Continental announced at Aero 2023 that its CD series of jet-fuel burning piston engines has reached 10 million flight hours. In addition, the newest CD model, the CD-170, has received a time between replacement (TBR) extension from 1,200 to 1,800 hours. In this podcast, Oliver Leber, Continental vice president for global sales and applications engineering, talks about the company’s achievements.
I am somewhat out of date on recent diesel efforts, recalling that at least one effort’s engine architecture was based on Mercedes block…now that German auto industry is under increasing pressure to abandon diesel and gas ICE (though “sustainable fuel” agreement seems to allow breathing room for export support)…is there any remaining Mercedes/automotive dependency for Continental or are they decoupled from the automotive industry turbulence?
I’ll never understand why the aero industry MUST constantly reinvent the wheel. On everything propulsion. The auto industry spends millions taking a new powerplant to market, then makes millions of them a year. They’re as drop dead reliable as a rock. Why not take advantage of that and just bolt on an auto system?
Rich R. Translation:
Is piston Jet-A thumbs up, or thumbs down?
Aviation is a very different use than automobiles and it is much more like truck use where the engine must run at 75% power or greater continuously blus weight is VERY important. so you can’t just drop an auto engine in and be at all successful.
It has also been proven that well designed compressed cast iron CGI blocks can be as light as Aluminum and do not have a throw away life like aluminum. The diamond engines are now proving successful and they are cast iron.
the technology used in modern diesels is very good and has allowed the present generation of diesels but the present aircraft engines are too small for anything other than recreational use. the real market is for working aircraft carrying 6 to 10 people maxium. Diamond needed to make many compromises to build the DA62 with the 175hp available for each engine . if they had an engine that produced 250 to 300 hp it would be a real winner.
having been connected with the EPS engine fiasco, where the technology was real and was proven by actual independent Airforce tests I know the real effort that is required to develop a new technology engine into a new application. EPS had a proven viable 320 to 450 hp aircraft engine but ran out of money and chose a bad investor to continue development . Developing a new engine is very expensive and that company was plagued with very bad management that took the company down as well as problems dealing with the electronic engine control supplier.
Heavy fuel , jet A or diesel is the future of small aircraft engines but the development is very expensive and you can’t do it with just taking a known technology to be packaged for engine and hanging a propeller on it. you need the expertise and $ to designed the proper package for aviation use.
The technology is not dead and there is extensive work being done to actually build the 400 HP + catagory engine that will eliminate the problem with the EPS effort.
I was hoping the military drone business would bail out GA. The original predator, not the inevitably bloated turbine version, has been used by poorer countries as a benchmark, and it had a rotax iirc.
If you build hundreds a month, a drone capable of taking out a tank or similar target will cost much less than a tank, and similar to the cost of a SAM.
I’d expect whatever engines they use to be a good basis for a prop plane. Militaries like diesel and jet fuel, not gasoline.