[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I am also 'plane' crazy- I would love to build and install a diesel > engine > in an aircraft. I know, that German company (Zoche) is making 4 and 8 cyl > radial > diesels for air craft, but they have been promising that for more than 10 > years. > :-( Regards, Joe.
It's worse than that. Zoche has been promising an engine for about 15 years. I doubt it will ever happen. Apparently the German government (Germans please correct me if I'm wrong) has some sort of program which give out research grants to small businesses for the purpose of designing new products. Once they get a product to market the grant money dries up. I seriously doubt we will ever see a Zoche Aero Diesel as OEM in a production aircraft, because Zoche Aero Diesels is Georg Zoche's money machine, and he wants to keep the government money coming in. "greg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > check out some of the WW2 aircraft the germans had, one was a seaplane > that had a diesel. i`ll try and find more info. greg Oh, indeed, one of them was a seaplane. And what a seaplane it was! The largest seaplane in the world up to that time. The only seaplane that was larger was the Spruce Goose. It was built by either Blohm and Voss, or Dornier, I don't remember which. Unfortunately it was destroyed by allied aircraft either on or just after its maiden flight. Shame. The engines were built by Junkers, IIRC, and had some pretty interesting technology. There is a company in England which is building a diesel aircraft engine based on their design. www.dair.co.uk The Germans in WWII had more than just that one diesel powered aircraft. A number of their aircraft, including many of their bombers were also diesel powered. The Russians in WWII converted one squadron of bombers to diesel power at one point for the purpose of a raid on Berlin. Diesels were the only engines that would give them the range they needed. Their conversion was ill concieved, though, and their engines weren't anywhere nearly as reliable as the German ones. While they were able to hit Berlin, none of them made it home, due mostly to engine failures. ________________________________________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Thanks, Greg. > There were a lot of Early French planes that had diesels as well. > Recently, > there were two Frenchmen who put a 4 cyl. turbo Renault (?) diesel in a small > homebuilt aircraft. That would probably be the Dieselis. Good looking little airplane, but underpowered IHMO. When it comes to French technology, Moraine-Renault, Renault Sport, and Aerospatiale have gotten together and spun off another company called SMA (Societe Motorisations Aeronautiques) for the purpose of building diesel aircraft engines. They have in the plans a 180 hp engine, and currently have one flying in an Aerospatiale Trinidad. I know they have a website, because I've seen it, but I can't find a bookmark for it and none of the search engines seem to spider it right now. > Teledyne Continental, With a big check and a kick in the pants from Nasa. TCM has a website, but as is typical of large corporations it's useless. Lycoming also has a diesel project going in a joint venture with Detroit Diesel, but like TCM, their website us useless. > and Deltahawk are also working on 4cyl diesel aircraft > engines in the 200 hp category. Oh, Deltahawk has some _good_ plans! www.deltahawkengines.com > Wouldn't it be great to fly an aircraft using Biodoesel? (piston, Bio-d > can > already be used in turbine engines) Cheers, Joe Just go to http://www.biodiesel.org/default2.htm and look at the results of using biodiesel in Baylor University's King Air. "greg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [Big German seaplane] > from what i remember it had a prop on top of the body. it was so slow that > it was only used on patrol on the cost. good luck greg There were several of those. The British also had a similar flying boat for patrol in the Atlantic. Most seaplanes of the flying boat design either have the engine mounted on a pod on top of the wing, or they have a high wing configuration with the engines mounted on the wing in front of the spray line to keep the engines out of the water. Then there is the Consolidated PBY which had the entire wing mounted on a stalk above the fuselage, complete with two engines. Harmon Seaver <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Actually, it's strange that more diesels haven't been used in planes. > The low > revving powerband is ideal, most auto-gas engine conversions have to use a > gear rpm > reducer for the prop, since they badly lose efficiency over 2000 rpm. Actually, there are several aircraft engines out there built with prop speed reduction units on them. Continental builds several of them. Probably the most common, and the most powerful is the GTSIO-520. (Geared, Turbo Supercharged, fuel Injected, Opposed, 520 CID) Continental says they'll produce 425 hp IIRC, and run 1200 hours between overhauls. In practice, if they're run that hard they'll usually blow up at around 600 hours. And then there's that placard over the throttle quadrant that reads "Warning: Sudden throttle movement may cause catastrophic engine failure." It can. I've seen the result. It wasn't pretty. Interestingly enough, there's a second peak in the efficiency curve at 4400 rpm, and that's where the F1 racers run them. They like to use O-320 engine cores and run them at 4400 rpm with small, multibladed propellers on them. They may be efficient, but they are also LOUD! > I suppose > weight is a factor, but there have been plenty of aircooled diesels, and, in > recent > years, any number of water-cooled auto engine conversions. Weight isn't as much a factor anymore. The technology is finally catching up with the concept. If Zoche's figures are right, his 300hp engine actually weighs 40% _less_ than its Lycoming counterpart. The SMA engines are running just a little overweight of their Lycoming couterparts. The current list of manufacturers that have plans to produce diesel aircraft engines are: Teledyne Continental Motors, with funding from NASA Textron Lycoming in a joint venture with Detroit Diesel SMA Deltahawk Inc. www.deltahawkengines.com Wilksch Airmotive www.wilksch.com Diesel Air Ltd. www.dair.co.uk And (there's always hope) Zoche Aero Diesels www.zoche.de Hopefully someone will have a good one on the market soon, and I suspect it will be SMA. Fair wind, Alan -- Aviation is more than a hobby. It is more than a job. It is more than a career. Aviation is a way of life. A second language for the world: www.esperanto.org Processor cycles are a terrible thing to waste. www.distributed.net Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
