Bruce,
Thanks for the welcome. I'll do my best to answer your questions in order:
Q. How many Jabiru 3300s have been sold?
A. Currently Jabiru are up to engine number 700 (approx) for 3300s, and
nearly 2000 of the 4 - cylinder 2200s, both non type-certificated. Jabiru
has a successful track-record producing type-certificated aircraft and
engines and these (2200s) number over 1000 approx. I think it's worth
mentioning that Jabiru produced these type-certificated versions well before
the 'experimental' versions, and they therefore have all the quality systems
(traceability, standards, etc) to support this effort. However, the Jabiru
guys will quickly tell you "we make no apology for improving our products"
and it's therefore important that they have this development stream for our
market. Changes to both 2200s and 3300s are very few these days, so the
development curve is pretty flat.
Q. How many Jabiru powerplants have been sold and installed in non-Jabiru
airframes.
A. I don't have an accurate number, but it should be around 70% of their
production. We sell engines to about 75 non - Jabiru aircraft types, from
ultralights to (more recently) Van's RVs etc. Jabiru have engine solutions
---From 85hp to 180hp.
Q. How many Jabirus 3300s have been installed in Europas?
A. I don't know this, as my focus is only southern USA, but my guess is
somewhere between 15 and 30 worldwide, maybe more. I'm sure there will be
comments like "why so low?", and I'll stand-by my view that there is no
technical reason why the Jabiru isn't as popular as other types. The answer
(for me) is based on the previous opinions of Keith Wilson in UK, his
preference for Rotax and (for whatever reason) the inability of the UK
Jabiru dealer to change this view, despite my certain knowledge that he
tried very hard! I can certainly understand the view from an OEM kit
manufacturer that they 'stick with what they know' in terms of engine choice
We see this often, but find in most cases that builders choose alternative
engines and once a 'critical mass' of happy owners is established and
confidence in the product and its service-backup is established, the Kit
Manufacturer then gets interested, because more and more builders are asking
about engine choice, rather than getting the standard offering. It's at this
point of 'interested early involvement' that we found ourselves about a year
ago with Europa, and hence my work with John Hurst since then. Here's a good
analogy: Van's aircraft have a long and successful commercial relationship
with Lycoming (and why not?), and, while Dick Van Grunsven always comes to
see us briefly at the big USA shows, he's not about to dump his business
with Lycoming and switch to Jabiru. However, more RV builders are turning to
non - Lycoming engines and now that we have a Jabiru 180hp engine, we can
tell he is getting more interested. When the critical mass is reached, he
can't afford to ignore the alternatives.
Q. Are there any non-Jabiru airframes (i.e.: Zenith, Sonex, Glastar, etc)
where builders have been particularly receptive to installing Jabirus 3300s.
In particular I'd like to know why they choose the Jabiru over the Rotax
alternatives, especially in airframes that have similar characteristics and
missions as the Europa.
A. As mentioned above, there are a growing number of Kit Manufacturers who
are recommending the Jabiru as the engine-of-choice. Zenith were a fairly
tough nut to crack, but they now favor the 3300 ahead of anything else for
their 601 - series. Sonex too, choose the 2200 and 3300 as the best choice
(performance-wise) for their aircraft, but they also offer their
do-it-yourself VW conversion for the lower-budget market. Indus Aviation
with their re-production of the Thorp T211 choose the Jabiru 3300. There are
many more instances. For examples closer to the Europa performance, Pulsar
have an increasing customer base choosing Jabirus, and in USA and UK, where
the Esqual Kit dealers happen to also be Jabiru dealers, of course the
Jabiru is offered in preference (!), and the aircraft performs very well
with it. The direct-drive Jabiru is seen by some who compare to Rotax geared
engines, as propeller - inefficient, because of the 'physics' that a large
diameter propeller turning slower produces more static thrust than does a
smaller prop. going faster. In fact, we have proven many times-over that
with the right propeller, aircraft such as the Kitfox and Avid and other
relatively slow, draggy types, perform better in the view of their owners
than when they were fitted with Rotax 582s or 912s. I stress the importance
of propeller selection, and we have no hesitation in recommending the
excellent line of Sensenich wood props which are optimized for the Jabiru
engine. I operate the Airmaster AP332 CS propeller on our demo aircraft and
I'm very pleased with its performance.
