Rudolf Diesel accumulated great wealth Silvaire. He then got a bit of a gambling habit and eventually jumped off a ferry.
But to be fair, the US do a lot more of that. All the technology you develop is sent free of charge to various other countries, often in the Middle East… 
Actually, Silvaire, the companies I was talking about were amongst others Cirrus and Columbia.
The only ones to produce significant new certified airplanes in the SEP segment for decades, both went bust or near bust during the process and both are now Chinese.
Oh, and so is the whole industry over there btw.
Again… the US GA industry in no longer focused on new, certified, factory built aircraft.
172driver wrote:
While there is a certain swing towards turbines, anything that can burn Jet-A would be very, very valuable in these circumstances.
How many diesel engines do Diamond, Continental or SMA sell to those places? Diesel would be nice, but the price of those engines has to be real.
LeSving wrote:
How many diesel engines do Diamond, Continental or SMA sell to those places?
So far probably none, as most GA airplanes in the parts of the world I mentioned earlier are of the +/- 300hp type (C/206/207/210 mainly, some C182, also Gippsland Airvan and variants, etc) and so far there wasn’t any diesel powerplant for them. I agree with you WRT the price point, but that can change and doesn’t mean the need isn’t there. As I said earlier – most European pilots tend to equate GA with C172 or PA28 while there is a world of utility GA out there, mostly in places where Avgas avail is a real issue.
172driver wrote:
most European pilots tend to equate GA with C172 or PA28 while there is a world of utility GA out there, mostly in places where Avgas avail is a real issue.
As I said earlier, the “other” GA prefers turbines. Why should this be any different other places? Planes like the Caravan, Twin Otter, Kodiak, PAC 750, PC-6 and so on is what is used in remote places. The only reason to use smaller piston engine aircraft, is cost. Now, if the total cost of those piston engined aircraft would increase by $100-200k a piece, the cost reduction of using those smaller aircraft will be reduced. Then there is also the maintenance. A Lycoming can be maintained anywhere. How are you going to maintain a CD-155 far out in the bush? A turbine makes up for this by having 10x the availability, which is one of the main reason to chose a turbine in the bush.
It makes no economical or practical sense. That is why no one sells diesel engined aircraft to those places, and never will.
Can we get past of the “how do you maintain a CD155 in the bush” bullsh!t please? This ain’t 1969 in the Plain of Jars with the Pathet Lao trying to shoot you down anymore.
How many times did you have to rotate plugs, clean mags, refurbish mags, get a valve to unstick, change oil every 10h, cylinders every 500h on your modern car engine – or on a CD155 for that matter? Please feel free to come with real world current data.
Retrograde, OWT based thinking like this is what keeps GA in the middle ages.
Shorrick_Mk2 wrote:
Retrograde, OWT based thinking like this is what keeps GA in the middle ages.
I wonder how you maintain a Humvee in the bush… or any other modern off-road vehicle for that matter.
The times are gone when you had to stop three times to take care of mechanical problems when driving from Paris to Marseille.
To put it differently – you have to be able to maintain a Lycoming in the bush because it needs some fixing every so often.
For the life of me however I can’t understand how you can claim you can operate (and maintain) a modern FADEC turbine in the bush, but you can’t do the same with a modern diesel engine with the same failure pattern.
Renault is selling a 5’000 EUR modern (well… 1990es modern) engined car by the tens of thousands, and the “bush” doesn’t seem to have problems maintaining it. Yet we are beaten over the head again and again with the “mass production is baaahahahhad, modern is baaaahhahad, GA has moved ahhhahahway from new-build, there is no way to maahaass build a plane because nobody will buy it”…
you have to be able to maintain a Lycoming in the bush because it needs some fixing every so often.
Come on, Shorrick, this silly crusade is getting tiresome.
But even taking your statement literally, there is almost nothing that can be fixed on a Lyco “in the bush”. All these engines need to be opened up in an engine shop. It’s all or nothing. If you open up a Lyco, you have to strip it down, wash and degrease the crankcases, and one greasy fingerprint on the crankcase mating surfaces will prevent the seal working. This constantly repeated claim of constant field maintenance [being greater on the old engines than on the new ones] is a myth. The vast majority of Lycos live their whole life (decades) without ever being opened up.
Mine had an oil leak from a pushrod shroud seal – 1hr and it was done. Both pushrod shrouds were replaced completely; total parts cost £55 and that was from a gold plated 145 disti (with a “security guard” at the entrance) and with an EASA-1. Apart from that there is almost nothing externally serviceable.
I’d say there is no evidence, today, to a first order approximation, of any reliability difference (I mean in-flight shutdown from all causes i.e. “all cause mortality”) between a Lyco and any aviation diesel that has any track record. They all get failures; just mostly different ones. Nothing “piston” gets anywhere near turbine reliability.
The reason Lyco etc gets slammed here (and rightly so) for QA cockups like – most recently – the conrod small-end bushings, but diesels don’t, is e.g. here. Specifically every single owner of these must keep his dealer relationship well lubricated otherwise he is screwed. The factory will cut your throat. Been there, got the t-shirt. Stuff is kept off the forums as far as possible. See post #9 here for one ridiculous (but representative) example. I just get a ton of stuff in email, privately, not for posting. My A&P/IA spent a piece of his life on DA40/42 maintenance, too…
Nobody is a saint in the piston engine business; the main difference is what hits the internet, and that is very selective. What hits the internet is the old stuff – because most maintenance is done in the field (not connected with the factory) so the owners have no relationship to protect. The only business you can’t slag off is the engine shop which last worked on your engine. Owning a modern diesel is a bit like being married to a woman who owns the company you work for.
For similar reasons, other user groups, even of avgas engine types, are very sensitive, and keep the stuff in a closed-to-google ($60) forum. With any plane less than a few years old you have the dealer relationship to protect.
So, look at the big picture, stick to specifics, and stop the daft crusade.
