Diesel Engine ... REALLY!

Hi All,

Just read Mr. Andersen's review of the Carenado F406. In it he said, "In 2014 Continental Motors Inc. partnered with ASI Innovation to purchase the rights to the F406 trying to restart the production including a version featuring a brand new diesel piston engine." While this rendition of the F406 didn't have those engines, I became very intrigued.

 

I've owned diesel vehicles for many years. There's just something about a diesel. I'd be very interested to see and listen to one of these aircraft. I can imagine that start-up would look more like a radial than a turboprop, black smoke, lots of noise, etc. (Now, my Cummins doesn't put out ANY black smoke, yet).

 

I'm hoping that in the future somebody will take a stab at offering a diesel aircraft.

 

Bill

Hi All,

Just read Mr. Andersen's review of the Carenado F406. In it he said, "In 2014 Continental Motors Inc. partnered with ASI Innovation to purchase the rights to the F406 trying to restart the production including a version featuring a brand new diesel piston engine." While this rendition of the F406 didn't have those engines, I became very intrigued.

 

I've owned diesel vehicles for many years. There's just something about a diesel. I'd be very interested to see and listen to one of these aircraft. I can imagine that start-up would look more like a radial than a turboprop, black smoke, lots of noise, etc. (Now, my Cummins doesn't put out ANY black smoke, yet).

 

I'm hoping that in the future somebody will take a stab at offering a diesel aircraft.

 

Bill

 

Hey Bill,

 

GA diesel powered prop planes are already out there. I've read several articles about them in the AOPA magazine. The one's I've seen reviewed were powered a a variant of Volkswagon Diesels that run on jet fuel. Sorry, exactly the brand and models of planes slips my mind right now but they're already flying in Europe and being type certified in the US as well.:cool:

As Rupert says, they're already out there. Even Cessna is working on diesel powered aircraft. The Diamond DA42 is one example, but (at least in the U.S.) it's the only one (as far as I know) that is fully certified and in production (from Germany, though).

There is a DA-42 that shows up from time to time at our local airfield. The only way you can tell it from a conventional combustion engine is that it has a rather odd exhaust sound.

 

DJ

Aircraft powered by diesel engines have been around since the 1920's, have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_diesel_engine.

Aircraft powered by diesel engines have been around since the 1920's, have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_diesel_engine.

 

Current production aircraft with `diesel` engines include:

Diamond

DA40

DA42

DA62

 

Mooney M10J

 

Robin DR400 135 CDI Ecoflyer

 

Piper Archer DX

 

Strictly speaking they aren't diesel engine, they're piston powered compression ignition using Jet-A fuel, but in practise `diesel` works as they will run on a variety of fuels including automotive and bio diesel, although they all prefer Jet-A.

 

Considerably more frugal than avgas powered equivalents, modern design means they are hardly any heavier than `modern` avgas engines, and can operate at a considerable saving as TBO's are extended and fuel cost is cheaper, while fuel use is meagre.

 

As with most diesels they produce prodigious torque at relatively low rpm, which is good for noise, and with a properly optimised prop they can match or exceed current avgas GA. A final advantage is that they can also scale across the whole power range far more easily than a conventional avgas engine. 30-100% throttle against 40-100, with the ability to loiter at incredibly low fuel burn - a DA62 flew across the Atlantic averaging 8.4 galls/hr - for BOTH engines!

 

What all these diesels have in common is: Quiet operation; almost no smoke on startup, FADEC and single lever control (No prop, no mixture levers just a power lever) and car-like startup procedure - switch on, wait for the glow plug light to go out, press start. It couldn't be simpler as the FADEC does all the checks while you taxi to the runway.At the end of the flight, you turn off by the key, and the engines just stop. No faffing or fussing with mixture levers, magnetos or props.

 

Sorry to rain on your parade, but if you want black smoke and lots of noise, try putting Jet-A in an Avgas engine...

