A big article this month In Flying about diesels. All very positive.
The very interesting bit about Continental is that they went out and bought Centurion Engines altogether.
I've just read (US AOPA mag) that Centurion will be rebranded as "Technify". Presumably this is so that when you google on "Centurion" you do not discover "Thielert". Well, not on the first page of hits, and we all know that anything not on the first page doesn't exist.
They are increasing gearbox life from 300 to 600hrs.
There was also a long article in this month's Aviation Consumer on Continental diesels.
Yeah, advertorials everywhere 
I used to get Flying for several years and have never known it to write something negative about anything in the known universe whatsoever - except the great Mac McClellan (no longer there) saying that the (original) Eclipse jet was basically useless and anyway could never be made for the promised price.
They lost out on the many many millions of the investors' money blown by Vern Raburn on advertising all over the place. But Mac was right...
I hope Conti pull this off. Time will tell.
I don't think so. As much as I am skeptical on diesel piston engines, I do think there is currently a lot of interest in them. Fuel prices and the lack of availability of AVGAS are an issue even in the US.
Good luck with the yanks Aart!
Plane and Pilot Magazine has a new article on the DA42-VI. It's a good read, although I did notice, similar to the AOPA article, that they didn't mention the availability of radar. Enjoy!
Is there anything a DA42 can do with 2 Diesel engines that a single engine SR22 cannot do? Actually the SR22 is a bit faster, and fuel consumption, range and payload are very similar. I leave it to you which one's the better looking plane (I am not getting into that :-))
Ok, you have a second engine (couldn't find the se service ceiling) - but the Cirrus has CAPS, so i think the overall safety should be similar.
Well, to state the obvious, the DA42 can climb even when one engine has failed... duh I would prefer an SR24 = Cirrus fuselage and DA42 wings/engines.
The DA42 is a lot quieter inside than the SR22 (or the TB20).
The fuel flow of the DA42 is same as a TB20 (11USG/hr for 138kt IAS, low level), so perhaps slightly lower than the SR22, but the cost of the fuel is around 50% - except in the UK where they stuck the big tax on it.
Interesting debate whether the chute = 2nd engine... if one assumes that an engine failure is highly unlikely, I would agree with that. Except over water.
I think the SR22 is a much nicer and more practical cockpit, with the 2 doors, practicality of getting in and out in rain (in the DA42 you can soak the instrument panel, never mind passengers), but neither has the proper means of flying the plane (a yoke )
