Thielert (Diesel Engines)

On Feb 12, 3:23*am, Gig 601XL Builder
wrote:
Charles Talleyrand wrote:

Maybe diesel engines are catching on??????

Might want to read either last month's or the month's before Aviation
Consumer. Lots of maintenance and service issues.

Why should that be? Generally, diesels are great at running at high
power for long periods and they are also the powerplant of choice for
high reliability when fuel consumption is also an issue (ruling out
turbines) -or am I wrong?

Cheers

On Feb 13, 5:14*am, Peter wrote:
WingFlaps wrote

Why should that be? Generally, diesels are great at running at high
power for long periods and they are also *the powerplant of choice for
high reliability when fuel consumption is also an issue (ruling out
turbines) -or am I wrong?

Diesels are indeed great in applications where they can be designed
without weight issues e.g. ships and trucks.

It appears that their problems (Thielert specifically - there is no
other diesel actually flying any meaningful hours at present) are to
do with a lightweight car engine - 1.7 litres - being run at 130HP (or
close to it) for 100% of the time. The original car engine would be
running at 20-30HP, maybe 100HP very briefly in a big Merc on a German
motorway (no speed limits). But an aeroplane is a whole different
situation.

They also had some specific issues e.g. corrosion due to the coolant,
but all these can and will be solved.

They are now moving to a slightly different 2 litre design which they
hope will provide that extra bit of ruggedness.

But very significantly Diamond sell only their DA42 twin in the USA,
and, on a twin, engine failures *enroute* are manageable. They wisely
sell the DA40 single with a 180HP Lyco, in the USA.

The old Lycos, OTOH, can run at 75% power continuously and provided
the CHT is well managed (itself a science, as Deakin fans will know,
but no rocket science) it won't fall apart for 2000hrs. They also
don't appear to have any consistent catastrophic failure issues -
ignoring the odd Lyco crankshaft which has been hardened but they
forgot to temper it

A lot of interesting info from you and WingFlaps there Peter. I also
read somewhere recently that the Diamond Twin diesels that uses
Thielerts have limited life on the engine. I can't remember how many
hours, but at the end of the max hour, Thielert will replace your
engines with a fresh rebuild for $25k each, instead of rebuilding
yours for you. In essence, you are actually renting the engine $25k
for that specified hours flown. I suppose this is good and bad. Good
to know your DOC on the engine, bad that you don't get to keep the
core or run the engine past TBO if it was still running good.

Wil

In rec.aviation.owning Peter wrote:

William Hung wrote

A lot of interesting info from you and WingFlaps there Peter. I also
read somewhere recently that the Diamond Twin diesels that uses
Thielerts have limited life on the engine. I can't remember how many
hours, but at the end of the max hour, Thielert will replace your
engines with a fresh rebuild for $25k each, instead of rebuilding
yours for you. In essence, you are actually renting the engine $25k
for that specified hours flown. I suppose this is good and bad. Good
to know your DOC on the engine, bad that you don't get to keep the
core or run the engine past TBO if it was still running good.

Yes, something like that.

AFAIK this was forced on them by all the failures. Basically nobody
would buy a DA40TDI/DA42 unless they got such an engine warranty

$25k (if that's the figure in the U.S. market) is probably comparable
to fully overhauling say an IO360 anyway. If this works, one could
regard it as just a different business model.

But I bet the "scrap" engines get reworked by Thielert and most parts
re-used. The way the Lyco exchange engine market works (people
overhaul *their own* engine when the engine is young), the average
exchange engine is made from ~ 5000hrs old crankcases etc and the
wisdom of this can probably be debated both ways (esp. when taking
into account undeclared prop strikes etc, and NDT on aluminium fails
to pick up subsurface cracks).

There used to be a blurb on their web site that said the "run out"
aero engines were rebuilt and sold for ground power service, i.e.
water pumping and such.


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

Peter,

AFAIK this was forced on them by all the failure


Sorry, but that's completely wrong. "Power by the hour" was a Thielert
concept from the get-go.

But I bet the "scrap" engines get reworked by Thielert

You lose.

Why is it that each and every innovation in GA is met by people
spouting OWTs and made-up speculation, when a minute or two of simple
research would provide the facts? What picture does that paint of the
pilot population and their "hangar talk"? How about a simple "I don't
know and that's why I keep quiet on this" instead of spouting made-up
negatives? Sorry, but this is really annoying.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Thomas Borchert wrote in
:

Peter,

AFAIK this was forced on them by all the failure


Sorry, but that's completely wrong. "Power by the hour" was a Thielert
concept from the get-go.

But I bet the "scrap" engines get reworked by Thielert

You lose.

Why is it that each and every innovation in GA is met by people
spouting OWTs and made-up speculation, when a minute or two of simple
research would provide the facts? What picture does that paint of the
pilot population and their "hangar talk"? How about a simple "I don't
know and that's why I keep quiet on this" instead of spouting made-up
negatives? Sorry, but this is really annoying.


There's nothing made up about "No sparks, no power" I wouldn't buy one
because of this. My club was looking at one ofr a Cherokee and decided
against it because of the lack of limp home capability.


Bertie

Bertie,

There's nothing made up about "No sparks, no power" I wouldn't buy one
because of this. My club was looking at one ofr a Cherokee and decided
against it because of the lack of limp home capability.


That's not the point I complained about.

There's a ton of failure modes on any Lyc or TCM that lack "limp home
capability". Same with the Thielert. The argument is a red herring.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Thomas Borchert wrote in
:

Bertie,

There's nothing made up about "No sparks, no power" I wouldn't buy one
because of this. My club was looking at one ofr a Cherokee and decided
against it because of the lack of limp home capability.


That's not the point I complained about.

There's a ton of failure modes on any Lyc or TCM that lack "limp home
capability". Same with the Thielert. The argument is a red herring.


None of them regard electricity. The argument is sound.







Bertie

Bertie,

None of them regard electricity.


So what? Who decides electricity is somehow a more relevant failure
than others?

Look, you're obviously free to make that decision. Your club is, too.
But don't make it sound like there is something inherently wrong about
an engine just because it has different failure modes than the ones you
are used to.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Bertie the Bunyip writes:


There's nothing made up about "No sparks, no power" I wouldn't buy one
because of this. My club was looking at one ofr a Cherokee and decided
against it because of the lack of limp home capability.

What kind of sparks does a Diesel need?


--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

David Lesher wrote in news:fp1t8e$8vr$4
@reader2.panix.com:

Bertie the Bunyip writes:


There's nothing made up about "No sparks, no power" I wouldn't buy one
because of this. My club was looking at one ofr a Cherokee and decided
against it because of the lack of limp home capability.

What kind of sparks does a Diesel need?





This ine has a FADEC. No electricity and you have a big weight up front.

Worse, in the twin star installation, both engines are tied to an
electrical system that can punch out both at the same time. in this case,
when the gear was retracted...

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0...FADEC-0-a.html

Nice eh?


Bertie