I am certain that the aspect in which Europe differs from the USA is that there is FAR (no pun intended) less expertise over here.
Yes, but those that know their job deliver comparable quality and expertise. What you don't find in Europe is large shops that only specialize in one kind of aircraft. Exceptions do exists, e.g. Cirrus Europe in Holland.
Sure, but you still have to bed the piston rings in the same way - whether you have to bed in rings on 1 cylinder, or all 6.
I just had one cylinder pulled and repaired. The consensus was to not switch to break-in oil but to fly at 75% BHP for 10h. The rationale is that what benefits one cylinder might harm the other 5. I can keep 75% BHP until FL200 but with the warm weather we have, temperature is a problem, especially since the break-in cylinder gives me ca 20F higher temps due to the friction of the new piston rings.
I do think that we should stop comparing Thielert with SMA. thielert went out there and made everybody enthusiastic with a modified car engine with gearbox. when their commercial model failed it was seen as A "I told you"".
The "I told you so" bunch are one of the reasons we still work with stuff invented decades ago rather than having engines which had a parallel development of those in the car industry. Not many people would today accept fuel guzzlers like those very popular in the days and age when our aircraft engines were invented. Combined with the regulators who make each engine certification a project of billions and decades they are a lethal duo for progress.
You are very right when you say that Thielert failed as a commercial model. It did not fail as an engine, even though the gearbox issue was a serious problem. Thielert did indeed pioneer the diesel engine for airplanes and made people really think about it.
Cessna at the time agreed and ordered Thielerts for their C172. Now they did it again and ordered SMA's for their C182. It appears that Cessna seems to think along the same ways I do with the regards of future development and avgas availability. Continental seems to pull alongside with licensing the SMA.
Sma is designed as a true aiviation engine. It is their second gen .. The problem is weight, price and performance. Converting will only make sense on the more powerfull aircraft .. And at tbo.
True. That is the big difference to Thielert and Austroengine. Whether it is a definite advantage remains to be seen but by the looks of it, SMA has had a lot less teething problems than Thielert. Austroengine of course could well sit into a made bed after having experienced the Thielert problems in the first row of seats.
Peter:
If they can demo a 2000hr TBO they are welcome to it
As Hodja sais, the general SMA engines are available for over 10 years so there is plenty of stats available for the regulators to judge wether they can award 2000 hrs TBO right away. They did feel comfortable with it, as opposed to other engines which get their TBO's increased only after proof of concept.
SMA and Thielert have today the largest experience in the market. SMA's engines however never displayed the problems Thielert had with gearboxes and other elements, so basically it can be said the SMA has a 10 year history on which to base an assessment on.
What is a critical development seems to be that SMA appears to concentrate on the OEM Market and not at all on the retrofit market. It will remain to be seen if the same is true of Continental.
It is also clear that Thielert from the very beginning was targeting the retrofit market as well as OEM. If it is now rumoured that Thielert has been bought or will shortly be by an "American Enginemaker" it may well be that the "other" maker now wishes to match Continentals quest for Diesels.
For me, the retrofit market as Thielert originally started out with would be the crucial thing to do. That market, as the initial response Thielert triggered shows, is now in a phase where it will be very open for reductions in operating cost based on fuel. However, unfortunately as it stands today, Centurion engines swallow any profit you make with fuel by higher maintenance costs. IF there is that elusive engine maker who bought them, it may well be that the first priority will be to change that policy, to make the Diesel affordable and a business case even for normal owners.
Whoever can manage that, will have a huge market on their hands. And it would take someone like Lycoming or Continental to do so. Once they set on Diesel however and put the necessary ressources to a) bring prices to comparable levels and b) increase TBO (and possibly do away with "TBR") to a reasonable number, the floodgates will be widely open.
What is a critical development seems to be that SMA appears to concentrate on the OEM Market and not at all on the retrofit market.
Who are the OEM players - that are actually selling any numbers I mean?
Cirrus
Diamond (not likely - they have their own)
Cessna 172/182 - selling in small numbers
Piper PA28 - selling in tiny numbers
A fair fraction of Lycoming new engine retail sales in 2013 must go through Van's aircraft. No chance of them going diesel for the experimental market.
Similarly I'd suppose American Champion might be making more aircraft than Piper, but there isn't much chance of them installing diesels in 'em.
Tecnam builds in reasonable volume and has shown signs of increasing power beyond Rotax level with the P2010. Also signs of interest in diesels in the past. Maybe them, someday? Maule has a history of trying and abandoning the SMA. Maybe someday they'll look again too, for overseas sales. Not a lot of volume though.
Yes Peter, that is one of the questions I have been asking myself. If SMA wanted to sell in numbers, why limit themselves to OEMs?
For now, Cessna is their primary customer (Actually, Continental's primary customer) with the 182.
