Let’s keep this relatively on topic, guys…
If you want a thread like “useful things EASA has actually delivered” feel free to start one. It will be a very short thread! But things might look better a few years from now.
Here’s one of those experimentals I was on about:
Only puts out 53 hp, but that places it in the lower power range as discussed.
Article on aircraft and engine (edited: sorry, not so much on the engine…)
LOL, here we go again.
1. Depends on the mission.
2. Safe
3. Both.
4. Depends. Both have their advantages.
5. It exists out of the good intention originally to make European aviation easier, to eliminate costly and time consuming license and certification differences within Europe and generally to provide a common rulework for all states. It currently represents the sum of all fears…
Re the Diesel: Personally I would be very interested to see a development in the SMA/Continental Diesel, as I believe that currently it is the most promising project for retrofitting and for a “mainstream” engine, with its compatibility to the IO540 mounts, its power output and its state of development. We shall have to see if Cessna’s project goes through and really emerges. IF it does and IF it is successful, I’d expect quite a few OEM’s to jump on the bandwagon.
The primary problem with Diesel is one of confidence after the Thielert bancruptcy. At the time, the Thielert enigne was making enourmous progress in terms of market acceptance, almost close to euphoria, which came crashing down once Thielert’s maintenance scheme fell through and customers were left with horrible bills for the gear box issue and other things. Yet, the Thielert Diesel is and was ground breaking in really providing for the first time in modern GA a generally very reliable and mass market capable engine. The PA28 and C172 conversions were successful and the airplanes are very nice to fly (I tried the PA28 a while back and loved it).
The fact that both SMA and Centurion are now under Continental’s wing is a great development, but Continental needs to streamline both of them in order to get them to mass market standards, reliability and price. If they do, I’d be the first to look into it very carefully.
With a diesel in a PA28 you can do flights like this (that really happened, but I am not saying any more).
Woha. Well, shows the Diesel PA28 has quite a range. for the rest, I shall follow your example.
Edit: Just moved the cabin dimensions to a new therad.
I must say I am still not happy with the diesel track record.
It is not that I hear of continued problems (I don’t). It is that most diesels are in corporate (FTO/school) ownership and those operators have a massive incentive to not talk about issues. And I know from Grade A sources of FTOs who (for example) had about 3/4 of their DA42 fleet INOP and were suing Diamond and at the same time they were issuing press releases they are all operating and were completely satisfied with the support they were getting from the factory!
So it is hard to get data you can trust – because most of the customers are almost certain to be lying to you. And Diamond are going to be the last source you can trust.
I personally know of a few private owners but they all do very low hours, and that can fail to show up issues too for other reasons.
Another factor – present in all of GA – is that most owners (private and corporate) don’t fly far from their base, which with the more complex aircraft is often their maintenance base. This will also work to suppress reports of issues, because any issues get fixed rapidly.
And I don’t think I am the only one who thinks this.
I am sure they will eventually re-establish credibility but it is going to take time.
But they need to come up with reasonably priced retrofit (IO540 replacement) packages, which I think Thielert find hard due to the engine shape etc. Very few people are going to buy a DA40 which is a rather limited capability long range aircraft (I know some will disagree but I also knew a man who flew a microlight to Kathmandu) and buying a recent model DA42 is too big a piece for most to swallow just to get an avtur burner.
100LL is not easy in Europe but when you get down to it, you can get it “somehow” everywhere you actually want to go, and most people don’t do enough 20hrs-a-time trips in a year for the cost to be a factor big enough to buy a diesel for the cheaper fuel. You can get a lifetime’s supply of 100LL for the extra cost of buying another plane.
So that more or less sets up the market.
The UK tax on avtur kills any retrofit market unless the engine is priced at/below the Lyco level, with similar core values on a Lyco trade-in.
And I know from Grade A sources of FTOs who (for example) had about 3/4 of their DA42 fleet INOP and were suing Diamond and at the same time…
When was this Peter? I worked at an all diesel flight school and we did have our problems, but this was in the early years of the Thielerts. There have been a number of in flight failures, and I had one or two ECU issues, but on the whole my own experience, and that of the school, is very good. I suppose one expects some issues with new developments, and the engines did provide some interesting situations, but compared to Boeing, I think we had smooth sailing… 
In the early days of me looking at FTOs for the JAA IR so about 2010.
Funnily enough I recall speaking to an airline pilot whose company bought a new 737 and spent a few weeks, post delivery, fixing obvious faults on it, like switches not working because they weren’t connected up… maybe we expect too much in GA. My TB20, when new, didn’t have the RHS PTT switch connected up and the VSI was reading +400 FPM.
Yeah, by comparison the Thielerts were exemplary in their operational status…
2010 is rather recent, so presumably they had the 2.0 engines and the initial issues worked out, like the high pressure line that cracked… (happened to us).
Funnily enough I recall speaking to an airline pilot whose company bought a new 737 and spent a few weeks, post delivery, fixing obvious faults on it, like switches not working because they weren’t connected up… maybe we expect too much in GA.
I saw a documentary on how Lufthansa takes delivery of their new aircraft from Boeing and Airbus: They send engineers and pilots to Seattle and Toulouse several weeks before the delivery date. They start testing every system on the aircraft (from INS to passenger reading lights) while the aircraft is still in the last phase of completion. Then they do test flights until they are satisfied with everything – very minor faults will be fixed by manufacturer technicians during the ferry flight home. Money is transferred the moment they release the brakes on the flight home.
Yes, I saw that documentary too, very interesting, I bet Lufthansa is one tough customer ;-)
That’s the way it should be, and, btw, how you buy a house/flat off plan – new build. Done that a couple of times, no big deal, it’s called ‘snagging’ in the UK. Do you have a link to the docu?
