Aircraft Diesel Manufacturers

The last couple of years development in aircraft engines has been more or less concentrating on diesel engines. We have seen one off installations to fully developed engine production lines. A number of companies are active on this market primarily due to major concern of long term availability and the relative high price of AVgas (Europe).

More and more diesel engines will become available for the General Aviation market. As AVgas is becoming a thing of the past we need those engines.

Engine Manufacturers

Some companies designing and selling aircraft diesel engines are:

Austro AE300 Diesel Engine

• Austro Engine GmbH, AE 300 2.0 170 bhp 560 Nm 4 stroke 2000 hr TBO. Based on a diesel car engine and developed with Diamond Aircraft for use in DA-40, DA-42 and DA-50 aircraft, launched mid 2008, flying since 2007 and can be retrofitted in existing DA-40 and DA-42 replacing the TAE engines. The AE 300 is an inline four cylinder, 2.0-liter piston engine which uses Jet A1 or diesel fuel to produce 170 bhp (127 kW).
  The engine is liquid cooled, with a double overhead camshaft (DOHC). Every cylinder has four valves which are actuated by the cam follower. All engine components are controlled by an EEC system. Equipped with an electrical starter, an alternator, a water pump, an oil pump, a coolant system, an intercooler and an oil cooler.
  The propeller is driven by a directly integrated gearbox with an integral torsional vibration damper. US FAA Approved. This engine delivers more power on LESS fuel compared to a Thielert/Centurion engine.

• Thielert Aircraft Engines GmbH Centurion Aircraft Engines AG, Centurion 1.7 (135 bhp) and 2.0 (135 bhp and 155 bhp, S model) and Centurion 4.0 (350 bhp) 4 stroke, used mainly in Diamond Aircraft DA-40/42 and the US army in their drones. This engine is quite expensive, high maintenance and has very high operating cost due to design shortcuts, low TBO of the gearbox (300h and upgrade to 600h available) and shortcut management decisions. Thielert Engine Owners must visit the website of the "The Thielert Engine Owners Group".
• Centurion Aircraft Engines received the Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) for the installation of the Centurion 2.0s kerosene piston aircraft engine with 155 HP in the Cessna 172. On May 21, 2010, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued the STC. Centurion is the firm which took over the insolvent Thielert Aircraft Engines GmbH a year ago. This means that the Cessna models 172 F to S are now certified.

• Deltahawk, 160 bhp, 180 bhp and 200 bhp, 2 stroke piston ported models, turbo and supercharged, flying and working together with LoPresti Speed Merchants for a diesel powered Cirrus SR20, STC expected in 2010.
• Wilksch Airmotive, 120 bhp 312 Nm 0,49 lb/hp/hr, 3 cylinder 2 stroke, turbo and supercharged, (mass 100 kg) and a 160 bhp 4 cylinder (mass 115 kg), 120 bhp model flying (WAM-120 wide bore 140 bhp available) and 160 bhp model almost ready. Liberty Aerospace will use a Wilksch Diesel in their XL2 aircraft.
• Diesel Air Limited, DAIR-100, 90 bhp, 2 cylinder 4 pistons 2 stroke opposed based on JUMO design, model flying in airship, acquired by Howells Aero Engines Limited UK.
• Powerplant Developments Limited, Gemini-100, 100 bhp 285 Nm 0,39 lb/hp/hr dry mass 71 kg, 3 cylinder 6 pistons 2 stroke opposed based on JUMO design, 125 bhp turbocharged expected end of 2008.

• Teledyne Continental indicated (end of 2009) that they are busy developing "diesel technology with licenses and hardware from an outside source" with more info to come early 2010 (Mark Wilksch comes to mind here). May 2010: TCM announced that they are working together with French SMA to introduce the SR305 in the US market. Testing is underway in a Cessna 182.
• SMA Safran Group, the SR305-230 engine, 230 bhp air cooled 4 cylinder, certified and STC available for retrofit.

• Zoche, radial diesel 2 stroke, been designing for years (>15), nothing in production.
• Raptor Turbo Diesel (Vulcan Aircraft Engines), 105 bhp 4 stroke 4 cylinder diesel with FADEC, dry mass is 81 kg.
• ECO Motors, 80 and 100 bhp 4 stroke 4 cylinder diesel with FADEC based on a car engine, dry mass is around 98 kg.
• CMD Engine of Italy has a 6 cylinder horizontally opposed, direct drive of 5.56 liter. Power 300 HP at 2400 rpm with a 2-stroke diesel uniflow cycle.

The above list is only an indication of available engine manufacturers and might not be complete.

Future

As time will go by we will see more and more diesel engine manufacturers emerge, some will succeed others will disappear in history but one thing is for sure:

The future will be bright for the aero diesel engine!