At Friedrichshafen there are always several small turbine startups. They never get anywhere. They claim some breakthrough but don’t even manage to get anything that could compete with the 1950s stuff. Well, there are also companies there presenting rotary engines (Wankel) that run on avgas and consume more fuel than Lyco/Conti 
Adam, I am not an expert on the matter but I always understood that the internal temperatures of turbine engines are very high, so that the turbines must be made of very hard steel (if it’s steel at all, indeed). This means that the turbine blades’ base material is expensive to begin with, on top of that milling it is also more expensive because very hard tools must be used, these again are expensive to acquire and again expensive to keep sharp.
The thing with small turbines is, that it’s complete rubbish if you don’t need considerably more power than the usual piston engines deliver. Most of the energy dissipates in the compressor. Designing a core engine is a really difficult task, consuming lots of engineering hours, and the big players avoid redesigning them if ever possible.
There’s one pretty convincing argument against what you say, Adam: It does not exist. Why does nobody build it and become rich if it’s so simple? Because some dark force does not let them?
I am no specialist, but one of my best friends is a Professor of Aerodynamics, who worked for Airbus AND for Rolls-Royce turbines in Berlin for many years. He says: it is too complicated, the materials are too expensive, the development too, the tolerances too small. He says it will never come, because nobody will invest THAT kind of money to make a small profit … (made sense to me)
As far as I know one of the main reasons why all those APUs and helicopter turbines cannot be used in airplanes is the higher g-loads an engine is exposed too in an airplane. In a small UL helicoper the turbine is installed i a position where it will not be exposed to high g-loads, but it would be in the nose of an airplane, That’s an information i have from a guy who is an aerobatic pilot AND a dealer for small turbine helicopters. I do not know if it is correct.
Oh, and one more important thing: SMALL turbines are not efficient, especially not in low altitudes. The fuel consumption is way too high for the power output.
Yes, Achim – and there’s Mr. Zoche :-) The Woody Allen of aircraft engines :-)
The next time you have a chance to see a turbine close, check how small the gap is between the FAN BLADES of an airliner and the casing … And then imagine that these things fly to heavy turbulence sometimes … I only know that Lycontinental cannot build stuff like that …
Actually Zoche is wonderful. That is the nicest airplane piston engine concept I have ever seen in my life. Unfortunately it is not going to happen partly because they’ve been treating it as a hobby project and because Mr. Zoche is rather old, last time I saw him he was suffering from severe Parkinson.
My hope is that instead of turbines taking over more of the (shrinking) GA market, big piston diesels will take over parts of the turboprop market. Piston diesels are so much more efficient than turbines and there are technical solutions to their problems. We were technically more advanced during WW II with the 2-stroke aviation diesels, Jumo, Napier, etc. If that comes back it could very well power King Air and much bigger. Nothing beats a 2-stroke diesel when it comes to fossil fuel efficiency.
Krister,
From re-reading the press release Mooney are intending to bring back the Acclaim S and Ovation series with “technical advances”.
I presume this has nothing to do with redesigning the airframe, but rather an upgrade of the G1000 panel and maybe Mogas approved engines?
I reckon they will try to implement some improvements in cabin and panel, certainly to save some weight using stronger and lighter materials. Both planes could do well with that, their payloads are one drawback. What I hear is that they are getting a LOT of input from current Mooney owners about the “entry level” model currently missing in the line up and apparently they are looking into an IO390 version, which of course would be exactly that, a MOGAS compatible Mooney. While Mogas is not very significant for the US Market, it would be for the European market.
leaving out the diesel as it’s probably a few years down the line if ever?
The engine used for the Diesel Cessna is basically suitable for the Ovation as well. So if Continental and Cessna get their 182 off the ground, getting that engine certified and installed in an Ovation is fairly easy. Both airplanes had quite similar front ends, so adapting the Ovation for the Diesel is not a huge engineering task. Seeing that the Ovation is the quintessential long range single, Diesel would be the logical development.
Achim,
I guess 10 Mooneys are year would even be a business for a few silver aged guys…
I understand that 12 per year is their current goal for the new airplane market during the start up phase. The other core business they have already heftily invested in with the new money is parts. I understand that while the skeleton crew they had kept the parts business up to the very best of their capability, there was a shortage on some core parts which now have been dealt with very successfully. I didn’t think of that, but according to one Mooney magazine the parts business is quite a revenue for them, with a fleet of some 10’000 airplanes world wide. It did keep them going over the time they did not produce new planes…
I agree with the analogy on Cessna and the other “classical” makes, even though I’d say some of the improvements done on those planes were more than just cosmetics. But the design is the same, no question.
Another possible business case would be refurbishment of older airframes to the current level of technology currently available in the Ovation or Acclaim. I understand that there is a company which does this now with Cessnas, buying up old airframes (or have customers bring theirs in) and refurbish them to better than new standard. For the Mooneys, I reckon there might be quite a market to retrofit some of the more recent airframes (J,K,M,R) with e.g. G1000, new cabin interior and the aerodynamic improvements found in the Ovation.
I would note the 26G seats, airbags, fuel injection as modest but worthwhile safety advancements, in addition to safety advances in electrics and avionics.
True. Actually, if Mooney would look into a BRS system, which they will have to eventually, they will need the seats to start with. The 2nd very important bit they need to look at is weight reduction.
Alexis,
If this concept would work, why did they go bancrupt the last time?
Err, they didn’t. They stopped producing new airplanes and kept supporting the fleet with parts. But they did not go bancrupt, they took the decision to stop production and keep the company on a minimum budget in time to avoid exactly that. Quite a difference to Columbia or Eclipse, which actually went out of business before they got bought up.
Some inverstors will save a lot of taxes from their oter business and after the 3rd Aclaim or Ovation is sold they will close their doors once again …
Maybe an interesting bit of info I learnt today: After Jack Wiegands solo flight around the world the Ovation involved was flewn to China for a major air show and back. Not a few months later we have a US based Taiwanese investor (Soaring America) buy it, change the company to “Mooney international” (the transfer of the certifications is already done to the new entity), working with Chinese investors? There are a couple of variants in the grapevine, understandably Mooney will be very cautious in releasing facts. We should know more after March, when there is a major event happening in Kerrville.
Listening out to the community, one of the largest Mooney distributors and resellers stated in a reaction to the relaunch that their outfit alone can see selling 10-15 new airframes per year. So not everyone is as pessimistic.
China has been investing heftily in recent years, not least in the take over of Cirrus and Continental. So Mooney is one more in their portfolio. I reckon they might have studied their case before comitting money.
I’d like to add some opinions on diesels in aviation, two-stroke in particular, but hadn’t we better discuss that in a new thread?
One more split-off, messrs. mods?
Urs,
Err, they didn’t. They stopped producing new airplanes and kept supporting the fleet with parts. But they did not go bancrupt, they took the decision to stop production and keep the company on a minimum budget in time to avoid exactly that. Quite a difference to Columbia or Eclipse, which actually went out of business before they got bought up.
C’mon, thats really rhetorics. If ANY money had been made, they would not have shut down. Period.
I want a Cirrus with a V 8 Diesel, preferably modified Mercedes 4.0. Turn on, fly, switch off. Check oil 2 times a year.
If that was available for € 100.000 I would invest that into the SR22 once the IO-550N reaches his TBO – or breaks.
