From what I’ve heard (nothing on paper though) is that Roder has plans to reintroduce the STC for the 182. Hopefully it’ll be for a couple more models. I believe the original STC was limited to P and Q models.
You’ll lose some payload as the engine is heavier. If you add the Trolltune STC (for P an Q models), it’ll take 2 hours and 20 minutes flying to reach landing weight. For later models you’ll have the same limitation of course.
Fully loaded at ISA+10 I seem to always reach FL100 in around 15 mins departing from sea level. How does that compare with the Avgas version?
Good to hear that it’s not dead yet. I see that Roder are advertising it as being for OEMs – let’s hope that retrofit options become available at a sensible price point. I’d love one for my C182.
Great update. Whishing them all success! Many have tried for many years, but great to have more competition!
The SMA story continues. Safran sold it to the Roder group. From what I’ve heard they’re interested in selling the STC again like Soloy was planning to. Also they have plans to further develop the 6 cylinder diesel.
Ownership transfer is complete: https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/2021-26_certification_information_sma_aero_engines_20210709.pdf
New website up and running: http://sma-aero-engines.com
I’ve got 400+ hours on C182’s powered by SMA engines. 9.5 USG or 36L per hour 130 kts TAS at FL100 (I think you can easily get 140 kts if you don’t have the mods we have on it).
The Diesel engine itself seems very reliable.
Currently the engine has 3 areas of improvement:
- Expensive. You can probably fly a couple of years worth of AVGAS before you run break even.
- Vibration. Our experience is pretty good these days, but that’s with a couple of experienced engineers knowing exactly where they need to look. It’s almost always some small gauge or wire that suffers from the vibration. So the fix is easy, but the troubleshooting initially can be time consuming. We have replaced some wires and lugs with thicker ones which help.
- Although they sell you a 2400 hour TBO, for some silly reason that’s 2400 hours engine run time (tach time). So not air time as with all other engines out there. So yes all the time the engine is running is counted. Depending on your mission and what kind of airport you operate from that results in about a 2000 hour TBO. We find you lose about 15% compared to air time.
Hopefully the new owner is able to address the above issues.
Anyone closer to the fire know how bright or grim the future is looking for the SMA diesels?
I exchanged a couple of emails with Soloy and they acknowledged the vibration issue and have apparently put a number of changes in place to mitigate it in the revised STC. The STC is still not complete as they try to reach their target of acceptable cooling for operation at ISA+35.
There is one aero club in Sweden that operates a Cessna 182 converted with an SMA engine. They have had it for years and I have not heard many complaints from them. I haven’t spoken to many of their pilots but if they had the same issues with the alternator that is written here they probably would not have the aircraft after all these years. It is Umeå Flygklubb in northern Sweden.
Katamarino wrote:
1st Gen SMA engine a lot and found the vibration kept fatiguing and breaking the alternator wires. 4 failures in 140 hours, for example, twice frying the entire alternator.if this applies to all engines, I don’t understand how this was not found on the bench, a test engineer did a lousy job there.
Yes, I flew the 1st Gen SMA engine a lot and found the vibration kept fatiguing and breaking the alternator wires. 4 failures in 140 hours, for example, twice frying the entire alternator.
A member here provided some info on the sma (now soloy?) diesel in the c182. It vibrates a lot and needs proper and special attention to check for damage.
Looking into more options I found c172 diesel retrofit is around 85k euro. Insane…
Have Soloy actually delivered any aircraft yet? Everything on their site is from Oshkosh 2017.
I see nothing about change in useful load compared to an AVGAS engine, either…
