While the cause of the carbon buildup in the engines that power the Eclipse 500 twinjet has yet to be discovered, a fix has been found, Eclipse Aerospace president of service Ken Ross told Flying. The jets have been restricted to 30,000 feet by the FAA because of six reported engine surges related to carbon buildup on the engine static vanes at high altitudes. Eclipse has been able to replicate the problem in a test cell, though why it happened with the affected engines and not with other engines in the fleet remains a mystery.
The fix, Ross said, is to replace the combustor sleeve with a “split” sleeve. Ross said it’s not clear why the fix works, only that it does. The FAA still needs to sign off on the fix to remove the altitude restriction for airplanes with the modified engines.
