The internal combustion engine was invented by German engineer Nikolaus Otto in 1876. Frank Whittle, an Englishman, invented the jet engine and patented the turbojet engine on Jan. 16, 1930.
The first Rotax aircraft engine, the Rotax 642, was certified in 1975.
As you can see, engines have been a large part of flying ever since the Wright Brothers’ mechanic, Charlie Taylor, built the powerplant for their Wright Flyer out of bamboo, tofu, recycled soda cans, and Moxy. The first engine for the Wrights weighed in at 871.2 Pennyweight (measured in metric) and developed thirty-point two Pferdestärke per ghurry (you’ll have to look those up; I did).
Your airplane, even if it is a glider, requires propulsion to get in the air and stay there. Gliders, of course, use tow aircraft. Sometimes, they use rubber bands held by powerful people, but most of them are too large to be flung into the air, like my four-year-old grandson’s recent paper homebuilt airplane. Once in the sky, a “sailplane,” a name used to raise the price of gliders way up into the big bucks price tag range, relies on hot air to stay aloft.
Recent events have proven that rising hot air, especially over federal and state government institutions, is an unexpendable, renewable resource.
Every engine used on an aircraft sucks and blows. The only exceptions to the suck and blow requirement are found on rockets. They exclusively blow through the magic of chemistry and UFO technology developed at Area 51.
Most of us don’t fly rockets, so I’ll limit my humble advice to the suck-and-blow powerplant.
The little teeny-weeny airplanes that most of us own and operate because we missed being a multibillionaire by “this much” have a propeller installed on an internal combustion engine.
The engine swishes the propeller through the air like a geriatric kayak paddler on acid, and though a mechanically very inefficient motion, it sucks the air in the blades and pushes them aft. This scientific name for this air is “prop wash,” which, of course, comes to us from the Latin language, which has been deader than Elvis for quite a while. As a side note, most airplane parts and stuff were named by French Aeronauts who failed Latin in high school. Words like “aileron” and “empennage” are still found all over the landscape of aviation like fourmis lors d’un pique-pique (ants at a picnic).
Turbojet engines swing a slew of little props called “fan blades” that are more numerous than zits at a Taylor Swift concert. These blades do the same thing as a propeller, except they are much more expensive and have the side effect of inflating a pilot or owner’s ego so much that they wear WWII U.S. Navy dress uniforms and call themselves “Captain.”
Engines with jets or jugs require two things to operate: money and fuel. Fuel costs money, but so does maintenance, insurance, oil, prop wash, and uniform dry cleaning.
Jet fuel is basically very expensive kerosene and avgas is over-priced car gas.
Both types of fuel are sometimes purchased via a self-service pump, just like car gas, and both are designed to burn or explode (or something) to drive the pistons of your teeny-tiny prop plane or the burner cans found on aircraft owned by our billionaire overlords.
When I was a lineboy, I found that putting jet fuel in a teeny-tiny plane or avgas on a Billionaire Bourge Barge can result in a lot of yelling and phone calls around the old FBO, so be careful.
Once safely fueled, all your engine needs is some loving and gentle management by you, the pilot. You will use throttles, FADEC thingies, thrust levers, and power rods (or something) to tell the engines how much power you need, and they will give you that power.
Until they don’t.
When they don’t, we aviators call that an “engine loss” or a “holy crap” moment. There are tons of checklists, books, and judgmental YouTube videos out there to help you when this happens. And trust me, it will happen.
To extend the life of your aircraft and yourself, most engine manufacturer tort attorneys say that it is important to do routine maintenance, fuel it properly, and sign a waiver that aviation engine lawyers always seem to have on them.
Please relax! Until your powerplant fails you in an embarrassing and potentially fatal way, it will provide you with hours and hours of joyful flight above the fertile and verdant fields of planet Earth.
Mr. Garrison is right about one thing; engines will give you loyal and faithful service, right up until they don’t. Sometimes they give you fair warning that they aren’t happy, but often they just up and quit at the most inopportune times, leaving you to deal with the mess. I’ve had two engines quit on me. The first, a piston engine, quit on a night cross country over central Texas. A broken connecting rod in the fuel pump made the little beast suddenly go quiet, followed by a lot of swearing. I managed to get to a runway and we both lived to fly another day. “Don’t worry,” I was told, “Turbine engines are much more reliable.” That worked until one of the little blade thingies in the right engine of a Piper Cheyenne decided to depart on takeoff from Houston Hobby on a hot summer morning. The result was a loud bang, followed by flames, oil and other little blade thingies coming out the exhaust. After a brief excursion into the grass next to the runway, a Mayday was issued as we came to rest back on the pavement. That one was chalked up to infant mortality on a 40 hour since new engine. Go figure. Engine failure is kind of like finding out that the spouse you loved and trusted had cheated on you with your best friend. Maybe you can eventually forgive them, but you will never really trust them again. As Mr. Garrison says, fly long enough and you will experience that “Oh Sh*t!” moment.
Yes, the mechanical thingies do go sideways at bad times, sometimes at " Oh, what the heck times". I’d be willing to guess that mostly these are fuel related issues, water in the fuel or fuel in the water. If you don’t do a GOOD preflight something might just bite you in your nether regions. Chicken bones, small pebbles or sticks can jam your flight controls. In smaller communities (where we can afford to live) airports (strips) are often located near landfills (garbage dumps) and crows or other avian conspirators use our planes for picnic tables. If you find yourself in that category brush off any visible debris from your wings and empennage (looking to use that word for some time) before you cast your gaze skyward. Found water in the fuel? Ask yourself why. keep draining/ checking until you KNOW the fuel is clean. A bit of diligence pays for itself with comfort for you and your chariot. Go fly, have fun.