Carl Spatz and Ira Eakin—the two legendary leaders of U.S. air power in World World II--just got it all wrong when they decided to bomb the German ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt in 1943. What they should have been bombing is the factories that make those little skinny spring washers that the Germans can’t seem to build so much as a toy wagon without using by the gross. The war would have ended a year earlier.

I was reminded of this today when my correspondent Stan Fetter wrote this note about his experiences in repairing a Thielert diesel’s all-critical clutch: “There are a bunch of spacers in there, and if any of that stuff comes apart the whole thing has to go back to the factory...Had a new one on the bench and the tool guy picked it up and moved it, and stuff went everywhere.”

Been there…and the t-shirt is now a shop rag. I have a couple of motorcycles, a BMW and a Honda. To service the fuel pump and filter on the BMW, you need a pair of hemostats—no kidding, that’s what the shop manual says—to squeeze off the fuel hoses while you worry the thing out the side of the fuel tank, being careful not to trash the $400 fuel gauge sender. And don’t forget the special clamps which you must replace. On the Honda, the same assembly drops out of the bottom of the tank in five minutes. Buy the clamps at NAPA.

This aside is central to the problems Thielert is having with its aerodiesel. The thing requires a lot of wrenching—replacement of the gearbox and clutch assemblies, fuel pumps, alternators and so on. And it’s not simple wrenching, thanks to the German penchant for using two spacers where one will do, a spring hidden in an invisible blind hole that rockets across the shop and careens off the bench grinder and disappears before you even knew it was there. And great clouds of those damn flat washers which are always left over after you’ve reassembled the part without the missing spring because they’re out of stock and the parts guy says they leave them out, too.

Which brings me to this: What’s needed here is for Honda to stop screwing around with four-cylinder gasoline engines and to get busy with aerodiesel. For reasons related to culture, economics and predisposition, the Japanese haven’t been big on diesel engines for cars. In fact, Honda is expected to launch its first next year. By dint of long experience—the Germans own the diesel car market—the Germans have diesel pretty well figured out. It will be daunting for others to catch up. But to a degree, the Germans are victims of their own success when it comes to building things that are easily maintainable. They tend toward in-the-box thinking with regard to repairing things. The Japanese have proven to be better at this, at least in cars and motorcycles. It would be intriguing to see their version of a practical aerodiesel.

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A few years ago I paid a visit to Linear Air, a small start-up just outside Boston that hoped to make a go of it as an air-taxi operator. CEO Bill Herp figured there had to be a better solution for business flyers than the way the airlines did it. The idea was to fly Eclipse jets, as soon as they could, but meanwhile they got Linear Air up and running using Caravans, as a sort of test phase.

Well, it's no surprise, the Caravans have done just great. They're reliable, comfortable, and for getting the kids, nanny, golf clubs and family dog to Nantucket for the weekend, they certainly beat out the Eclipse jet.

The fact is that NASA's Small Aircraft Transportation System concept -- using under-utilized local airports, avoiding the hub-airport congestion, and offering concierge-style service -- is hard not to like. Modern software makes it more manageable and more profitable than the old air-taxi model, from decades back, when the random passenger called around looking to hire a small airplane off the flight line.

But maybe the VLJ is not the critical asset to make this work. Take a modern turboprop like a Caravan or a TBM or Pilatus, and park it next to the last-century light twins that used to form the bulk of the air-taxi fleet, and there's no comparison. The leap from these modern turboprops to the new VLJs is a much smaller one -- in overall performance, point-to-point, some of them are virtually even. To most passengers, the difference is probably insignificant. Operating costs are more complex to compare, but Linear Air seems to thrive with its Caravan fleet, while DayJet is struggling to get by with the theoretically-economical E500s.

A week or so ago, SATSAir, another small operator out of South Carolina, reported that it's making a go of it with Cirrus SR22s. SATSAir launched 16,000 flights last year, a 60 percent surge over the year before. The company has flown more than six million passenger miles since November 2004, all of them behind a prop. The service itself is what makes it work, not the powerplant.

No question, though, there is a preference out there among the masses for jets. When I visited Linear Air, I asked if they really needed the Eclipse jets, or why not just add more Caravans. Oh yes, they said, passengers call and ask when the jets be available, and they don't want to fly on a prop plane. But then, that was before they realized they'd have to leave their baggage on the ramp. No problem for a business flyer going to a meeting, with a Blackberry and a briefcase. But for those pile-'em-in golfing weekends, the VLJs might have to make room for a lot of other options in the next-gen air-taxi world.

