Diesel aircraft engines and are the light jets pushing out the twins?

In rec.aviation.owning R. David Steele /omega wrote:
What has happened to the development of the diesel aircraft
engines? As far as I have seen, only Diamond has a production
aircraft with diesel engines (they flew one across the Atlantic,
with 5.76 gph).

See http://www.avweb.com/ the column entitled Motor Head #2: Excerpts
from the Oshkosh Notebook.

And it looks like the small jets are pushing the turbo props and
the twin piston engines. Is it a matter of time before it will
be cheaper to just buy a small jet?

I'm not holding my breath on that one.

What puzzles me is why there doesn't appear to be anyone working on
turbines in the range of 160 to 250 HP for aircraft.

The upside to diesels is Jet-A is cheaper and more available just about
everywhere outside the US.

The downside is they tend to be heavier than the gas engines they would
replace, reducing the usefull load.

Turbines run on Jet-A and tend to be a lot lighter.

Put a 180 HP turbine in a 172 and you would have a real 4 place A/C,
though one with a long, funny looking nose to make the W/B work out.


--
Jim Pennino

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