Flew a trip in the Citation V from KSDL-KVNY-KHZL (Hazelton, PA) last night. It was an overnight trip with a guy on a schedule. Landed at 9AM in the morning after 5 hours plus a fuel stop in Salina. Dropped the guy and his entourage off, refueled and taxied out to head to Michigan for a couple days in the office before a return trip with the same party.

Pushed the throttles forward only to see no rise in N1, N2 or ITT on left engine. It was at idle speeds despite being at full throttle. Abort, taxi off, shut down.

Quick call to maintenance team in SDL - P3 or FCU issue. Call to P&W - same conclusion. No jet A&P on field. P&W willing to roll a team from West Va - 5 hour trip each way. Total cost to "troubleshoot" estimated at $10k!!! If it is the FCU (fuel control unit) estimated cost $80k-100k.

Pass info to aircraft manager and then to owner. Cessna Service Center calls. They are 2.5 hours away and can send a team. Sure enough, 2 guys show with another on his way. Working on a ramp, in the rain, these guys get busy on a diagnosis.

FCU coming tomorrow. Overhaul exchange $17k. Eight hours to install. Airworthy by 5pm just 36 hours after the original WTF?

I must say that both the P&W and Cessna guys were a dream to work with. Called back when they said they would. Showed up when they said they would. Didn't bitch about anything. Even when Cessna was chosen the P&W guys threw their support behind Cessna sending documentation and recommendations.

Been a long time since I saw that kind of service in any industry. Hats off boys!

Funny story. KHZL is a small airport. No other jets on the ramp. First Cessna guy pulls up and introduces himself. Says he had only heard a little bit about the issue and listens to my version of events. We are standing 50 yards from the plane when he asks with a quizzical look on his face "where is the plane?" (Channel Charlie Daniels) Now I eye this young fella real suspicious like and say - boy, are you pulling my leg? He looks up over my shoulder and sees the aircraft sitting there, wounded but regal. He smiles and says oops. I say, son, I don't have a good feeling about this. You are scaring me. He winks and says "it's been a long day for both of us" I will drink to that!

I'll be darned.

I flew that very aircraft from N. CA to MMHO and back last April, and it ran just fine!

Looks like you've been flying the pants off 'er...not terribly surprising to see some shakedown issues; she didn't work so hard before.

I only flew that one trip, so I have no useful historical data for you. Best wishes!

Great story Mark, and it's nice to see that everyone pulled together to make things right

Great story Mark. It is also a great reminder of why engine programs are important. If it would have been the FCU at 80K out of pocket would be a bad day.

Speaking of which Alex, are you going to be on the WI TAP program for the -1A's?

Out with the old!

FCUs seem to be the weak spot for many turbines. Better if they fail on the ground then in the air.

Cessna Service is why many folks buy Citations.

+1

What would've happened if this happened in a Piaggio Avanti?

+1

What would've happened if this happened in a Piaggio Avanti?

+1

What would've happened if this happened in a Piaggio Avanti?

It just doesn't seem like that part ought to cost $100k new or $17k to "overhaul".

About 40 years ago I was working as a field tech for a computer company that was competing with IBM in a small niche. To woo customers from Big Blue the company had put together a service organization that claimed to equal IBM's 24/7 2 hr response capability but some of it was more appearance than reality in the early days.

In one case they won a customer in a remote corner of Michigan which was way more than 2 hrs away from the nearest service location and the salesman lied (like that never happens) by promising that a local service office was being opened nearby. What actually happened was that they set up a "foreign exchange" telephone on the local system (what might be called permanent call forwarding today) so that the new customer thought he was calling locally for service even though those calls went to somewhere a few states away.

They got away with this for almost a year but one day a call for service came in from this customer and there was no way any tech could get there sooner than 12 hours so the salesman talked a buddy of his into impersonating a service tech. The threw a few techie looking tools into a briefcase and the buddy arrived at the site within the promised 2 hr window and was escorted into the computer room. Having never seen any computer equipment up close before in his life let alone the specific unit needing repairs he casually asked where the item was.

Unfortunately the answer was "You just set your tool case on it" and worse yet that the person answering the question was the same VP who'd authorized the original purchase based on a promise of local support and was in the process of negotiating the sale of more units.

It just doesn't seem like that part ought to cost $100k new or $17k to "overhaul".