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When will a diesel be available for my aircraft? |
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News, facts, and comments on the coming revolution for piston-engine aircraft.News of April 15, 2006A new contender: Diesel Aero-Engines Ltd. in Southam, Warwickshire. Visit www.dieselaero.comThis engine is an all new British Design. It is air cooled, Opposite Cylinders, 4 stroke. It will develop from 90 to 180 BHP on JET A1. It is turbocharged to maintain power at altitude. It uses direct injection, common rail multiple injection system. As usual for diesels, it will offer single lever control. No mixture fiddling, no choke, no icing. Also, an integral prop hydraulics with automatic control. Other features: Dual engine ECU. Automatic optimization of engine speed, boost pressure and propeller pitch will minimize fuel consumption, to meet pilot requirements. All propeller flange standards catered for. Engine mounts to suit existing sub frames. Low cost service. Dual fuel filters/water separators. This is an entirely new design, not a car engine conversion. In an interview, John Lipman, Principal, told us: We are at the end of the design stage. Our firm, TDC, Ltd., is well known in contract Design Engineering for engines and sub-systems. The design started with the 2.5 litre, for the 0-200 and 0-215 range with enough room to increase to 3.5 litres and up to 180 bhp. We feel, but other experts may disagree, that any power increase above 180 bhp needs 6 cylinders to increase capacity. Obviously in time this is reasonably straight forward using what we hope will be well proven dynamic parts. As transmission consultants we are only too aware that the piston engine does not provide a nice uniform torque to the gearbox. During consultations EASA advised to certify the highest performer first then the lower stressed versions only need some supplementary tests hence save on cost. In fact all the numerous enquiries have wanted the 180 bhp. We assume that the higher performance is wanted now the cost of fuel would be a fraction of what they currently experience with a 215, 320, 360 etc. So all design effort went into the 3.5 litre, which put a delay in the program. We are looking for strategic partners supplying components to engage into manufacturing. We will only manufacture if we have to, and at best assembly only. More likely, the intention would be to have a joint venture with a company well experienced in low volume manufacture. Also very preliminary discussions with a company close to the business are underway but are naturally confidential. TDC has designed products for our clients to put into high volume production for a fraction of the cost of them doing it in house. No demo is flying yet. We have had plenty of offers from potential customers with private C of A 's. We are ready to order prototype parts and tooling. The basic engine being smaller and using lighter materials in certain areas is under weight compared to the equivalent aviation product. Turbo chargers and intercoolers will erode the advantage. It is difficult to be precise until we have information on what horse power, for how long under what conditions of ambient air pressure and temperature is needed. We are confident that HP for HP we will not be at a disadvantage. The rear mounting cover is bolted to the main crankcase, hence position of mounts is flexible at no extra cost and can mirror any current engine for propeller flange position, hence no change to sub frame. After careful market considerations we are sure that the architecture we have chosen is the correct one for the job. In principal we do not favor geared drives with separate lubricant and have concerns over the longevity of piston rings over holes in cylinder walls or running cam shafts at engine speed (Here Lipman obviously alludes to 2-stroke technology). Nor the added complication of water cooling impacting on reliability, packaging and air flow management. It is no coincidence that current aircraft engines in this class have evolved to opposed 4 cylinder air cooled 4 strokes. TDC has financed the project to date. Serious backing is needed to fund tooling for prototypes and test. Again a collaboration with suitable partners with appropriate facilities would reduce the finance required. We know that we cannot get there on our own, and would be very pleased to have a meaningful dialogue with potential backers, investors and partners who wish to take advantage of a great opportunity. We do not want to take on external consultancy to produce the funds, unless we really have to, as it would delay time to market. Currently we put our efforts and experience (for which we are well paid) into designing a product for the Automotive industry. (Our website shows our Clients). The design once complete (now increasingly for far East customers) produces no ongoing revenue for us and probably has a negative effect on local industry. We have put considerable funds into reversing this trend. Namely effort into a product that will accrue ongoing revenue and use local industry. We are totally convinced that the change to Diesels is inevitable and that we can have a very viable business supplying a portion of the market. We have incorporated a new company Diesel Aero Engines Ltd, with the "generic" web site dieselaero.com (and dieselaero.co.uk to prevent duplication), as the vehicle to go forward with new partners. posted by Deena at 1:12 AM Special Report: Aero diesels at Sun n Fun, April 06.Exhibitors where it was possible to see and discuss aero-diesels were Superior Engines (now part of Thielert), SMA, Diamond Aircraft, and DeltaHawk. We noticed a distinct change this year in the nature of interest. The question is no more whether diesel will come, but exactly when. The level of curiosity and the quality of questions were high. Inquiries of the kind: “When can I buy a diesel airplane? When can I put a diesel in my plane? Where is your local customer service dealer?” were the most common. To these questions, a common answer was: “Be patient, we are working very fast to establish and train our field service resources and do not want to leave future customers hanging around for lack of support.” Thielert offers the 135HP conversion for 172s to fleet operators only, offering possibility to train their own A/P. SMA was demonstrating a beautiful 182 diesel and advertising the first Atlantic crossing with such a plane, around 25 of which are flying worldwide. But SMA is still waiting for the final US STC for this conversion. So the present situation today is you can fly a 182 SMA anywhere in the world as a certified conversion, but can only fly Experimental in the US. SMA was also exhibiting flying photos of the Piper Dakota SMA conversion, said to demonstrate remarkable performances. DeltaHawk was exhibiting the Velocity demo plane they are regularly demonstrating and were the only ones exhibiting graphics showing how dramatically fuel flow is reduced when a diesel airplane flies at “survival speeds” (meaning 1.3 to 1.5 Vsa). posted by Deena at 1:07 AM |
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