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When will a diesel be available for my aircraft? |
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News, facts, and comments on the coming revolution for piston-engine aircraft.News of November 17, 2006News from Wilksch AirmotiveI have received the following message from Wilksch Airmotive, the UK manufacturer of 2-stroke aero diesels of 100 and 120HP: "Our Wilksch representative in Brazil Pedro Zanchetta has forwarded me an e-mail where you were asking about our progress and intentions. There seems to be a little confusion, so I would like to try and clear things up for you. We are very much aware of the emerging LSA market and are working towards becoming the first diesel engined aircraft in the LSA category. The Thorp T-211 has proven to be a very useful test bed for our engine and we have now the Full Permit to Fly here in the UK, the first diesel powered aircraft to have achieved this I believe. We continue to enjoy the improved peformance and very low operating costs, and it is still our primary aircraft. We are disappointed that the Thorp representatives in the US appear to not be aware of our engine, but this will be rectified. Some work is needed to make the airframe/engine combination meet the LSA requirements, but we are working closely to achieve this goal. There is also a Pietenpol Aircamper here in the UK, using a WAM-100 which has now achieved Full Permit status. The WAM-100 is a WAM-120 adjusted to give 100hp which can save weight by using a smaller cooling pack for the reduced horsepower. With many other customer project close to completion, we are very confident of our future in the marketplace. We also continue towards the completion of the four cylinder 160hp WAM-160 project which will give you the power and performance of your traditional avgas burning aero engine, with no weight penalty and a much improved fuel burn. Many of the components for the 160 will be common to the 120 and have already been proven in service. This will be a great addition to our range of engines. Our CI-Log engine display and data logging system has proven popular with our customers and gives us a great monitoring and diagnostic tool. An improved warranty is given to all those taking up the CI-Log option." Your Sincerely, Kerry Ashcroft, Installations and Customer Support Engineer, Wilksch Airmotive Ltd mobile: 07944 739234 - tel: 0870 170 9670 - fax: 0870 170 9678 e-mail: kerry.ashcroft@wilksch.com DieselAir is especially interested in the WAM engines because, among the 100-120HP diesel engines, they will very probably be the first to be fully available in the US as experimentals and also to be certified. For a diesel in that range of power I think 2-stroke is the solution, otherwise the weight penalty compared with a gasoline engine is too high. The Cessna 172 Thielert, which looks like an excellent plane, does demonstrate this: With a 135HP Centurion 4-stroke, water-cooled, geared diesel it is heavier than with a 160HP O-360 (which it compensates by better performance at higher altitude.) What Kerry says about the weight difference between their WAM 100 and their WAM 120HP is significant: As we have said earlier on this blog, the weight of a diesel engine is one thing, but its weight with cooling system and ancillaries is something else and varies with the actual power setting: if same engine, more power, more heat to eliminate. posted at 2:35 AM |
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