Q. Tell us about the dealer/distributor network. In particular I want to
know about those in North America, but perhaps Jabiru dealers outside of
North America will respond and let us know what territories they manage.
I'm curious as to how long the dealers have been in business, what kind
of support and in-house service they can offer us, do the dealers have
protected territories (or can we deal with any of them), and whether the
dealers are committed to working full time for Jabiru, or is it a part-time
business for them.
A. For a number of years (up to 3-4 years ago), Jabiru had appointed a
succession of single dealers covering the entire USA, and for diverse
reasons, not too successfully. At the time (Early 2001) I was appointed as
one of 4 dealers covering North America including Canada, Jabiru made it
clear they wanted individuals with 'real world' experience with Jabiru
products as owners and motivated enthusiasts for the product, rather than
individuals who could talk a good game or dazzle the Aussies with money. In
case you're wondering, I fall into the first category....All 3 dealers in
USA (and one in Canada) have personally built Jabiru kits, operate Jabiru
aircraft (and hence the engines) on a daily basis and are trained by Jabiru
to do all service operations up to TBO. We dealers work well together,
despite being separate businesses, with defined trading territories. We
defend these territories for retail engine and kit sales, but in the case of
sales to OEM Kit manufacturers, through OEM agreements we supply
firewall-forward kits to (e.g.) Europa customers wherever they sell aircraft
in USA. I hope you can see that, since Europa Aircraft were established
within the sales territory of our Jabiru dealership, I am happy to lead the
development effort for the Jabiru 3300 engine for Europa. There's certainly
no problem for Jabiru owners to choose to buy spare parts or consumables
---From their choice of Jabiru dealer, but sales of Europa F/F kits in North
America should come from us as (i) we established the initial relationship
with Europa and (ii) I feel we are better - placed to provide support for an
installation which we developed.
Q. What are the fuel requirements for the Jabiru? I know this can get
complicated as motor fuel differs in each state and country. Jabiru
specifies 95 RON octane which is 91 CLC (or Pump Octane) in North America.
Here in California it is even more screwed up because the U.S. government
has mandated that ethanol be added to all grades of motor fuel
year-round.
A. New Jabiru engines run equally well on either 91 Octane pump-gas
(actually 95 RON) or 100LL AvGas. They run cleaner on unleaded fuel, but
it's the octane rating, not the lead content, that is important. Since
production started, compression ratios have steadily reduced, from 9.2:1
originally to about 8:1 today, so that unleaded auto-gas can be used without
problems. However, as we all know, the quality of auto-gas differs across
the world which is why Jabiru specify 100LL as the preference on their
literature in Australia. We advise owners to check with their auto gas
supplier how the octane is derived; the addition of high levels of alcohol /
ethanol to achieve the octane level is less preferable than better-quality
fuels where the crude is distilled more to include the higher fractions.
(No, I'm not a chemist, but I have experience to know that better results
are achieved from the 'better quality' gas companies).
On the subject of fuel, I'm pleased to report that Jabiru have recently
developed a new-shape needle for the Bing carburetor. I fitted it (and the
corresponding jets) to our demo airplane and already see a 22% improvement
in fuel burn. 120 kts TAS cruise at 75% power in our 4-place demo. Now gives
5 US gph. Clearly, I'll be doing more in-depth measurement and will be in a
better position to report more accurate results soon. Incidentally, the 3300
on our demo. is serial #002, was rebuilt about 300hours ago but goes as good
as a new one.
Keep the questions coming, Bruce!
Cheers
Andy Silvester
Suncoast Sportplanes, Inc.
www.suncoastjabiru.com
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