Flyer59 wrote:
will have
As noted, the only EXISTING diesels are small…even the Austros are still small but in a Diamond twin more workable. There are a lot of ‘promising’ engine designs on paper, but until one shows up and is flown for a few thousand hours such an engine is pretty far off in the future, if at all.
Also, don’t pin your hopes on cheap gas…oil prices won’t be low by the end of the year….the oil wars are driven by Iran coming back into the market and China’s demand softening a bit.
Mooney isn’t building diesel carbon planes because they are cute, they are doing it because they intend to sell them into their emerging cilian GA market in China and Jet-A will be the primary fuel there…
The main driver for diesel was cost per liter…When this thread started oil was around $95/bbl….it is now around $30/bbl….Accordingly Avgas is also much cheaper now…so it makes it even harder for Diesel to taxy out…let alone take-off…
Not just that… the pricing of retrofit diesels always seems to be based on FTO usage, which ensures that almost nobody else will pay the price.
Also most FTO work is ME and the DA42 already addresses that with a reasonably proven product.
The whole business needs a fresh approach, with say an IO540-shape engine, 250HP-300HP, with a €50k retrofit cost. Then it will shift. Until then it won’t, and we will see piles of them at Aero Friedrichshafen looking for idiots with money to waste investors so they can get it certified, but even if they did get it certified, still nobody would buy it.
the oil wars are driven by Iran coming back into the market and China’s demand softening a bit.
A massive oversimplification.
Mooney isn’t building diesel carbon planes because they are cute, they are doing it because they intend to sell them into their emerging cilian GA market in China and Jet-A will be the primary fuel there…
That might indeed be their plan but it’s just as well the money is not mine because China is a massive huge incredible long way from becoming the free country needed for GA 
I should have said “notwithstanding all the factors listed above, the current low price of Avgas can only add drag to the Diesel engine revolution….”
And USF, I agree (or more accurately, fervently hope, given that my livelihood comes from the oil patch) that oil prices will recover somewhat by the end of the year….
Peter, they’re ATOs, not FTOs. EASA changed that one some time back.
Turning to diesel, I think another driver is availability. I have occasion to fly East of Cyprus and at that point the AVGAS trail is very difficult to follow and extremely costly when you manage to find some. I’ve paid upwards of $10 a litre in the Middle East (ironic, considering that these are oil rich states). I’ve got 5 × 180l drums of AVGAS at Salalah which I didn’t need and they are left ‘going off’ as it is pointless trying to move them and no one else wants the stuff.
There are also some places where AVGAS will never be available as states decide the best way to avoid cross-contamination is to allow only one type of fuel on site. Portugal is a classic example where it is impossible to even arrange for AVGAS at an international airport. there is only one airport in the whole of Portugal which has both AVGAS and an IAP (Cascais and it’s a non-precision approach).
I think the advantages brought by diesel (Jet) availability don’t become wholly apparent until you start uplifting the stuff with about 50% of the hassle that applies to AVGAS.
Cost is only one consideration in favour of diesel. Others are fuel availability, simplicity of engine management, turbo engine reliability and service intervals. On a Thielert or Austro you hardly need to add oil between two 100 hrs services whereas some add a qt every 4 hrs to their Lyco or Conti. If the AVGAS guzzler is turbocharged you will go through a couple of sets of cylinders before TBO and you need to watch your TITs (temperatures) as milk on the stove. Not so with the diesels.
So despite some of the current shortcomings, particularly in terms of availability in certain power ranges and the power to weight ratio, I think Diesels have a lot going for them.
In Europe I believe the majority of DA40s are diesel powered, so much so that when I land with a DA40-180 the Jet-A1 truck shows up. Although the CD135 is somewhat small down low, the story is quite different up high, and now there is the CD155 which closes the gap, a for the AE300 with 168 HP which although heavier must be good too. Unfortunately I have only had the opportunity to fly the CD135 DA40 so far.
The Austro DA62 with two 170hp engines is fantastic.
I would never invest (any) money in GA, but I would buy the retrofit V-6 diesel with 310 hp if it was availble. My engine only has 1070 h TT, but you never know how long they live. … But I doubt that it will be certifed in about 5 years when my engine is (probably) due for OH …
I am very fond of the DA42NG with the 168 HP Autros. It feels like a Bonanza. Only drawback is the limited payload. I am curious how that plays out for the DA42 with CD155s.
But that was not the subject 
USFlyer wrote:
Also, don’t pin your hopes on cheap gas…oil prices won’t be low by the end of the year…
Slightly off topic but arguably relevant: projected investment in new oil projects is down by $1.8trillion 2015-2020….at the same time demand is expected to increase by 7mm bbl/day whilst natural decline in existing wells is expected to be 13mm bbl/day….coupled with only perhaps 1.5mm bbl/day current available surplus supply…sets the world up for some very dramatic oil price shocks…
AnthonyQ wrote:
sets the world up for some very dramatic oil price shocks…
Exactly. Today’s oil prices are an anomaly.
