is really affected.
In GA this is facilitated by a combination of a particular option having been shipped in very small quantities, and the vast majority of users never exercising the product into the operating regime which would expose the problem.
Many examples eg a lubricant which freezes at – 10C will never affect some 99% of club GA, in the geographical regions likely to buy the particular aircraft type.
aart wrote:
You simply cannot expect the same level of consistency in quality as in mass produced goods.
I think the only way you can create reliability without investing a huge amount of money in modeling, testing and development is through simplicity. That means that lacking a military style budget, you probably can’t build a product for low volume commercial sale that is simultaneously complex and reliable. People try to find some middle ground by utilizing technology from mass production fields (e.g. the push for Commercial Off The Shelf in military technology or building an aircraft engine based on a Mercedes diesel) but often its a mixed success in terms of reliability, or too compromised in function. My preference has always been to embrace simplicity as part of the package that comes along with the fun of designing or owning something specialized, but others find that frustrating. To each his own.
Sometimes even when taking the most straightforward approach for a low volume product the job can’t be done without some military money, both US engine manufacturers and Thielert had their share.
On the shelf I have a book in which Bob Wallace, a New Zealander who was the original test/development guy for Lamborghini, describes how the company suffered when they tried to make luxury cars versus raw super cars, because they didn’t have the budget to develop all the luxury features. Now they’re owned by VW so it didn’t exactly benefit them to make complex stuff.
Sorry for the philosophical rant. Checking out all the planes at AERO in 2014, my favorite new production plane was the Robin but I’d have a Lycoming every time.
In my early days (not that early – 2006) I was a big fan of the Thielert approach. Modern aero technology derived from mass manufactured products,
10 years and 1000 hours later, I have learnt that an air cooled 4 cylinder Lycosaur is a close as it gets to the ideal engine.
This thing vibrates, pollutes and is not exactly easy to manage, but it delivers the most important feature: reliability.
Notice that I did not criticize fuel burn. Actually, there is nothing to criticize, an IO-360 does a decent job of extracing 135 HP from 38 liters per hour of AVGAS.
I think that UL-Power in Belgium have done a good job of taking this to the next stage.
I hope that they eventually will take the plunge and certify their production.
We had a previous thread on this “should one post negative stuff” topic here
Today, over 1000 pilots and aviation people read EuroGA every day. From the activity one can see these are real, not bots or random machine accesses (those make up the other 90% 
). And it is really obvious that all major names read EuroGA. One of the things which reveals this is when one of them reacts to something, with an email! Very occasionally it is a legal threat.
I still think it is bizzare that almost no manufacturer posts in almost any forum. This avoidance of participation just makes everybody think they are hiding something, and frankly I think most of the time they probably are…
It is great that people post frankly because it educates everybody else – and most valuably educates those who have not yet bought the product. This is a general comment; I don’t know anything about the Robin specifically.
IMO the release or partsipation in public debate with company data usually requires a decision from the very top of a company along with the OK from the lawyers.
Most of the people at the top of companies are far too busy for this just keeping the day to day issues within the company in check add to this any honesty about problems with a product even if this is to tell people you are actively seeking a resolution to the problem is likely to result in a bunch of lawyers chasing you for money.
This is a major paradox that all of aviation has face, on the one hand CRM encourages honesty and openness for flight safety reasons but given the chance the lawyers will try to hijack that information if they think they can use it to advance any case they think they might have.
In a recent high profile case a U.K. Court upheld international law and prevented the release of safety related data for the use of the prosecution, this in my view was the correct decision for aviation safety but it only helps a company who want to be honest about problems with one of their products if they file the data via the official reporting system, telling the aviation community via an Internet forum will provide them with no protection from the lawyers.
jeff64 wrote:
Mechanics who are used to maintain classics DR400, says there is no standard in the wiring process of new APEX Aircrafts, as if each mechanic building the aircraft had is very own style.
I can tell you that Socata kept no records of which plane was wired to which diagram.
So the wiring diagrams covered all options.
And to make life interesting they did not release post 2000 (GT) diagrams so you had to have contacts…
It creates more work for avionics installers, for sure.
One would think that creating a file for each serial number would save a lot of time for everyone.
I would understand and accept little differences in avionics installation, especially taking into account number of new airplanes per year manufactured nowadays by Robin Aircraft. I might guess that each aircraft is built to order and is in some way different than others.
IMHO this thread is not necessarily about “negative stuff” but rather about wrong choices.
Make no mistake, DR400 equipped with O360 is a great airplane, the only better one I can think of is DR253 :-)`
