Some inventions seem to be naturally bad ideas but work anyway, while others are bad ideas that don’t actually work that well. In-tank electric fuel pumps are an example of the first, the Bendix dual mag as a poster child for the second. But not for much longer. Earlier this year, in a terse two-line press release, Teledyne C ontinental announced that its discontinuing manufacture of the D2000 and D3000 Bendix magnetos. No details were offered nor provided by follow-up query, but we can connect the dots. D-mags arent used on any Continental engines, just Lycomings. Litigationally speaking, theyve lived a rough life so Continental must have figured why have the legal exposure just to supply a competitor with a few mags. Even a Goldman Sachs executive could figure that one out. TCMs bail from the market has left shops scrambling to find replacements, but were not sensing any panic. Yet. No one seems to know exactly how many engines have D-mags, but 20,000 is a realistic estimate. Any Lycoming engine with D as the last letter of its suffix-IO-360A3B6D, IO-540-K1G5D, for instance-have the D-mag. The good news is that even though the D-mag is exiting, a company in Texas is feverishly developing what could be its replacement-a fully electronic mag that would be a bolt-up replacement.
Why?
The basic idea of having two mags is that if one tanks, the other will still run the engine, since each mag fires only one