There is a DA-42 that shows up from time to time at our local airfield. The only way you can tell it from a conventional combustion engine is that it has a rather odd exhaust sound.

 

DJ

 

There are probably more about than you think - at cruise you won't hear one if its more than a couple of thou up. Do have a distinctive planform about them with the wasp-waist and long, high aspect ratio wing and the endplates, though.

Aircraft powered by diesel engines have been around since the 1920's, have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_diesel_engine.

 

Thanks for that link Paul! I never looked it up. But I'm not surprised they used diesels years ago in aircraft.

 

I especially enjoyed the picture of the opposed piston inline engine. When I first went to work for the railroad industry around 1970 there were still a few switch engines in service from the early 1940's that had an inline six cylinder two-stroke engine of that same design. Although ours were much much bigger!!

 

I remember our six cylinder engines had a removable top and bottom crankshaft. When you pulled the crankshafts, each set of six rods and pistons stayed on them. After removing the crankshafts and pistons a man could stand inside each cylinder and have enough room to hold tools to burnish the cylinder walls!!!!

 

We ended up remodeling several of those locomotives and putting the more modern V-12 two-stroke engine made by GM in them. However the V-12s were much smaller engines. They displaced only 567 cubic inches per cylinder for a 6,804 cubic inch total displacement.

a variant of Volkswagon Diesels that run on jet fuel.

The military uses "jet" fuel for ALL it's diesels and jets now. Trucks, generators, APC's, Abrams tanks, F/A-18's, Cobras, you name it. I think they call it Jet8 now. It just kerosene, some additives to keep mold down and lower the freezing point, stuff like that. That way, it makes logistics a lot simpler. Don't need 4 or 5 different fuels that are all essentially the same anyway, along with gasoline, or whatever.

Believe it or not, Jet8 works very nicely in kerosene heaters and kerosene lanterns too. Trust me, I've used a lot of it. Doesn't smell all that great in a lantern like the scented fuels, but it works just fine. We got a lot of it (9000 GAL tank :) ) when I worked at the Aerostat site in Yuma, and we used it for all the diesels on site, including trucks, generators (200KW jobs), forklifts, the two big Cat diesels in the Mooring system, everything. I "borrowed" a couple gallons for my kerosene lanterns at home. They cast a very nice light :)

Just a note :)

Pat☺

Yes Pat, it's great they've standardized jet fuel!

 

In the '60s we involved with the Navy used JP-5 in our planes while the civilian world used what was called JP-4. JP-4 burned a lot hotter and was more explosive. Which is why the Navy and Marines didn't want it aboard.

 

So when flying cross country using civilian and Air Force refueling stations we had to manually set our engine fuel controls to the JP-4 setting to keep from over temping the engine. Using Marine/Navy fuel we had to reset the fuel control to JP-5 so we burned more fuel to get the same amount of thrust.

One impetus driving forward the development of diesel powered light planes is that in a few years (10?) obtaining 100LL will become difficult as refineries cut down production on what is a small-market product.

One impetus driving forward the development of diesel powered light planes is that in a few years (10?) obtaining 100LL will become difficult as refineries cut down production on what is a small-market product.

 

AOPA/EAA/FAA and others are working on an unleaded replacement for 100LL, so that will be somewhat less of an issue, though still important, but an even bigger impetus is the fact that in so many places around the world it is difficult to get avgas, while Jet-A is relatively easy to find, so they're really interested in Jet-A being used in the diesel cycle engines for a lot of the world.

 

If you google for "100LL replacement" (without the quotes) you'll find a lot of information available about the current state of development.

You don't have to go far to discover that Jet-A is available where 100LL is not, northern Canada airfields for instance. Makes you plan your route carefully, and call ahead to check.

I seem to remember from somewhere that the German pre-WWII diesel-powered aircraft (Do 18, Do 24, Ju 86 and Bv 222) could not fly very high, and also left a white smoke trail.

 

Jorgen