As Piper rides a wave of trainer aircraft demand, it announced at Aero in Friedrichshafen, Germany, that it will offer a diesel version of its PA-44 Seminole. The new model will be powered by a new Jet-A engine model from Continental Motors, the 170-HP CD-170, a variant of Continental’s CD-100 series diesel engines.
The Seminole DX follows the diesel-powered Archer DX, which was introduced at Aero in 2014. The Archer DX uses the 155-HP CD-155 Continental engine and is intended primarily for the European and Asian markets, where avgas is becoming difficult to find and expensive when it is available.
According to Piper’s Simon Caldecott, the Seminole DX will be equipped with counter-rotating props to eliminate the need for critical-engine training. As are the current Diamond twin diesels that precede it, the Archer DX will have single-lever power controls and autofeathering propellers. The panel will include Garmin’s new G1000 NXi EFIS system.
