Anybody know about the various Jabiru LSA? Looking for something to do some primary instruction in and LSA would be nice.

My wife wants to build a kitfox, but looking at my schedule I am trying to steer her towards a J230 since her primary concern is bringing her dog with her on trips and the back area is huge....

So I am interested in others opinion. here

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Remember seeeing a J230 at OSH many years ago. Amazing!

Hummingbird Aviation at Flying Cloud (FCM) uses one for primary instruction. They'd certainly be happy to tell you about their experiences. It's in the air a lot.

In researching which engine to put in my homebuilt, I spent a lot of time on the Jabiru/Camit engine forum. I would visit there before buying an aircraft with a Jabiru engine to see what kind of experiences folks are having with those engines. Based on what I learned there, for me Jabiru was off the list, I was considering a Camit (new and improved Jabiru engine, Camit made parts for Jabiru) until Camit went out of business overnight.

My next-door hangar neighbor bought a Jabiru to get his PPL, which he accomplished. Then he bought a 172, and now he has a 337. I keep telling him he's going backward.

Charles,

We saw several Jabiru's about at various airports in Australia back in 2009. Talked to a few owners and they were happy with them.
This one was headed X-country to IIRC.... a Jabiru fly-in.



Of course... there is a reason for the LSA and fuel economy down under.
Leldon.... never flew one...

I flew quite a few Light Sports before I bought a Tecnam P2008 . I expected to like the Jabiru but was extremely disappointed in the way it flew. It has some nice features but positive dynamic stability isn't one of them. If the air is glass smooth you'd never guess how it will work you to death in average bumpy air.

By the way, if you buy an LSA to instruct in it will have to be S-LSA if you're going to charge for instruction, not E-LSA (but the Jabiru is S-LSA).

Google jabiru crash. There was a bunch of issues with the Jabiru engine I'm not sure if they've been resolved.

I agree the Tecnam is the plane to get.

There was a rash of "events" a few years ago. Quite a few of those were Jabiru engines installed in experimental planes. The Jabiru folks all assured me it was because the air flow cooling was insufficient in those planes. Although the facts were hotly debated. In Australia, Jabiru aircraft and engines had some restrictions for a time due to mechanical difficulties resulting in less than acceptable reliability. I haven't kept up with developments but I would hope those issues would be under control now.

And by the way, I love my Tecnam.

Whistle up David Brown, a BT member. He had a J430, which we christened "The Plastic Parrot", before swapping to the RV10.

They have a reputation for running hot, and they seem to like to blame the Homebuilder of the airframe. Yet somehow when the engine is replaced with an aerovie or revmaster, they do just fine in the same airframe / builder