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>In the real world, no one can deny the robustness of these engines when they are operated per Continental's recommendations.
I'm afraid I am going to have to take issue with this statement. I think the robustness of the engines is questionable. I was looking at some back issues of Aviation Consumer a while back, and they listed the TSIO360 engines in their "worst engines" category. Their basis was an informal survey of overhaul shops. Apparently, these engines are quite a bit less likely to make TBO than the average engine (especially not without some top-end work).
It would be easy to blame the pilots and just say that there are too many "ham handed" pilots flying around in Skymasters. However, I doubt, as a group, that we are any worse than Barron owners, for example.
Looking back at our log books, neither of the engines even came close to making TBO. While I suppose that the previous owner may have been "ham handed," he sure didn't strike me as that kind of guy. Quite the contrary, he seemed to be a very precice and conservative "engineer type" who really took care of the plane (he was the only owner since new, and was trading up to a King Air).
PS: I am not trying to make the argument that running LOP would solve this problem. I think the jury is still out on that. It's just an observation.
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