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The 400 million hour study is the product of the fleet experience y done on the CW 3350 engines - - about 400 million engine hours, and all of that LOP in cruise at high BMEP values, compared to engines you and I fly. Towards the end of the piston airline era, they were going to 3600 hour TBO's on those engines.
As for the engine monitors, consider this, you taxi out on a time critical trip to grandma's house for Thanksgiving.
You have a rough mag.
You taxi back and tell you mechanic one of the two following statements:
1) The Left mag is rough on the front engine; or,
2) Please change the #2 lower spark plug on the front engine, it is bad.
What is going to be the delay in getting to grandma's house?
What is going to be the difference in the amount of time your mechanic spends on fixing your "rough mag" ???
Is your mechanic going to respond to 1), and say, "Hey, I have two other planes in the shop I am finishing up for guys for Thanksgiving trips, I can't get to your troubleshooting problem until tomorrow..." or is he going to say, "Sure, I can get the plug changed in about 30 minutes."
The spark plug example is just the very beginning of a long list of similar easy diagnostic "catches" that result from owning an engine monitor and then learning to understand what it is telling you.
Again, as has been pointed out, if you make a serious effort to evaluate the failure modes and effects, one quickly realizes that the person who operates ROP really needs an engine monitor more critically than does the person who operates LOP.
Regards, George
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