The potetial use of diesel engines in light aircraft

[Lady Heath]

I would greatly appreciate it if there is anyone who has a knowledge on this subject to help me out a little. In brief I have to determine the power, weight and size of each a/c diesel engine and asses their compatibility with any of the current MAF fleet. (some of their a/c include cessna 208, 172, T210, 207)
This is a final year project I have to undertake for my aero-eng course!
I thought I would try this pool of experience!

[WOK]

Those diesel engines that are at an advanced stage of development are all, sensibly, designed to be of compatible mass and power output to established Lycoming and Contis, for obvious reasons.

I'm not very up to speed with how far they are along the certification line, but I believe that Aerospat. nee SOCATA are flying or about to fly one in the TB20.

It would appear that the 220hp plant will be first to be offered, then the 180ish then, I believe, a 300ish hp motor.

This should more or less cover the 172 and 206/207 a/c at least.

I guess diesel makes a lot of sense for MAF, given the presumed difficulties of obtaining AVGAS as opposed to AVTUR?

[Genghis the Engineer]

I was at the RAeS light aircraft design conference in September where Mark Wilsch of Wilsch aeromotive gave a superb presentation that would answer all of your questions and then some.

The bad news is he didn't present a written paper (the other papers are at http://www.raes.org.uk/light-av/index.htm but I got the impression that if you were to contact him he'd probably be glad to help you out.

G

[PPRuNe Towers]

Mark is very active on line - don't think he's presently working on powers ratings suitable for MAF aircraft but he's a fount of enthusiastic knowledge.

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Regards from the Towers

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[DOC.400]

Lady Heath
check the Pilot magazine website, www.pilotweb.co.uk, (http://www.pilotweb.co.uk,) they had an article over the last few months on diesels for GA.

[Lady Heath]

Thank-you all for your replies - much appreciated!
How exactly can I get in touch with Mark Wilsch?

:) :) :)