Thoughts On the CL-600

[Gatorman]

I have bent a few wrenches on a the 600's. I can tell ya one thing, if you buy the plane, you need to buy the mechanic with it! He will know more about that airplane than anyone else in the world.

You can believe almost everything that has been posted above. I am pretty sure that I have worked on 1044, not sure about 1026, but here is the history lesson on the ol' 600's:
They were first designed by Bill Lear and the design was bought by Canadair. Canadair had made an agreement with Fed Ex in their salad years for 12 aircraft to haul cargo - hence the upward opening door. But Fed Ex decided to go with the Falcons instead.
The "Branson" tanks that were refered to earlier are called such because thay are manufactured in Branson Mo. and were later installed as a service bulletin and eventually as a part of the completion package. One tank fwd of the wing and one aft of the wing inside of the cabin.
The ALF 502 engines are a little under rated for the aircraft and it is a bit of a hassle to get good maintenance on them. It would be who of you to be on an engine maintenance program with your engines so you can some priority for the loaners.

Be very careful though, there are several 600's out there that have been operated by the Canadain military and have been de-modded for civilian use and there are issues with their log books and the maintenance involved durring that time. (oops, did I say that?)
Remember the 600 that went off the end of the runway in TEB?
Yep, that was one of them.

Well, I think I have said about enough to get me in trouble....

 

[empenage]

hahahahahaha!!!! Now that's some funny stuff right there!

As a matter of fact - it's getting worse because of support issues. In our situation there was some kind of 'internal coating' (as it was described to me) on the inside of the engine that started to flake off causing disturbances in the airflow thus causing the compressor stalls. Our first engine went at 400 feet above Grand Cayman and apparently was so loud we had half the island at the airport to see what was going on by the time we got back around the pattern. We caught the second engine on an inspection before it got to that point but the guy from Dallas Airmotive told us this is/was(this happened in 2002) becoming a major problem with the airplane as they've seen many of the Lycomings with that problem. Apparently the company that applied the coating to all of the engines didn't do it quite correctly and they are long out of business.

CL

Thanks..Question answered. It's been a looong time since I've been in a 600. Some of the GE CF-34's on the 601's had tower shaft problems as well. I'll take a leaky RR any day.

 

[empenage]

Anyone have the video of the Canadian AF Challenger training crash?

That was impressive.

 

[robert garland]

If you would like to talk to a captain operating one call me at 214 929 0823. They would be happy review the aircraft with you. They have an interesting opinion on the one that ran off the runway at TEB.

 

[User546]

Thanks guys for all your input! What everyone is saying seems to be closely along the same lines as our 604 guys.

And why we're getting the 600 instead of a better aircraft, I think there is more political reasons to it then pulling out a "For Sale" list and picking one of there. If the maintenance and reliability turns out to be as big of an issue as everyone here says, then I can't imagine the boss will be happy long with it.

But I know the Chief has invested a lot of time, research, and energy into this, so I know he's not going into it blindly.

Well, on the bright side I guess I'll start learning a lot about troubleshooting, and inflight maintenance decisions/issues.

 

[robert garland]

The one I was in was extremely noisy in the back. Be sure the boss checks this out on the demo flight. Sounds like a factory back there.

 

[Gatorman]

The one I was in was extremely noisy in the back. Be sure the boss checks this out on the demo flight. Sounds like a factory back there.

If it had the sound attinuator kit installed on the hydraulic systems, you will not have that problem.
Best way to check that - open the service doors on the aft chin farings and look to see if a little accumulator is installed. It looks like steel base ball.

Who did 1044 use to belong to?