"Chrysler/Ford/GM are happy to sell you parts like engines and transmissions without caring whether they'll even be used in a car"
Ancedata says some of the big 3 do care. A guy down the road from me ordered 500 engines from Ford. They followed up on the order and when he explained they were for airplanes, they cancelled it, saying they didn't want to be liable for an automotive engine in a plane.
His plan to turn his custom plane into a kit stopped at a beautiful one-off that sits in his museum when he isn't flying it.
If he was going to put the engines in a tractor, I bet they would have sold them, but they didn't want to be liable for something in a plane.
If he was building an experimental amateur-built (E-AB) category airplane, then there was likely no regulatory issue. Just lawsuit-scared lawyers. Not passing judgment--If I had lawyers I would want them to be conservative and cautious too.
You can put pretty much any engine you want in an airplane you build yourself, as long as you comply with the (reasonably light) homebuilt regulations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebuilt_aircraft
If he was building an experimental amateur-built (E-AB) category airplane,
then there was likely no regulatory issue.
I have no idea how much these particular engines cost, but even at $100 a pop buying hundreds of them at once puts the applicability of "amateur" under some strain (or that of "experimental", TBH).
OTOH, something about this story doesn't entirely make sense: who would get to the point they were ready to drop six figures on buying engines without, y'know, checking the regulations?
The story is that they would be sold as kits. I agree with you that this makes the story strange, though.
While his plan involved extensive modification to the engine and resale, the easiest workaround is to have the customer order the engine and freight it to him for modification. It would be expensive, but I do not see how it would have been impossible. This kind of aircraft would have been expensive in any case.
It sounds like other issues may have been just as big of a factor here as Ford's lack of interest.
> If I had lawyers I would want them to be conservative and cautious too.
For good reason. I imagine if a few people dies because the engine as sold didn't perform well/stalled under certain aeronautical conditions (upside down, low air pressure, etc) then it wouldn't take long for the lawyer hired by the kit maker to start pointing at the big auto maker at every chance they got, even if it ultimately was something the kit maker did.
There was a weird time in the 80s when lawyers figured out they could sue light aircraft manufacturers after a plane crash, and almost killed general aviation.
A very extreme case indeed, aviation is so highly regulated that any mention of it outside of the usual context is going to ring alarm bells. But I bet if he was putting them in custom racecars or such, they wouldn't mind --- because that's the whole reason they're selling those engines in the first place.
Since this whole Tesla parts thing came up, I've always found it ironic that you can easily buy an entire powertrain based on the stereotypical half-century-old American V8 design and put it into a not-so-safe hot-rod, register it and drive it on the road (not that I'm saying that's a bad thing --- I'm a car enthusiast myself), but Tesla will refuse to sell you even minor cosmetic parts and quote "safety" as one of the reasons (and meanwhile, their misleading advertising for "autopilot" continues to generate deaths.)
It is extreme, but Ford cares about liability in all cases, but most cases don't cross wherever line their lawyers have drawn. The idea that they don't care is all I was going for. That and it is a story someone would enjoy.
That sounds reasonable. If a company knows their engines aren't reliable enough for airplanes I think it is most ethical for them to refuse to sell them to people they know will use them in airplanes. I definitely wouldn't want to fly in an airplane with a car engine at least.
Ancedata says some of the big 3 do care. A guy down the road from me ordered 500 engines from Ford. They followed up on the order and when he explained they were for airplanes, they cancelled it, saying they didn't want to be liable for an automotive engine in a plane.
His plan to turn his custom plane into a kit stopped at a beautiful one-off that sits in his museum when he isn't flying it.
If he was going to put the engines in a tractor, I bet they would have sold them, but they didn't want to be liable for something in a plane.
*Edit - it was 1000 engines, not 500. Also found a link some might find interesting: http://stonehengeairmuseum.org/1992-montaniar