I have to say that I am cynical about this whole diesel thing, about five years back when one of the hopeful new diesel companys was saying that they were on the brink of launching the much talked of engine on the market we offerd them a deal to put the engine into a popular aircraft that is used for touring and (of more interest to us) glider tugging.
We would do all the airframe & instalation work to get the STC as we were assured that it would get certification.
With over 2000 of these aircraft in Europe you would think that they would have jumped at the chance....just think of the engine sales!..........but No! they would not provide us with an engine (they would still own it) for test flying, they said we would have to buy the engine dispite the fact that we would have to put in work that far exceeded the value of the engine.
As that point I got to thinking that the whole project was a scam to get goverment R & D funding and the thing would never get further than a few research aircraft.
The deltahawk engine looks by far the best aviation deisel that I have seen so far and I hope that it can meet the expectations of the makers but I cant help thinking that the future is with the Lycoming FADEC mogas engine.