Yes.

There are a number of contractual reasons they can kick you out of the program, the most obvious being non payment. Once out of the program for any reason, to get back in requires paying in a lump sum for all the prior hours EVEN IF those were covered by the program previously. The penalty for not staying in the program is SEVERE.

They have no obligation to offer you a new contract when the present one expires. They expire every 5 years. The terms in the contract inexorably change to favor Williams.

For example, the yearly rate increases used to be tied to CPI-W. The contract no longer has that clause any more. When you sign the contract, you may know the price for your engines for the first year, but for the other 4 years, they can raise it to anything they want, the contract has no limits.

It is conceivable that Williams will decide that any engine older than some limit, say 30 years old, can no longer be enrolled. I'm not saying they are going to do that, but there is no legal barrier that prevents it. In such a case, all your payments for some future OH/HSI event, are lost. This would be a very sound business decision for Williams as it cuts their obligations to maintain old engines, devalues those old airframes so they get junked, and increases the sales of new engines on new airplanes. The oldest FJ44 engines are past 30 years now.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Mike C.

That just blows me away (ha!) too.

Planes sitting on the ramp and their N1 fans are just spinning going tink, tink, tink all hours of the day. That has to be causing some wear.

And it is letting dust, debris, precip, birds, insects get into the engine.

Whenever I will be parked outside, I put engine covers on unless it will be very short and the wind is not bad. For a quick fix, I will push in the rear exhaust plugs since that takes almost no time, and if you forget them, the start will blow them out harmlessly. Plugging the rear will stop airflow through the engine and prevents ingestion (mostly) and engine turning in the wind.

Mike C.

Ask them yourself:

https://skyaviationholdings.com/tbo-extension/

I doubt they will tell you how they did it since that would give away secrets.

My assumption is that they put together some sort of analysis that showed if you monitored certain parameters you could detect or predict failure before it happened.

They may have some large cache of operational data, say from a time when these airplanes were in fractional use. They use that data to justify their STC.

Then all they need is a willing FAA guy to sign off on it and presto, they have an STC.

Also, they probably have some sort of data reporting requirement so they can use your history for their business purposes. That is, collect more data and maybe push the hour limits even further. This is how I suspect the MORE program eventually got to 8000 hours.

Mike C.

If it sounds like this thing I’m doing it every time.

Chip-

I know how to make Williams the best engine company on the planet and how to make Williams TAP the program everyone should be on…

All they have to do is get Mike C. to buy a Williams powered airplane!

I would be super annoyed with Williams on TAP. You're basically forced to rent your own plane and submit all your flight hours to your aviation overlord. I'd take the MikeC approach just on principle.

I have a real problem with the 150 hour minimum.

Just a reminder for the 3rd time Pratt ESP is no different!

Some of the engines don't have a yearly minimum usage.

They have contracts that must be renewed, shops you must use, annual increases that are unknown, and in the case of 2023 the increases are higher than Williams in terms of percentages.

Yet the vast majority of non legacy aircraft are on either TAP or ESP, or power advantage.

And for the umpteenth time, it is different. You don't have to be on it.

That's basically not true for Williams. If you aren't on TAP, they will burn you when your engine comes due.

For the JT15D operators, they have choices and they do not have to be on any program if they don't want to be, and it is practical to make that choice.

Mike C.

Williams has a "low use plan" they came out with in 2021. It works like this:

Pay up front every year for 135 hours at the base rate. You then can fly 150 hours without further payment. If you exceed 150 hours, you then pay 35%over the base rate for each hour over 150 you fly that year.

Here is the effective rate per hour chart I made for that:

This chart was based on a rate of $165/hour per engine so upscale to about $200 per hour (which is what I expect 2024 rates will be). The basic shape won't change, the numbers on the left axis will just increase.

The net result is that the low use program is cheaper if you fly 193 hours or less each year. This fails to account for the cost of money, however, since Williams got you money earlier. With cost of money, the cross over will be a little be less, say 190 hours.

If you fly between 135 and 190 hours, you cost per hour will be less than the nominal base rate on the low use plan. If you fly less than 135 hours, you rate starts shooting up dramatically since you are paying for hours you aren't using. If you fly a lot more than 190 hours, then the stock plan would have been better.

This is one other aspect and that is the standard 5 year contract allows for you to be under 150 hours *just one year* without penalty. It is the first year you fly less than 150 hours. So if you have a short year, you aren't penalized. You definitely don't want to fly 149 hours one year and then 100 hours the next, however. Make sure, if you are close, to reach 150 hours to avoid losing the short year forgiveness feature.

The low use plan has no such clause as I understand it. So you are always paying for 135 hours even if you had a short year. A long avionics upgrade or paint/interior refurb might cause a short year. For owner flown, a health event might also do that.

Williams used to have a plan where you could eliminate the minimum hours by keeping 300 hours banked at each annual renewal, but they got rid of that. As I said, the terms are constantly changing in Williams favor.

Mike C.

My response was concerning the 2 posts above - which were directly regarding TAP, not JUST Williams engines. But, Mike C has to have the last word on everything.

It’s amusing to me that someone complains nonstop about engine programs for jet aircraft when the vast majority of private jets are on engine programs. If the vast majority of private jet owners didn’t want to be on programs, the industry would adjust and engine programs would not be a thing.

I even have a theory as to why in the beginning Citations weren’t on programs, they were competing against Learjets and the Lears were faster and a whole lot sexier, so the opportunity for Cessna was to go after owner pilots… so single pilot and claim lower operating cost. They did this by focusing on hourly cost instead of cost per mile, and by leaving out the engine cost they could insinuate a $400 an hour savings.

The vast majority of owners don’t have much of a choice.

The vast majority of concert goers don't want to pay Ticketmaster fees. So where is this free market correction you speak of and why has it not happened to Ticketmaster?

The vast majority of operators don't want to pay Signature prices. How is that working out these days?

Your theory is flawed in exactly the same way as the above examples because it assumes a balanced power between operators and OEMs that does not exist. The regulatory environment gives the OEM almost all the power and operators are weak. The OEMs abuse this power in numerous ways, Williams is just one such case, Cirrus with the SF50 is another, and Textron with the 441 SIDs is yet another.

Whenever one side has unchecked power to force money from the other, the situation always gets worse.


Because the OEMs had not figured out how to exercise their power fully at the time. Now they know how.

This is why new planes cost more and more to operate, the OEMs are milking them for cash as the create financial obligations on the operators.

People want new airplanes to avoid an "expensive" old one, only to be trapped in programs that make it more expensive than the old one.

Mike C.

The vast majority of concert goers don't want to pay Ticketmaster fees. So where is this free market correction you speak of and why has it not happened to Ticketmaster?

The vast majority of operators don't want to pay Signature prices. How is that working out these days?

Your theory is flawed in exactly the same way as the above examples because it assumes a balanced power between operators and OEMs that does not exist. The regulatory environment gives the OEM almost all the power and operators are weak. The OEMs abuse this power in numerous ways, Williams is just one such case, Cirrus with the SF50 is another, and Textron with the 441 SIDs is yet another.

Whenever one side has unchecked power to force money from the other, the situation always gets worse.


Because the OEMs had not figured out how to exercise their power fully at the time. Now they know how.

This is why new planes cost more and more to operate, the OEMs are milking them for cash as the create financial obligations on the operators.

People want new airplanes to avoid an "expensive" old one, only to be trapped in programs that make it more expensive than the old one.

Mike C.