And, more exciting as an engine to me, ISTR some Swiss project for a GA Wankel.
I suppose you are talking about
Mistral Engines?
I have seen it at Aero in Friedrichshafen but so far I am rather unimpressed. Apart from the usual issues like development costs, certification issues, lack of progress etc., I fail to see the value of their approach.
The SFC (specific fuel consumption) will not be better than what we have today with our 1940s avgas engines, they don't even claim that. The engine requires high octane petrol, avgas or a future unleaded alternative. This makes the whole project pointless in my opinion, something new will have to burn jet fuel (kerosene). They do say that in the future they plan to make their engine run on jet fuel but why not from the start and how credible is this statement? How do they plan to convince the most conservative engine market with an engine concept that has a (unfounded) bad reputation?
We're well set in the 80-160hp range with Rotax covering 80-115 and Thielert/Austro Engine 135-166hp but we're nowhere near sensible products in the 200+hp range.
I guess the SMA product has the highest likelihood of succeeding one day -- provided they realize that they will never be able to recover their development costs. I also believe that whatever the solution is, it will be a US product given that the market is over there. Continental having licensed the SMA is a good thing.