Diamond offers their DA40 with a Lycoming and the Diesel, so why not them as well?
That would save your company only if you give a free 100LL aircraft to everybody who has had a problem with the avtur one and the 100LL one didn’t cost you anything to make or you can immediately sell the avtur one to somebody else 
The is no doubt the SMA engine works. What nobody knows is when happens when you have say 100 of them flying, in some new airframe, with a different mounting method and different coolant plumbing etc, for say a year.
For example Thielert’s line on the Diamond engine issues was that they existed only in the DA40 and not in the DA42 (or vice versa – it is a while since I spoke to the Thielert rep at some show). They blamed it on some different installation details. I have no idea whether this is true or not, though it is known that some FTOs had most of their DA42 fleet grounded at times.
Fantasy.
Or, as I like to say, “do you have a reference for that?”
No fantasy. As I said earlier the AA had put a ban on IFR (and night VFR) out of nowhere in 2008, but has released it now. The reason for this ban, well I’m not entirely sure, but some “bureaucratic mishap” is probably the best description. From March 1 2014, IFR and VFR night was allowed again.
First, the brand new 2014 edition of the VFR guide for Norway. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to fly in Norway and are used to the flatlands of Europe, even if you fly IFR. It also describes the requirements for experimentals somewhere in the first pages.
VFR Guide
And so the link about experimentals and IFR/Night VFR. It’s all in Norwegian, but I guess Google is able to translate it so somewhat readable English:
IFR-experimentals
I actually think it is more to it than that. That ECAC recommendation makes no discrimination between VFR and IFR. So if I fly to another country that has fully acknowledged that recommendation, I also can fly IFR there, even though experimentals built there will not get IFR approval by the local AA. When having slept on it, I am quite positive that Sweden also allows IFR for experimentals. I think this was a main problem, Swedes flying IFR with their experimentals here, but we were not allowed. Something like that, but I’m not IFR rated and have no plans to become either, so I have not kept myself fully up to date on this issue.
Well, maybe TCM sees something in them some of our forumites don’t.
Or perhaps TCM is owned and managed by Chinese who are not very experienced in the GA business but can afford to experiment without a well defined GA business strategy. I see some parallels with the Japanese buying up US real estate en mass in the past (they lost their shirts). I know another well funded group that looked at buying Thielert seriously, and passed on the deal despite a very strong motivation.
The problem with diesel aircraft engines is obvious: the potential market for them is very small and it drives per unit costs sky high. Army UAV applications are the only way I can see they’ll get the bugs worked out and even then (wih R&D costs paid) you’re left with a very complicated, fussy engine that only makes economic sense where the GA economy had been twisted by ultra high gasoline tax and by overdone maintenance regulation on existing engines. And that was what reduced volume and created the European fuel problem in the first place.
I think Mogas in existing engines is probably the economically right choice for the European GA political problem.
The weight of the SMA (4cly.) is 70kg higher than the 390. The guy said they want to build a plane where you can take 4 people and full fuel. When do you have that scenario? Once a year?
Cessna just said that they identified the faults in the engine, got over them, and are proceeding with certification and initial deliveries by this summer.
Oh and Piper starts delivering DX Archers already under EASA STC and powered by Centurion 2.0s.
I think the manufacturers are telling us something people here are hell-bound on saying it is never going to happen 
I don’t think anybody is saying it will never happen. The current Q is whether it is reasonable for Pipistrel to risk it, right now.
As with so much in GA, I am sure this conversation will be different in a few years’ time.
The weight of the SMA (4cly.) is 70kg higher than the 390. The guy said they want to build a plane where you can take 4 people and full fuel. When do you have that scenario? Once a year?
Right. The old adage about planes that can do this having too small fuel tanks. Hey wait… this one does have too small fuel tanks.
Seriously, I have never seen a manufacturer making so many unfortunate statements in the certification/marketing phase of a new model. Also, their people at Aero never stroke me as the most informed and experienced aviation-wise. Maybe they’re sending the wrong people to the trade shows?
I think the manufacturers are telling us something people here are hell-bound on saying it is never going to happen
What I’m saying is that diesel aero engines are not the right technical solution, that the potential sales volume was created by politics, and that diesels will remain very expensive. That will make them uncompetitive in the market where most GA sales occur, so the diesel aero engine will be a niche product.
Well if Cessna decides to follow suit with the 172 after the 182 – don’t you think the numbers will change all of a sudden? The 182 JT-A wasn’t brought into being by politics, was it?
NB – most of the “volume” in the GA “avgas” market is not being driven by the airframe numbers, but by the fact that engines are of poor quality to begin with and need most parts replaced quite often.
In my opinion the problem with diesels is a problem of scale. A rather elusive issue to grasp actually because it is all in the details, and will have very different effects on different, yet similar applications.
The most promising of all aero diesels I have seen is the British two stroke WAM. One guy has been flowing an RV-9 with this engine for years, but the company looks increasingly defunct the last years. The engine is compact, relatively light and relatively simple. It has none of the problems with power pulses that four stroke engines have.
The Austro/Thielert engines seems to be made out of sheer will and indefinite recourses from somewhere. It is way too complex, specialized and fragile to have a life on its own. The SMA has a basic design flaw that never will be solved unless it goes 6 cylinders or more.
All in all it doesn’t look like a 4 stroke aero diesel surpasses or equals a gasoline engine before 4-500 hp. At that size it doesn’t make sense because a turbine would be a better option all things considered. A two stroke seems to scale down much better, but at those small sizes there really isn’t that much to gain. Also , the competition is fierce from Rotax, ULPower and others. A 150-250 HP WAM could maybe survive on its own.
