With people converting LS1 and LS3 engines and Austro Engine converting Mercedes engines, I got curious if someone tried to convert an MA1.04 and to my surprise, Porsche made their own aviation engine.
On paper a Porsche boxer engine sounds like a great idea.
So what happened to the PFM 3200? Why are Porsche aviation engines not a thing ?
They tried to install them in the rear/tail section (ha ha ha).
As far as i know, they tied it in a Robin and in a Mooney.
There was a Porsche Mooney at this year’s Aero Friedrichshafen I saw online from pictures.
Can’t remember why it failed or got cancelled.
Aircraft engines are essentially near constant speed industrial engines that benefit from simplicity and the light weight that comes with it. Complexity that had no offsetting benefit in the aero-engine application added weight and detracted from aircraft performance – the Porsche engined Mooney had lower performance than one with a Lycoming. Field serviceability is also important, unlike a Porsche car you can’t haul them behind a tow truck to the dealer. The engine failed to meet the market’s needs, so the engine failed in the marketplace.
I have a poster from the Deutches Museum hanging in my hangar showing the 3-seat SIAT Flamingo that I believe was used for engine development testing Link. A big bulky plane with a big bulky engine. It was probably a better marriage in that way than the marriage to the Mooney airframe.
The Porsche engine in the Robin worked very well and people who flew it really liked it. It was a bit expensive ie cost more than its competitors at the time. The small number of aircraft manufacturers willing to install it, remembering that most manufacturers were and still are American and prefer American engines, made for a small market place.
Porsche were unwilling to allow enough time and support to see whether or not it could be a successful aviation engine.
The last time I saw the Porsche engined Robin DR400 it still looked new and the owner was very happy with it.
Silvaire wrote:
The engine failed to meet the market’s needs
It met the market needs, it just didn’t offer any advantage. Besides, the market was already dying, and Porsche went for the wrong horse. A couple of years later Rotax started their 912 for the first time. The rest is history.
The Porsche engine in the Robin worked very well and people who flew it really liked it.
… and replaced it with Lycoming 540 and in such configuration fly those Robins till this very day.
RV14 wrote:
… and replaced it with Lycoming 540 and in such configuration fly those Robins till this very day.
Did they have much of a choice when Porsche stopped supporting the engine?
It met the market needs, it just didn’t offer any advantage. Besides, the market was already dying, and Porsche went for the wrong horse. A couple of years later Rotax started their 912 for the first time. The rest is history.
The European market has downsized into the Rotax recreational market but Porsche was aiming for a different, mainly US and higher power market. They missed it due to (as explained) excess weigh and complexity, coupled with difficult field service.
I don’t think Porsche would have tried to convert the e.g. the four cylinder 914 engine and sold a low power product, they were after snobbery and status which is their stock in trade for car sales. In relation to the higher power market, although it’s hard for me to imagine many of the e.g. 11,000 RV builders choosing other than a more practical Lycoming, I could see that if the Porsche engine had come later and intersected with the Cirrus airframe the engine might’ve have found a better market reception and some fraction of 9,000 sales in that airframe. The single power level implementation in the Cirrus is Mickey Mouse as it is. This would’ve been even more so if Porsche had swallowed its misplaced pride and realized that the engine needed a lot of work to be technically or logistically competitive. The marketing attitude needs to be more like selling industrial or truck engines and less like selling fancy pants cars to dilettantes.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Did they have much of a choice when Porsche stopped supporting the engine?
did those aircraft loose airworthiness certificate like the Concorde?
There are many examples of unsupported products used for a very long time. Let’s have a look at the wooden Mooney M20, I mean wooden wings and tail feathers.
Those aircraft are unairworthy in FAA land and AFAIK not supported for decades, but at least one is/was flying in Switzerland. Very nice aircraft BTW
