I was under the impression that Diesel Air Ltd -
Diesel Air Limited - who have handballed their project to the Americans.... namely, DeiselTech LLC -
FTI Diesel Tech, L.L.C. - DAIR-100 - have an entirely workable and highly satisfactory engine design in the form of the opposed piston, twin crankshaft engine.
The DAIR engine principle has been around for a long time... Rootes made a successful truck diesel engine in the form of the 2 stroke, supercharged Rootes TS3. However DAIR's idea is simpler than the Rootes truck engine with its complex cranks to a single crankshaft.
I personally feel that some further development of the DAIR engine will produce a winner. However, they need to up the size/no of cylinders, to make it attractive to anything but LSA, as it stands at present.
TCM seem to be getting dragged kicking and screaming into the diesel market, and taking the lazy way out, by not designing up something new, revolutionary, and exciting... which is quite achievable in this day and age.
There are plenty of new technologies and designs that are competent enough to provide a vastly superior and technically advanced engine... but no-o-o... TCM are too conservative to even consider that approach.....
When all's said and done, Packard had a viable diesel aircraft engine in 1929... and it would have still been around, if the chief engineer and promoter hadn't met a premature end in an aircraft crash. That, and the Great Depression, are about the only reasons the Packard diesel died... because when the designer died, the engine died with him.
At present, it appears to me that the Zoche,Thielert, and even the much-touted Austro AE300 still leave a lot to be desired, by way of improved design; simple, low-cost construction; and modest hourly running costs.
Diesels WILL be the way of the future in aero engines - their major advantages in superior performance at high levels, economy, simplicity, higher resistance to temperature extremes (once running), are all factors that make them the route to go down.
Don't forget, that at one time, diesels were sneered at, in trucks and tractors, and it was predicted they would never be able to produce a viable truck or tractor diesel. It did take over 2 decades... but Clessie Cummins showed 'em....
