The Jabiru 3300 is a lightweight four-stroke,

horizontally opposed A flat engine is a piston engine where the cylinders are located on either side of a central crankshaft. Flat engines are also known as horizontally opposed engines, however this is distinct from the less common opposed-piston engine design, ...

"flat-six" air-cooled aircraft engine produced by

Jabiru Aircraft Jabiru Aircraft Pty Ltd is an Australian aircraft manufacturer that produces a range of kitplane, kit- and ready-built civil light aircraft in Bundaberg, Queensland. The company also designs and manufactures a range of light aircraft engines. ...

. The engines are direct drive and fitted with

alternator An alternator (or synchronous generator) is an electrical generator that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy in the form of alternating current. For reasons of cost and simplicity, most alternators use a rotating magnetic field wit ...

s, silencers, vacuum pump drives and

dual ignition Dual Ignition is a system for spark-ignition engines, whereby critical ignition components, such as spark plugs and magnetos, are duplicated. Dual ignition is most commonly employed on aero engines,Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, ...

systems as standard. The engine is used to power

homebuilt Homebuilt machines are machines built outside of specialised workshops or factories. This can include different things such as kit cars or homebuilt computers, but normally it pertains to homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or ...

and

ultralight aircraft Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and Aircraft flight control system, conventional three-a ...

History

Jabiru Aircraft began as a builder of small two-seater aircraft in

Bundaberg Bundaberg () is the major regional city in the Wide Bay-Burnett region of the state of Queensland, Australia. It is the List of cities in Australia by population, ninth largest city in the state. The Bundaberg central business district is situa ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. It turned to producing its own engines when supplies of the Italian-sourced engines previously used dried up. Jabiru engines were designed to be manufactured in small batch quantities, so the firm used CNC machines to mill major engine parts such as cylinder blocks and heads, rather than using cast items. For the fourth generation of the design, more cast and forged components (including cast cylinder heads and forged connecting rods) replace components which were previously machined from billet. The 3300 is a modular development of Jabiru's flat-four 2200 engine. In November 2014, the Australian

Civil Aviation Safety Authority The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is an Australian statutory authority responsible for the regulation and safety oversight of Australia's civil aviation. CASA was formed on 6 July 1995 under the ''Civil Aviation Act 1988'' when the Civil ...

proposed restricting all Jabiru-powered aircraft to day-

visual flight rules In aviation, visual flight rules (VFR) is a set of regulations under which a pilot operates an aircraft in weather conditions generally clear enough to allow the pilot to see where the aircraft is going. Specifically, the weather must be better tha ...

only, without passengers or solo students and within gliding distance of a safe place to land due to the engine line's safety record. This was in response to 46 reports of engine failure in flight. In-flight failure modes included, but were not limited to: fuel starvation; valve/port collapse & breakage of critical bolts. Both the manufacturer and

Recreational Aviation Australia Recreational Aviation Australia (abbreviated to RAAus), formerly known as the Australian Ultralight Federation (AUF), is the governing body for ultralights in Australia. RAAus registers ultralight aircraft and issues pilot certificates throug ...

opposed the restrictions as unnecessary and unwarranted. The final rule adopted somewhat softened the restrictions, allowing the carriage of passengers and students, but requiring them to sign an acknowledgement of risk before flying and restricting equipped aircraft to day VFR flight and within gliding distance of a safe place to land. A subsequent tear-down of one engine by CASA resulted in recommendations in June 2016 for further easing of the restrictions.

Applications

Specifications

References

Jabiru Aircraft: 6 Cylinder Engine

{{Jabiru aeroengines Boxer engines 1990s aircraft piston engines Jabiru aircraft engines

History

Applications

Specifications

See also

References