Silvaire remind me who owns the US makers of “engines that work” now – and why?
Yesterday I go the latest german Flying Magazine (I quit reading them years ago … although I once was an editor).
Page 2, a full size CIRRUS ad, picture of a SR22 taking off. Headline: LEAD GENERATOR
(how stupid and ignorant can advertising people be?)
While I agree with some of what Silvaire wrote, that topic is so full with double standards and bigotry, it’s a joke. Even today the standard NYC taxi is a 4.6 liter V8*, while a 80s VW Golf Diesel could be driven with an average fuel consumption of 4 liters/100 km. That was in a time when the average US car had a fuel consumption of about 20l/100 …
*I got one of those, but I drive it on E85 mostly, which reduces the CO from 320 g to 55.
Peter wrote:
Probably, but I don’t see the applicability of this discussion because the only way to change is to sell our planes and buy Diamonds.
It’s not just Diamond. Robin offers Continental diesels (both 135 and 155). Then there is the new Mooney, I don’t know when it’ll be available. There might be others. As it seems, the market for these engines is mostly limited to training and possibly aerotow. And, of course, drones. I think Diamond had some success more to the east (Russia etc.) where avgas is not as available. And the SMA engine IIRC was offered in some Cessna (182?). But it was a flop.
As for retrofits, I think it might be just too expensive. It might be viable for Cirrus fleet, there are sufficient numbers and they are not that old. There is also hope that the factory could offer this retrofit (would probably be necessary for the G1000 equipped examples, as Garmin probably won’t play ball with a third party).
Silvaire remind me who owns the US makers of “engines that work” now – and why?
Lycoming engines is owned by Textron, a US conglomerate. Continental, having gone down various ultimately dead end roads like the Tiara and Voyager engines is (likely as a result) owned by the Chinese, like Thielert. The engine I was referring to (my O-320) is a Lycoming, and suits my needs well.
Silvaire wrote:
Meanwhile in Germany the government creates a fairly extreme tax policy intended to drive technology in some ethereal way, outside of market worldwide demand and preference, outside of real world economics, toward some single number
Not just Germany. Low CO2 emission from diesel cars has made them comparatively cheaper than gasoline cars, at least for the same HP/torque range due to taxation of CO2 emission. Diesel fuel is cheaper to start with and a diesel has higher efficiency, so a diesel car was a no brainer up until a few months ago. Today the NOx particle emissions from diesel car is the number one reason people die in cities in Norway (no kidding). In cold climates a modern diesel never gets fully up to working temperature, because it is too efficient and people drive with heaters at full power, cooling the engine. Cold diesel engines spew out NOx. What’s hot now is electric cars and gasoline/electric hybrids (both actually make a lot of sense). Low emission (zero for electric), and an insane amount of HP in some others. It will probably last until we get tons and tons of toxic batteries nobody knows what to do with, but that is at least 5 years into the future, an eternity in modern terms.
LeSving, having spent a fair bit of time riding motorcycles around cities in Europe, I’ve really grown to dislike breathing diesel smoke. Try navigating the Grande Raccordo Anulare in Rome at rush hour on a motorcycle, minus cabin air filter, and tell me what you think of diesel smoke 
Re gasoline/electric hybrids, these appear to have become the urban taxis of choice in the US now, so maybe there’s some blending of US and European practice in that regard.
Diesels are a non-starter in the US. Nobody likes the particulates although obviously a few of them aren’t going to create many problems. Until the VW emissions issue, they were driven mainly by Europhile hipsters and retired thermodynamics professors, but I think both groups are highly sensitive to projecting a ‘smarty pants’ image, now gone 
@Silvaire This is seriously OT, but I’ll chime in. As far as particulates go, the issue lies in direct injection. In pursuit of low fuel consumption (= CO2 emissions), direct fuel injection was introduced to mass produced spark-ignition engines. And this resulted in dramatic increase in particulate emissions. We’re talking about three orders of magnitude or so IIRC. We’ve gone from engines that produce so little particulate matter it’s not worth regulating to engines that have trouble passing the limits for diesel engines. As it stands, in EU there are now stricter limits on diesels in this regard (they should catch up with Euro6c). And the bad news continues. This particulate matter is even finer than from the most modern diesel engines. The finer it is, the more dangerous it is to anything breathing. The harder it is to filter. The longer it stays in the air and the farther it travels.
Thanks for that, Martin.
While I have no doubt that what you’re saying about particulate levels from direct injection spark-ignition engines is true on the average over some test cycle, I can assure you that when a driver gives a boot-full of throttle to a modern diesel car and the visible exhaust smoke spirals back in a textbook physics vortex directly into the face of the motorcyclist following behind, that’s its much worse than any comparable gasoline car, and very unwelcome.
Well, the above is maybe true for 1980s Diesels. I have a newer Mercedes Bluetec Diesel, and you could not tell by the smell of the car if it’s a Diesel.
It is not new that Americans don’t like Diesels, but if 16.000 taxis in Manhattan can be Crown Victorias (until maybe 2 years ago) with 4.6 l / V-8s ….
My sister in law has a new X6 diesel, I’ve driven it a fair amount and I agree that inside the car you can only barely detect the rattle and limited rpm range. That said, every single time I see a late model diesel car emitting smoke under hard acceleration I always smile at the party line that its been eradicated from newer diesels. They still smoke under acceleration, and I still breathe the smoke. I’d be happy if I never saw another.
YMMV.