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It would be too easy to take shots based on the events that led up to Tuesday's announcement that DayJet was scaling back rather than turning into the aviation supernova that some had predicted. It's probably worth noting that I can't ever remember DayJet saying they were going to set the aviation world on its ear. All I remember is them saying they thought this air taxi thing with a cheap little jet might work. And it still might.

If you've been following the whole Eclipse blog court thing, you may have reached some conclusions that I might agree with about how it all came about. Now the word is out about DayJet's decision to take a deep breath, try to stay in business and maybe eventually make a little money by offering business people, government officials and the somewhat well-heeled a chance to get from place to place, quickly and relatively affordably (and it is relative) without ever taking their shoes off.

The fact is that few things in life turn out exactly as you plan and if your margins for error are too slim then the wheels will come off the cart.

Based on my conversation with DayJet founder Ed Iacobucci on Tuesday, if anyone has a chance to make this work it's DayJet. And, rather than focus on the kind of ridiculous behavior that has swirled around this in recent weeks, the aviation community should set aside the barbs, give this concept some breathing space and reserve the "I told you so's" for those who deserve them, when they deserve them.

I've talked to dozens, if not hundreds of people in Iacobucci's position. Being the bearer of bad news is never easy but it's better when you think the story isn't finished. That's what Iacobucci believes and if we give him half a chance, he may prove himself right.

Out of my interview I gleaned some nuggets of hope:

• First, the airplane is basically OK. Regardless of your opinion of the company, the product, though unfinished, seems to be able to handle the task DayJet put it to. Granted, it's only been six months and the plane has some add-ons to make it serviceable but it starts, runs, flies and does it all over again with reasonable reliability. It'll be even better when it's done, according to Iacobucci.
• People seem to like it. Iacobucci said clients were surprised at how comfortable it is and delighted with how quiet it is. On the short hops it will be doing, you can put up with almost anything but it's nice to be comfortable when you're paying $1,400 for a flight that takes little more than an hour (even though it might be saving you a full day).
• There is a business there. Iacobucci signed up 1,500 members, more than 500 actually flew and 50 flew more than 10 times. Whether it can survive fuel prices, the vagaries of the economy and the inevitable attack from the airlines if it gets too successful are questions that will be answered as the company progresses.

And I hope it does keep going because general aviation needs the kind of bold thinking that's behind this. Why? Because we're losing our luster. Pilot training is suffering, boomer pilots are dropping out and there's little to prime the pump to incite the excitement that has always sustained aviation.

Rather than smugly dismissing the idea as a failure, we should all be hoping that Ed and his crew find a way to make it work.

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Give the board at Thielert credit for one thing—they’re not footdraggers. Late last week, the board wasted no time in moving the company into bankruptcy proceedings in the wake of an investigation into financial anomalies surrounding the company’s initial public offering in 2005 and the subsequent tanking of the stock. German securities regulators and law enforcement officials are looking into allegations that Thielert based its financials on doctored accounts receivable data. That was apparently enough to scare away potential investors so the board apparently saw no point in delaying the inevitable.

Not to put too delicate a point on this, but this is now a hell of mess—for the diesel engine segment in general, for Diamond and for Cessna and especially for owners of 400 or more diesel-powered Twin Stars, not to mention several hundred single-engine Stars and conversions of Skyhawks. Diamond is a standup company, so I don’t expect it to shirk its duty to support owners comprising something north of $200 million worth of airplanes. If I were Diamond, I’d take a page from the Johnson & Johnson Tylenol scare of 1982, which remains a case study in crisis management. And that means getting the information out quickly, honestly and without obfuscation of any kind. Furthermore, I would have the list of diesel owners on an e-mail loop with frequent updates, starting today. (If you’re a DA42 or diesel owner, let me know when the note from Diamond arrives. Contact avconsumer@comcast.net.)

Expect to hear soothing reports that Thielert will continue operations normally, delivering engines and parts. We will see, but I find it difficult to understand how a company that was getting hammered for poor aftermarket support when it was solvent is somehow going to do better while insolvent and in the jaws of a liquidity crisis. Even the lapdog aviation press ought to raise an eyebrow at that claim.

Cutting through the fog here, the principle issue at hand is whether the Centurion diesel line is technically and economically viable. We don’t have enough information to know that yet. I have interviewed and surveyed many owners flying these engines and have discovered a number of complaints, mostly related to reliability, less to do with performance. That’s not to say all operators are displeased with the Thielert engines for some are clearly thrilled with it. But many have had sour experiences, with weeks of being down for lack of parts and service. There have been reports of cylinder head cracking, unexplained stoppages, unrealistic labor allowances to change engines and parts and short TBO/TBR cycle times.

