My wife getting scared

Jay Honeck wrote:
He's an expert pilot, and a very experienced owner. He has hand-built
several airplanes from scratch -- no "kit planes" for him. (His next
project will be to recreate -- from photos only -- a 1916 aircraft
that flew out of Grinnell, IA.)

Cool. Sounds like an interesting, knowledgeable guy.

Well, your engine has a limited number of those cycles in it. It's
the same thing I explain to my 17 year old son: Yes, you can floor
the car and spin the rear wheels a certain number of times, without
harming the engine. Sooner or later, though, that kind of treatment
*will* break something.

Airplanes are no different. Cycling from full power to idle is just a
bad thing to do with your engine.

The engine was designed with the knowledge that in order to fly, the
transition from full power to idle will have to be made at some point
.... that in itself is not "a bad thing". If that's ALL you're constantly
doing in every flight, then yes, I would agree with you, but that isn't
what I meant by practicing simulated engine failures more often than
every other year (during BFRs). Certainly a healthy engine can do them
more often than that without being damaged.

When my buddy's engine crapped out 700 hours before TBO,
was it directly attributable to his doing a zillion touch & goes?

Maybe, maybe not.
But again, I wasn't talking about doing a zillion touch-n-goes, I was
talking about practicing simulated engine failures often enough that
*IF* the real thing occurs, you don't waste several precious seconds
reacting, trying to remember the drill, or make any mistakes because you
(not you personally) haven't flown enough power-off approaches/landings
in the airplane you always fly.

I don't know, but I can safely say that if he had simply let his
engine run at a steady-state 2200 RPM, it would still be running
today.

No, you can't. Not doing touch-n-goes is not a guarantee that any engine
will make it to TBO or still be running. It's hard to make ANY
guarantees where engines are concerned...we do what the experts we know
and respect recommend, and hope for the best, but even they don't make
guarantees.

THAT is an indication of the wear and tear inherent with full
power/idle power engine management, versus cruise flight.

I'm not disagreeing that there is wear and tear involved. But again, I
also was not talking about a plane that ONLY does touch-n-goes. Of
course cruise flight should make up the bulk of the time.

Touch & goes aren't necessary to practice after your first 1000 or so
landings, IMHO. If you don't have it down pat by then, a few more
T&Gs isn't gonna help, and the beating your plane takes during the T&G
process is something to be avoided.

It isn't a matter of "having it down pat" -- most of us have landings
down fairly pat by the time we get our ticket. But just because a person
has done 1000 landings doesn't mean it's never necessary to practice
touch-n-goes. Is there anyone who flies religiously once- or
twice-a-week *without fail*, FOREVER? If so, they likely don't have to
practice touch-n-goes. But who hasn't had to be off for a month or more
once in a while due to other priorities in life or when a mechanical
issue takes a month or more to resolve? When you get back in the air
after a long period off, are your approaches and landings just as sharp
as ever? If so, kudos to you! I'm not a professional pilot, and mine
aren't always as good as they could be after I've been off for a month
or more, and in those instances, three or four touch-n-goes is usually
just what the doctor ordered. And once again, I'm not suggesting that
EVERY flight should consist of touch-n-goes or include an engine-out
practice.

That's why airplane ads say stuff like "Never used as a trainer."

That's not the only reason. "Trainers" take a lot more forms of abuse
than just touch-n-goes.

Engine out practice IS a good thing to do, however, and is why I do
feel badly about my reluctance to do them. I'm thinking maybe we'll
do some next time we go up, maybe at reduced (not idle) power...

Good. As a friend, I'm glad to hear that.

Optimally, in order to run the longest possible number of hours, you
would never shut the engine off. I'll bet a Lycoming could run 10,000
hours easily if all you did was keep it running at 2000 RPM, and keep
adding oil and gas.

My mechanic was at my hangar this morning. I was picking his brain about
this stuff. He said an airplane should be flown *at least* once a week
to keep condensation/corrosion away (and other reasons but that being
most important). He said Lycoming documentation actually states that an
engine should be preserved (pickled) if it isn't going to be flown for
10 days or more, although no one does that. I've heard of pickling in
extreme temps (cold) when not being flown *for an entire season*, but
even then, seems a lot of people just let them sit.

The person in the hangar across the taxiway from me was there for the
first time this morning -- I'd never even seen or met him in the entire
time I've been there. He said he hasn't flown in 2 years, and his C-180
hasn't either. It's having an annual now and he's about to begin flying
again. It was not pickled, and I'll be interested to hear what was done
in this annual, with that in mind. (I didn't ask why he was off for 2
years...guessing it might have been a medical issue.)

But that's not "real world". Looking at trainers at big flight
schools, they usually fly daily, often for many hours per day. And
they usually get some pretty impressive time on their engines that
way. (Hours-wise, not calendar-wise, of course.)

We had a C-152 at our flight school. It had 13K hours on it when I got
my ticket in it, and while it had its own little quirks, it obviously
had been reliable. It was nearing 14K hours when a customer had an
emergency, landed in the desert, flipped it onto its back and totaled
it. Thankfully, they walked away. It had been a reliable, fun little
bird. I do not know how many overhauls it had or if it went to TBO each
time, but considering how much abuse it took doing T&Gs, spin training,
being khablammed by people learning to land, and who-knows-what else
customers put it through, it served everyone well and did Cessna proud.

I just spent at least that much, too, and I'm sure as heck not going to
intentionally abuse the engine. But I'm not going to skip some aspects
of ongoing skill retention drills that I've seen the pay off firsthand
in an emergency because I'm thinking about the $20K I just spent.

Yep, I agree. You're the voice of experience here, which is why I'm
engaged in this thread. I *am* worried about not practicing the
procedures enough, but I just don't want to shorten the lifespan of a
very expensive engine needlessly...

Yeah, I hear ya. I just don't think an occasional simulated engine-out
practice is "needlessly".

Shirl