Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Diesel: why is it not taking off?

Talking of diesels (and sorry if they were discussed before): both Wilksch and Dair from the UK were offering (light) GA diesels well before Thielert ever got involved - but they never sold like crazy, not by a long way. Sure they were small setups, and their product expensive, but Thielert wasn't any different. Were they too much ahead of their time?

BTW did I hear Mr. Wilksch was hired by a major US g/a engine builder, and sold off his UK business?

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

I think you cannot make any generic statement on whether Diesel currently makes sense or not. One needs to make a case-by-case assessment, because aircraft/operators all have a different user profile and risk profile.

My personal situation: I live on an island, 100 miles minimum from any mainland. My personal risk profile steered me in the direction of a piston twin. Of course a single TP would be just as safe or even more so, but I also like local sightseeing. So, looking at the available twins I limited my choice between the 'proven' twins, like the Baron and the Seneca vs the new DA42. Apart from any other factors like looks, avionics, comfort (low vibrations of Diesels) of the various aircraft, Iof course looked at the economics. So AVGAS is 3 euro/litre and JetA about 1.7 euro/litre over here. Assuming a Seneca burns 20 gals/hr and a DA42 11 gals/hr, you are talking about a saving of 160 euro per hour. I can assure you that this saving is quite a bit more than the additional cost of the maintenance of these engines. And I expect the price differential of JetA and AVGAS (or its replacement fuel) to become bigger and bigger, while at the same time the cost of operating Diesels will decrease as the technology progresses. Of course, a Seneca is not a DA42 because a Seneca is faster and hauls more load so the comparison is not fair, but that only illustrates the point that generic comparisons can not easily be made. By the way, if I would have felt fine flying over water with a single engine aircraft, but maybe the cost saving in fuel between two Diesels and one Lyco is still be in favour of the Diesels

Diamond is doing very well in the market segment of twins for training, and the fuel price is a large part of the equation there. Even taking into account that the tax exemption on the fuel makes the difference in price between Avgas and JetA smaller, apparently the economics still work..

Again, generic statements about the economics of Diesels cannot be made. It is a case by case assessment. In general terms, if you just don't fly much, Diesel makes no sense. Like for a car in many countries.

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

I've just seen on AvWeb that Frank Thielert has been put in jail pending trial, ironically because he is considered a "flight risk", which made me chuckle. Basically he is accused of deception.

Andreas IOM

Here is an interesting one - Diamond getting into the passenger a/c business with diesel engines (presumably the Austro Diesel).

Does the additional UK tax on turbine fuel apply in the Isle Of Mann? While it's nit in the UK and not a fully fledged member of the EUSSR it is a common customs area with the UK.

When I was researching a serious travel machine for Asia, I had to exclude any reliance on AvGas.

Hard to get; expensive EUR 2.00/l compared to EUR 0.80 for Jet A, and every trip plan ended up being prioritised by fuel availability, which was no fun.

I run a Mogas Rotax, EUR 1.00/l and I can often be found carting Jerry cans of fuel through main airport terminals ;-)

The Jetprop runs on JetA which any airport with commercial ops normally carries, and the same is true in the neighboring countries.

There were a flurry of Thielert Diammond aircraft sold to training schools about 5 years ago, and I almost bought a DA42 myself then, but the punative cost of parts and frequency of maintenance soon slowed that market down, however the local dealer who also has the China territory seems to be selling quite a few there, and tells me the Austro engine is progressing towards the original performance claims Diammond made for these aircraft, so he seems quite optimistic, and he is the only diesel game in town at the moment.

E

eal
Lovin' it
VTCY VTCC VTBD

ToniK

Overall, the question will boil down to 100LL availability and cost. The EPA in the US will sooner or later affect the "LL" in 100LL. What's left then? Jet A.

What's generally the cheapest fuel in Europe? Jet A.

Where's the biggest growth in GA? Asia. What do they run? Jet A.

What you say makes sense but I think that you have missed some information/points that works against you.
1. Continental and Cirrus are Chinese; they will sell what they have rather then spending for the future.
2. The owners of GAMI says that they have developed UL AVGAS to 100-130 octane, that it runs fine. I can't remember where it stands in the approval process.
Regardless, I also think that diesel is the future and that we will see many more diesels coming out to market either as conversion or new.

[quotes etc fixed up]

Much of the above is true, and i made some experiences I did when I once did a story and its 172 engine Centurion 1.7 for a german magazine. I thought the performance was pretty disappointing (and what was even more disappointing was that their PR manager at the time threatened to cancel their ads in our magazin if I puplished the (real) figures for a climb to 10.000 feet. But I did anyway)

From another perspective: I would NEVER invest 50 K Euro for a Thielert engine in my 1974 Piper Warrior. A replacement 150 hp (I have the older lower compression version -E3D) O-320 is about € 17.000 and it is even MoGas certified, although that does not make a big difference anymore. Also the O-320 is really bulletproof if you treat it nicely. I had one cylinder changed in 20 years (and that one was unneccessary too, I now think) ... and the only other engine repair was a new muffler.

I've just seen on AvWeb that Frank Thielert has been put in jail pending trial, ironically because he is considered a "flight risk"

He better flee with something that has better performance than the Thielert C-172.

One more thing: THIELERT hated it when I wrote (in my article) that Centurion is based on the Mercedes 1.7 (2.0) Diesel engine like it was used in the A class. They even tried to force us to delete "Mercedes" from the article, obviously because Mercedes tolerated but didn't want to be mentioned. For the readers it was interesting information anyway.

They went berserk when I made a picture of their company "A class" diesel car next to their demonstrator and published that. But it was THEM who parked it there :-))

Mainly the discussion is about the Thielert engine. In recent months I spoke to people who hated it and people who loved in. Not much of a help ;-)

What about the development of Deltahawk? They launched a press release stating that they are working on a STC for the SR-20:

It is a US based company, so it will probably take some to time before they introduce the engine in Europe under EASA (The engine is already available for the experimental market).

Sign in to add your message

Back to Top