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Still no Cirrus Diesel

Diesel engines for cars are soon to be gone anyway. Way too much pollution (the kind of pollution that kills people). VW have stated they will gradually stop producing diesel cars for instance (private cars, not trucks and similar stuff). That CD300, as well as all other aircraft diesels based on car engines will have a huge problem getting parts very soon.

Talked to the Superior guy today about the Gemini diesel. Only 4-5 months ago they said they will have the diesel ready for Oskosh. Today he would reluctantly talk about it (they have it tucked away in the back). He said it would be ready in 1 to 1 1/2 year, because they were doing 500h “endurance tests”. I asked why, and he answered the FAA require it for LSA. Do the US LSA require 500h endurance test? CS-LSA require a total of 50 h. For the experimental market, no endurance tests are required. I therefore take this to mean the engine is dead, which is kind of sad.

A compact and high powered diesel is obviously no easy task, even though most of them are basically only car engine conversions. Only Austro seems to have managed it somehow, except the weight part. IMO the diesel engine is dead as an aero engine. It’s too complex, too many moving parts, too much structural stress, vibrations etc to achieve the wanted power. With the car industry moving away from compact diesels, the know how and industrial drive will also disappear.

The E-fan is also here (in real), but it’s a hybrid version of it (I don’t know if this was made before or after the all electric version). The woman at the booth knew nothing, she only wanted to give away USB-fans with E-fan printed on them. By the looks of it, it seems like it was a two stroke engine in there, Rotax or Hirth possibly? Maybe tomorrow another person is there, hopefully.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

The end of the Diesel car engine is not as near as you want us to believe. I only know about Audi, Mercedes and BMW – but those three are working on many new 4, 6 and even 8 cylinder Diesel engines.

The CEO of Bosch, one of the largest part and system suppliers for the German car industry said, recently: “The emission problems of the Diesel engine are solved, now we have to work on the gasoline engine”.

The “OM642” series of Diesel engines (3 litre, twin turbo, 72 degrees V6), originally released in 2005, on which the “CD300” is based, can be found in so many Mercedes cars (C, E, S, ML, Vito, R, GLK …) that there will be parts for many years.

The “end of the Diesel” is a myth brought up by … VW (and mostly by Mr. Müller, one of the guys responsible for the US emission control disaster. Guess why …

Last Edited by Flyer59 at 29 Jul 07:11

LeSving wrote:

Too complex, too many moving parts, too much stress, too much complexity

… and yet their failure rate is a good order of magnitude below the legacy engines. As the locals say – “trouvez l’erreur”.

yet their failure rate is a good order of magnitude below the legacy engines

That may be true if you include failures due to abuse / mismanagement.

I hear too many field reports to believe it otherwise.

and mostly by Mr. Müller, one of the guys responsible for the US emission control disaster. Guess why …

Funny that it was Bosch who wrote the software to cheat the system

Unfortunately, cheating on emissions tests is widespread. Cheating on MPG figures is even bigger. The whole car industry is up to its neck in cheating. It is harder in aviation because people spend so much time in cruise that the fuel burn is obvious. On a car, if the MPG is 20% off, most drivers would never notice.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter… Are you saying that all those Cirrus Conti TSIO-550s that go through at least one top overhaul before 800h are up do so because of “abuse / mismanagement”? If the pilot population were that obtuse, you should see the same “abuse / mismanagement” induced failures in the diesel line-up. And yet you don’t, but you do see an increase in TBO/R.

Of course if there is hard data to prove that diesel engines do fail as frequently as the gasoline ones do, I’d be glad to see it. Sofar all that has been provided is “I heard that”.

No; Cirrus seem to have special trouble with those engines. They even had spark plug insulators disintegrating, from the many US forum posts I saw. It looks like that engine is working too hard.

The Diesels seem to get other failures but they still prevent the engine running.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

No; Cirrus seem to have special trouble with those engines.

Too bad the top overhauls also happen to Mooney owners who are extremely anal about not operating the engine with CHT above 400F

LSZK, Switzerland

Well in the high compression, high temperature engines the cylinders are considered to be consumables and there aren’t that many diesels flying in this power class, are there? And if you’d build the AvGAS engines as heavy as the Diesels, I guess you’d see much less top overhauls.

For comparable power output in the 120 to 180 hp class the gasoline engines are pretty reliable up to the bulletproof O360. When taken proper care of the engine they will happily run way past TBO. Of course that can be true for the Diesels, too, I have no experience and not seen any comparison based on actual data.

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

Well in the high compression, high temperature engines the cylinders are considered to be consumables and there aren’t that many diesels flying in this power class, are there? And if you’d build the AvGAS engines as heavy as the Diesels, I guess you’d see much less top overhauls.
For comparable power output in the 120 to 180 hp class the gasoline engines are pretty reliable up to the bulletproof O360. When taken proper care of the engine they will happily run way past TBO.

Exactly!

Which translates to the other probable reason why there isn’t a diesel SR22 on the market: there isn’t a proven 300+HP diesel engine. Cirrus cannot take the risk which Diamond took and got nearly bankrupted. Diamond got away with it due to various factors, the main one being lots of FTO sales where consumer protection wasn’t available (e.g. separate airframe and engine contracts). Cirrus sells mostly to customers who would sue, immediately and successfully.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

There is more to this than just diesel. Diesel, also represents, in addition to efficiency:

1) Fuel Availability
2) FADEC
3) Improved sensors & electronics
4) Improved ancillary parts (starters, alternators etc)

The reason is that the junk that comes out of the legacy manufactures has a very low threshold for acceptable failure rates – the parts, the people and the ideas are old. It is currently totally acceptable for an engine to fail every 7,000hrs – this is madness in the 21st century. An aircraft operating with an old legacy engine will be using old rubbish for sensors, wiring, connectors etc. The whole philosophy is gone in all other industries except with legacy aircraft where owners, who have no other choice, pretend its ok. What one needs is parts made in high quantity from the likes of MBTech, Bosch etc with an aviation integrator (i.e. Austro). That’s the only way we get improvements. In fact, I think it’s starting to improve now with most aviation manufactures – Cirrus are the only volume manufacture not to offer a modern engine.

If I were to pay $1m for an aircraft now, it could only be the DA42-VI – there is no chance I’d buy a new Cirrus – purely because of the dreadful engine technology. Second hand, at least you’re getting better value.

Last Edited by DMEarc at 29 Jul 09:31
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