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John Slade wrote:
So... what would be meaningful and constructive criterea?
Look at fuel, cooling, oil, electrical. intake and exhaust systems for
redundancy, safety and failure points. Disregard appearance entirely.
Disregard quality of workmanship as it relates to aesthetics. Performance
information and proven reliability would be valuable. Consider cost LAST.
John,
I agree with everything you say except for the last statement. Cost is a very important factor in safety.
I ask that you consider the situation where you have a 50cent widget that can be used in the place of the $50, high performance, guaranteed never to break widget. The breakdown or loss of the widget would most likely cause some inconvenience, but is certain situations it could cause catastrophe. Traditional aeronautical wisdom says that without question the $50 widget must be used, no questions asked.
But I say this is the real world. Even the $50 widget will wear and increase the possibility of breaking (just ask Lycoming), and I assume that everything in my installation will wear out and break at some point. I'm not designing it to break, I just assume that any and every machine will at some point. So the question now becomes, "What happens when it is worn but not yet broke?"
With the .50cent piece, I toss the only slightly worn widget after every flight if necessary; however, I'll guard the $50 piece until it is well within its wear limit. I'm not NASA or Boeing. I can't afford to throw $50 around like that.
My point is that cost is an integral part of safety, because we don't have the budgets to always put safety first. Having an installation that uses cheap parts that are easier to replace than babysit is the safer one in my book.
This may be more pallatable, though. Make the question, "How cheap (money plus labor) is it to maintain this installation?"
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