 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
When will a diesel be available for my aircraft? |
|
News, facts, and comments on the coming revolution for piston-engine aircraft.News of March 30, 2009How will Diamond handle the aero diesel market? Comments on recent news.Christian Dries, owner and chief executive of the Austrian airframer, admits in an interview to Flight International that the year 2008 has been a disaster: Blow one was the bankruptcy in May of Thielert, the German supplier of the Centurion 2.0 diesel engine that powered the twinprop Diamond DA42 and diesel versions of the DA40 piston single. Diamond and Thielert were not able to reach terms for continued cooperation. Blow two was delays in obtaining European certification for its own Mercedes Benz-derived aero diesel, having set up a neighboring sister company Austro Engine for the purpose. The European Aviation Safety Agency certified the 170hp (125kW) Austro AE300 only during the first quarter of 2009. Blow three affected another big project: the single-engined D-Jet ‘personal light jet’, for which Diamond has more than 600 orders. It will be built in Canada at its London, Ontario factory. Again, certification is delayed. A decision to swap jet engines plus other minor problems delayed to 2010 the likely start of production. The market for Diamond s $1.4 million D-Jet looks in fact less promising than it did when the program was launched in 2003 amid much publicity about the prospects for very light jets and the on-demand air taxi market. Since then, a number of air taxi start-ups have foundered, including US D-Jet customer Point2Point, along with VLJ pioneers Eclipse Aviation and Adam Aircraft. However, even when the hype was at its highest two years ago, Dries was careful not to get carried away, stressing the D-Jet s appeal to owner-flyers rather than as a charter aircraft. He is convinced the D-Jet will be attractive in an economic slowdown to owner-flyers looking to ‘step down from bigger aircraft’. To top it all, Diamond is affected by the downturn in the private aviation industry. Deliveries of the DA42 fell from 98 in 2007 to 69 last year, and the DA40 from 80 to 33, although much of that was due to the lack of engines. Diamond has laid off in total some 450 employees in Austria and Canada. But as he prepares for Aero 09 in Friedrichshafen and the Paris air show, Dries is upbeat about Diamond s long-term prospects. One of the bright spots has been a burgeoning security and surveillance market for its €3 million spyplane - the DA42-derived MPP (multipurpose platform). Diamond handed over 17 of the types last year to customers as diverse as the UK Royal Air Force (thought to be operating them in Iraq), Austrian firefighters and the Niger government. Diamond expects to deliver between 50 and 60 MPPs this year. We know from other sources that the general security and surveillance market is one of the fastest going ones remaining today despite the recession; and its potential as an aero diesel application is obvious since it essentially needs a large autonomy. The aircraft is a standard DA42 offered with optional aerial sensors in bolt-on pods on the nose, roof and belly. The aircraft is securing a reputation, says Dries, because it offers a solution to so many missions, particularly for customers ‘without deep pockets’. As a result, Diamond is targeting local law enforcement and security agencies in Europe as well as governments in Africa and Latin America for which the products of the big defense manufacturers are out of reach. The MPP is much more affordable and quieter than a helicopter, easier to operate than an unmanned air vehicle and capable of staying in the air for 13h with two crew. ‘The MPP is now our biggest and most important business,’ says Dries, who will unveil at Paris an upgraded version of the aircraft, with a more effective engine muffler. ‘If it is 200m [650ft] above your head, you will not hear it,’ he says. ‘The silence of the aircraft will be a huge marketing advantage.’ The European approval of the Austro engine has come as a relief to Diamond, which will - after a hiatus of almost a year - begin deliveries of diesel-powered aircraft again, firstly equipping the whitetails at its factory. ‘It is six months too late, but at least it has happened,’ sighs Dries. After the Thielert crisis, he did consider launching a rescue bid for his supplier, but fell out with the administrator. Instead, production is ramping up at the new Austro factory immediately behind the Diamond works, where Dries expects between 500 and 700 engines will be delivered this year, although it has a capacity for 3,000. So far, Diamond is its sister company s only client, but Dries says there has been ‘a lot of interest from other manufacturers’. Dries expects much of the business to come from Diamond owners swapping their Thielert engines once they reach their warranty limit. ‘As time goes on, we expect most of the fleet to be replaced after 1,000 hours,’ he says. Although more expensive and heavier than its Thielert counterpart, Dries says the Austro engine is ‘more robust’ thanks to cast iron cylinder blocks instead of aluminium, as well offering 20% better fuel economy. With Diamond hoping for a quarter one 2010 certification for its single AE300 diesel-powered DA50 Magnum - a longer, roomier version of its DA40 to rival the Cirrus SR22 - the company is set to emerge from the downturn with a strong product line up. Christian Dries is certainly the most enterprising, courageous and persevering aircraft manufacturer in the General Aviation segment, and one can only wish him a well deserved success. He made history. The questions which remain are: Whether an aircraft engine, diesel or other, can be directly derived from an automobile engine. So far, The Thielert venture has only confirmed the old fears about liquid-cooled engines, geared propellers, separate cylinder heads and use of multiple metals and alloys within the engine structure. The only automobile engine which remained constantly present - on the very light airplane market - is the old Volkswagen Beetle engine, and it was an opposite cylinder air-cooled: One could call it an aircraft engine adapted to automobile! Will Austro Engine finally provide a convincing demonstration, even if a somewhat heavy one? And then, it appears more and more that diesel will be attractive on airplanes flying at least 500h per year, either for professional applications or for flight training. The professional market wants at least 300HP engines. The flight Academy market wants very light and simple engines. As of 2009, it looks like the Dries group of companies is far from proposing a V8 300HP+ as Thielert attempted to do, and DeltaHawk, Wilksch and PDD-Gemini are slowly but surely making progress with 2-stroke diesels of 100 to 160HP. Can the DA40 with the Austro 300 offer a viable alternative? Wait and see. In that context, what can the new Thielert do to remain present, now that it has obviously lost its main customer? That is the toughest question. posted at 5:11 AM |
Previous Posts
New Hybrid Propulsion System For Aircraft
|