These complaints don’t necessarily mean the engine line itself is doomed. This is new technology and it’s unrealistic to expect no teething pains. According to Thielert, many of the initial model’s faults—the Centurion 1.7—have been corrected in the follow-on variant, the 2.0. Although Thielert has been cagey about the details, we can only hope the 2.0 engine will have a better service history. DA42 owners are counting on this.

But even if the 2.0 does just a little better, there’s always the chance that it won’t be enough. The critical thing we need to know about this engine’s economics is what we don’t know. What is the warranty payout ratio? At best, the profit margin on engines isn’t generous and if the thing is still too tender to perform reliably enough to keep owners from requiring large doses of expensive warranty support, the economic model for it may be a perennial loser. The test of this will be when potential investors begin sniffing around the company and get a look at the warranty numbers during due diligence—assuming that Thielert has reasonably accurate data on this.

Manufactured products have to find a sweet spot between the cost of producing them—how much is invested in quality manufacturing and quality control—and how many products come back needing replacement or repair. There's some profit built in there, too, and it can be eroded by higher-than-expected warranty incidence. It’s quite possible that the Centurion line just isn’t robust enough to find the sweet spot at a price customers are willing to pay for it. If that’s true—if it’s even possible to determine that at this point—investors won’t find any value in Thielert and its future will be grim.

But remember what diesels are about—it’s fuel availability first, economy second. At current fuel prices, the Thielert engines are economically competitive with Lycoming IO-360s over the life of the engines. That's true because even though the Centurion costs twice as much as the Lycoming, its life cycle fuel costs offset the difference, and then some.

But if the Centurions have been selling at a price too low to support their warranty load, it may prove that diesels need a higher life cycle cost to survive in the market. So what is the cost Delta over gas engines? Is it 25 percent? Or 50 percent? It may very well be and buyers may still choose to pay it. Jet A remains—and will remain—the world’s commodity aviation fuel. If you can’t get avgas, a Jet A piston engine may be attractive at a much higher price than a gasoline engine because that’s the only way you’ll be able to fly.

Stay tuned. It's gonna get interesting.

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Something that's always struck me as odd about this whole user fee thing is that it's one of those rare political issues where the proletariats have come to the rescue of the bourgeoisie.

When then-FAA Administrator Marion Blakey first started speaking openly about the need to change the way the FAA was funded with user fees, no one knew what, specifically, she meant — so the leaders of the major GA groups did a smart thing. The got together, put their hands in the middle and became the half-dozen or so Musketeers of free and open skies for GA. On the day the coalition was formed, I remember asking the question in a conference call with those leaders. Is this an attempt, I asked, to divide and conquer GA by pitting puddle jumpers against Gulfstream owners?

No, they said they didn't think so and as far as they were concerned it was all for one and one for all anyway. It soon became clear that the Administration, fearful of the lobbying power of the 400,000 to 500,000 AOPA/EAA members, had, quite remarkably, decided to target business aviation (and a hefty percentage of their base) to get the ball rolling. The $25 per leg fee on turbine aircraft that resulted was a lame attempt to establish a collection system that would have had every pilot in the U.S. eventually writing checks to the FAA. Regardless of your politics, you have to admit this is an interesting dynamic which may have taken the bait-and-switch to a high art and left the general aviation community divided, fighting with each other and ill-equipped to take on whatever the next battle might be. Instead, everyone gets what they want — except for increased fuel taxes; nobody really wants that — and the necessarily disparate factions of GA get to shake hands and raise a toast to defeating the dreaded user fees. In the end, it had little to do with the political clout of the mass of pilots or any kind of fear on the part of the Administration in upsetting that relatively small segment of society. The FAA's own meltdown on airline inspections and the controller situation made user fees small potatoes in the grand scheme. They were easy to ditch, while Senators and Congressmen on both sides line up to be the first to "fix" the FAA.

Still, a win is a win, and there should be some celebration of that. But before they break out the good stuff, GA leaders might consider reaching for a diet soda instead. Everyone from homebuilders to BBJ owners will need to be in good shape for the next round because chances are the FAA's own difficulties won't come to the rescue the next time.

Next time? Aren't user fees dead? Not by a long shot. And assuming (which might be a stretch) that the Democrats have better strategic planning than the FAA seems to have, there may be an administration in place that could be very happy to dump the whole mess of "fixing" the FAA on the "rich" who fly privately, whatever form that takes. And that would be the ultimate irony.

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