Hi
again:
diesel engines are STILL making is first steps in "flight environment", because of many reasons... certification, reliability, etc...
but they will come to stay (i believe...
), right now, with present models, it's not worthy to try to use them in rotor world because the bad thing's that they (still) have don't outcome the plus things they have, when compared it "normal" av-gas pistions
(weight/power, reliabilty, new tech/high cost, etc.. )
(in the fixed wing world, they already are making some ground ....)
maybe i'm nobody, and for sure that i don't know mutch... but if you believe in history, and you are in europe (sorry rest of the world), you can see how in the automobile industry, every one is going crazy with diesel, when, at what 10 15 years ago, diesel car engines were slow noisy undepowered smokysh and so one...
now every one whats a diesel....
there was a great improvement in technology, high investment, etc... and a great pie of all auto engines became diesel..
if you think/extrapolate to de flight cene, and remember that the piston engines technology, has allready a "few" years old, plus a huge investment in this "new" diesel tech... will see that in few years there will better diesel engines and will overcome in some aplications the "old" av-gas pistion...
regards
happynewyear
edit: to put a few more lines
the fuel consuption is another issue (you can see with auto industry if you like), vif you can have the same power, it more or less the same engine weight, but with a lower consuption, it's not dificult to guess to where "everybody" falls
even more truth, in rotor world (i will not give numbers, because i don't have any, but if anyone have... lets see..)
pick an piston engine heli, see how much fuel it carry and how much uses in a given time (so far , all possible), pick an "example" engine (say it's the same size / power and weight... maybe not truth right now, but will be... or will weight the same, and "drink" less, or will have more power..), and make the math to our heli, with this new engine... ans see how much payload you can carry or how far you can go more
regards