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Engine failure in flight.

Yes I know what they are like as I have experienced many. I went down maybe 4 times with fuel starvation not to be confused with fuel exhaustion. Many times with magneto or lead problems when I lost substantial power. Twice where the engine self destructed, once damaging the aeroplane where it required a rebuild and I guess there were other times for other reasons. The main reason is we were using very old engines that had been rebuilt many times over many years.
The oddest engine partial failure was the R985. Yes. Quite a number of times. I could never figure out why. What would happen is the engine would move on the mount telling me something was failing. This gave about 20 seconds warning then it would lose almost all power.This 20 seconds gave me sufficient time to set up for a paddock or road landing. Then I could takeoff immediately and resume the job. Quite silly isn’t it. We pulled the engine and it was reported one ignition lead was damaged and the spark would jump into other leads. It looks likely I had damaged it in the reassembly following a mag change. It would have been easy to rectify had I known.
What has made me bring this story is my friend Dave from Dalby crashed yesterday. Engine failure in a P&W 1340. Too early to know what component failed but when the engine gets pulled down it will be apparent.
I have been to Wikipedia and found some 35,000 of these Pratt and Whitney engines were built. That includes the smaller R985 which is a sweet engine. What we are using these days was manufactured in the 20’s through to ’53, mostly in war time.That makes the newest engine 65 years old. I sat behind these engines for 16 years.When I was operating the purchase price for an overhauled R1340 engine was 20k USD and is now 64k. They have a time before overhaul of 1,100 hours but you could sometimes get more if you cribbed your flight times.
I have been to the internet for the price of a garden variety PT 6 gas turbine, the popular engine today, but can’t find a new price. There are deals everywhere and no one wants to reveal their price. But I see the cost of overhaul is 265K and the life, in an agricultural aeroplane, can run as high as 8000 hours. They burn more gas, do more work and are, with exception, totally reliable. However it is beyond many operators financial means to afford one. It is difficult now because operating costs for ag operators is rising and the market, (farming industry) is financially declining. Well that’s in Australia anyway. Unlike other countries we are not subsidised but for one exception. Limited subsidy for transport of fodder during declared drought.
Yes I do go on about farming and farmers don’t I. These are the people who grow the food that is put on our dining tables. They are a tiny minority of our population and are treated poorly by governments and largely unrecognised by the public. Economically important and politically insignificant.
Well back to my friend Dave who crashed yesterday in his radial powered ag plane. He is an operator on the Darling Downs in Queensland. The regions agriculture is totally dependant on rainfall. It is described as a feast or famine farming area. That’s why he is not operating a turbine aeroplane. Dave is 78 years old and was flying as a teenager. I too was flying as a teenager and thought I was doing well at 71. I congratulate you Dave and admire you but I am capitulating to you.
Well Dave climbed out of the wreckage, walked to a road and was given a ride to hospital and had a finger stitched up then went home.
The newspaper has a photograph of the wreckage but no matter how I tried I was unable to copy the picture.

Enjoy your breakfast and think of the farmers and cropdusters who made eating good food possible.
The 1340 powered Thrush is pictured. An internet picture. Yes that was a long story and for those of you who endured it, I hope you enjoyed it. Cheers, gary