Question is, what is in the deal with Cessna? Would Continental agree to limit sales to them to given them an edge over the competition? Somehow I can't imagine that but there is nothing not crazy enough.
I would imagine that also Cirrus is looking at it very carefully, it would be an engine suitable for that airframe and result in performance somewhere between the SR20 and SR22.
If Mooney were producing at the moment, they'd be more than interested. Actually, it might give them the "edge" needed to get into the market again.
So much the more, if Thielert were bought by, say, Lycoming and they would then come up with a financially interesting exchange program for retrofits and with their ressources get rid of the gearbox problem, it might be a very interesting scenario. With a name like Lycoming or Conti behind it, an engine like that would immediately get more consumer confidence than it does now.
Silvaire,
A fair fraction of Lycoming new engine retail sales in 2013 must go through Van's aircraft. No chance of them going diesel for the experimental market.
I believe in the US the market for Diesel engines is not yet that evident as it is in other parts of the world, where Avgas is a real issue.
Yet, if Diesel were to take REAL hold, also in the US people would pay attention. Jet A1 is a LOT cheaper than Avgas even there.
I could well imagine though that there is a considerable interest for the Diesel equipped C182 in countries whose GA has all but been extinguished by the Avgas problem. Diamond has sold to those areas but Cessna is quite popular there too. And Diamond so far can't offer anything comparable to the C182, which e.g. can also serve as a paradrop plane e.t.c.
We can argue the point until the cows come home, in the end the market will decide.
Yes Peter, that is one of the questions I have been asking myself. If SMA wanted to sell in numbers, why limit themselves to OEMs?
They neither have the money to develop these STCs nor the expertise to do it. You can can see it with their original Cessna 182 STC. It is not very good, the cooling is pretty awful and so are the aerodynamics. It makes sense for SMA to focus on the engine and not get involved in a lot of STCs. If you ask 10 people, you get 15 answers which airframes are the most interesting.
They have secured the best customer possible -- Cessna -- and they have a good track record. Now others can come up with more STCs. If you bring me the right airframe, expertise and business case, I will find you the capital to do the STC! I started a thread some time ago about the best airframe for the STC and the results were not that positive. Each and every potential STC had its issues.
Jet A1 is a LOT cheaper than Avgas even there.
That's not true. It usually costs around the same, often it is more expensive than Avgas and a lot of GA airports don't stock Jet-A1.
can't offer anything comparable to the C182, which e.g. can also serve as a paradrop plane e.t.c.
Both commercial aircraft and paradropping have moved to turbine aircraft. The problem is that almost nobody operates piston aircraft commercially these days, FTOs aside. The VIP transport has moved 95% to turbines even though that means two turbines in Europe until today. Once the MET requirement falls, the move will be even accelerated.
I believe in the US the market for Diesel engines is not yet that evident as it is in other parts of the world, where Avgas is a real issue.
This is perhaps where we always disagree.
I don't see a problem with getting avgas in Europe, in terms of deliveries. As that Polish manufacturer said, the market here is worth something like €200M/year, which is a really nice juicy business for a specialist company. If my business was a few % of that I would be flying a private jet!
I know avgas is rare in much of southern Europe but it always has been rare in those places. With few exceptions, I don't see the avgas availability picture shrinking significantly (LGMK, LGTS being 2 exceptions in recent years). For a GA airport, avgas is the biggest money maker. Not landing fees and not chocolate cakes.
The "problem" with avgas is if the USA starts to drop it, and then everything will change.
Obviously Lyco and Conti are going to spend some of their staff refreshments budget on some diesel engine makers, as a hedge against this. Actually they could take a trip to EDNY and buy every ("not yet" certified) engine maker exhibiting there out of their petty cash.
Whether or when the USA will make a move, I have no idea. We are all a bunch of pessimists 
so there is a tendency to overtalk the environmental lobby.
If I could buy a diesel which works really nicely, for say €50k, I would probably put it in. But I don't see that being available for many years, if ever. Firstly somebody would have to bomb the market, which no established player ever does.
I don't see a problem with getting avgas in Europe, in terms of deliveries.
Investments for establishing, maintaining and stocking a fuel station are quite high. Our airfield just invested 150 000 € for minor improvements addressing safety concerns by the authorities. There is just no business case. Even the smallest setup with the lowest investment (Sitia LGST comes to mind, that is one step above jerry cans) is expensive and I am not sure e.g. Sitia make a profit on their avgas operation. There are virtually no GA pilots in Greece and very few Central Europeans fly to Greece.
I don't see a problem with getting avgas in Europe, in terms of deliveries. As that Polish manufacturer said, the market here is worth something like €200M/year, which is a really nice juicy business for a specialist company. If my business was a few % of that I would be flying a private jet!
200mn is the revenue size of the market not the profit. That is very small for an energy market across the whole continent.
We are all a bunch of pessimists
Ummm, speak for yourself!
