DeltaHawk Diesel Engine STC

[KSMooniac]

I wanted to separate this topic from the other general OSH goodies thread...

I talked with them last week and am excited about their product.  If they can certify their 200 hp engine as planned next year, there will be a great option for all of us in my opinion.  Their intent is NOT to enter the STC business for retrofit/upgrade business with existing airframes, and instead plan to rely on owner's groups or other companies to do the STC work.  That is a very logical position for young company.

They recently secured a contract to outfit Navy blimps with their engines, so that is a great vote of confidence in the product, and hopefully gives them a nice revenue stream to aid with the certification work.

One guy in the tent mentioned they had spoken with a Mooney owner's group in the past.  After learning that, I went back to the MAPA tent and Trey did not have any knowledge of any such discussions.  Susan Harrison from MAC did not either, so I'm fishing around trying to see if anyone has already started work.  LoPresti is apparently working on a Cirrus conversion first.

I am very, very interested in developing an STC for the 180 and 200 hp Mooneys.  My day job is a structural analyst in the aircraft industry, and I have aspirations of earning a DER certificate and eventually starting a composite fabrication shop.  Such an STC project would dovetail nicely with those goals...so I want to do it!  I have some DER friends and FAA offices local to me to assist as necessary.  I would like to hear from anyone that is interested in such a conversion, or if they have knowledge of anyone already working on one.

There are many advantages to such a conversion such as 100% power to 18,000 feet, better BSFC, likely higher cruise speed for a given power setting due to improved aerodynamics of a replacement cowl, longer range, fewer engine-related systems to maintain, etc.  Engineering-wise, the firewall forward package should be very close to weight-neutral.  It might be possible to retain the existing cowls and modify them appropriately, but I think a replacement cowl would be a better idea.

I have no prediction regarding costs at this point, but looking at their experimental kit costs, it would be quite a bit more expensive than an IO-360, but very competitve with an IO-360 + Turbo Normalizer kit (more apples-to-apples comparison) and offer tremendous fuel savings over a TBO run.

I'm not looking for any money either, so please post here if you have any interest and/or direct knowledge of someone else pursuing such an idea.

[Mcstealth]

Would you consider working with an established shop, say Dugosh or Maxwell, or someone close to you, just because? Not work with an established shop, just because? Just thinking out loud....

[Parker_Woodruff]

Is the future a TBR or TBO?

[KSMooniac]

Parker, they're predicting a TBO of 2000 hours...we'll see what happens when they certify.  I suspect it will initially be a conservative TBO or inspection interval that gets extended as the fleet leaders accumulate time in service.

Mcstealth, I would consider working with others, but the shops like Maxwell's and Dugosh can't (to my knowledge anyway) offer any assistance with the actual engineering work but they could certainly turn into distributors/installers down the road.  There will be a lot of engineering work up front (my specialty) and then prototyping and testing.  They could perhaps offer good suggestions regarding systems routing, maintenance access, etc. but I feel like I would have a decent handle on those issues from my own wrenching experience.

[DaV8or]

I think it's a great idea! However, I'm only interested when my current engine runs out or they cut off the 100LL. Hopefully for my pocket book, both conditions are many, many years off. I too talked to the Delta Hawk folks. It really is a promising product. They just need to polish it up a little. The engine they had on display really had that one off working prototype look. To convince people to drop that kind of coin on their product, they need to get the fit and finish up to the standard of Lycoming, Continental and their main competitior, Austro (Diamond). Their display gave me the impression of "check back with us later when we have it all figured out", rather than a development on the verge of STC reality. Just my opinion of course.

[tablor]

Dugosh has engineering resources that could be useful on a consultant type basis.  You might be capable of creating the necessary drawings and associated stress analysis/reports, but if I were you I would most definitely consider a reputable (and more importantly knowledgeable in engineering terms) source for airframe information a requirement to your project.  Dugosh has Bill Wheat from the factory over on Fridays.  You may not have questions for anyone at the moment, but at some point you'll run across a list of items and it'd probably be a good idea to have someone on speed dial at that point. I can offer several references - IE Powerplant DER, Flight Test DER - with Mooney experience.

My 2 cents, thanks for reading!

[KSMooniac]

tablor, your contacts would certainly be very beneficial!  Engineers with airframe-specific experience would be a definite time-saver on such a project, even if I could muddle through it and eventually get to the right answers on my own.  It would be great for you to PM your contact info to me if you don't mind. 

[conom06d]

I would definitely consider this when i finally replace my motor. I think a diesel engine would be an awesome idea!

[KJATCt]

have you tried talking to Bil Wheat out in Kerrville? The factory may have some intrest and be willing to lend an engineering hand.

[fantom]

I think you're on to something, Scott. I'll talk to you off line when I get a bit of time.

 

 

[aerobert]

All,

A couple of months ago Geoff began a thread on "General Mooney Talk" "Diesel (Piston) Mooney."  Apparently he has been talking to the folks at Deltahawk as well.  I'm about 500 hours from tbo and am very interested in a diesel replacement for my 231. 

Jeff  - 231KV

[Cruiser]

Great idea, there are many opportunities out there for powerplant improvements. A diesel sounds terrific, but you will have to go well beyond TBO before anything like that will be approved for our Mooneys. I have 1800 hrs to go, maybe it will be ready when mine reaches TBO

[aerobert]

at my rate 500 hours is 3 - 4 years so I am afraid that you're right.  Things seem to move at a glacial pace in the aviation world.

 

Jeff 231 KV

[skyking]

i have done zero research on this as of yet but being in the oil and gas business i know avgas is on the way out.

Even though i have a fresh engine i know the time will come to do something about the gas situation and have been eyeing the diesel engines that the new diamond aircraft have in them. Has anybody approched that maunufaturer? or is it the same engine?

[Piloto]

Although the idea of switching to a Diesel engine sounds like the solution for the abscense of AVGAS I personally think a MOGAS engine is the best solution. MOGAS is the most available motor vehicle fuel in the world. MOGAS is driven by a market of more than a billion vehicles in the world. I do not think that either Lycoming or Continental are going to let their business go away because of the abscence of AVGAS. Any smart CEO would see an opportunity here to develop an engine mod to run on MOGAS. This mod can provide the companies with so much needed substantial income. A MOGAS mod to current engines would substantially be cheaper than a new Diesel engine. I would hold to my trusty Lyc. for now. 

José 

[DaV8or]

Quote: Piloto

Although the idea of switching to a Diesel engine sounds like the solution for the abscense of AVGAS I personally think a MOGAS engine is the best solution. MOGAS is the most available motor vehicle fuel in the world. MOGAS is driven by a market of more than a billion vehicles in the world. I do not think that either Lycoming or Continental are going to let their business go away because of the abscence of AVGAS. Any smart CEO would see an opportunity here to develop an engine mod to run on MOGAS. This mod can provide the companies with so much needed substantial income. A MOGAS mod to current engines would substantially be cheaper than a new Diesel engine. I would hold to my trusty Lyc. for now. 

José 

[Clarence]

Hello everyone,

While the idea of a Delta Hawk sounds appealing I believe it will be years if ever before it flies in a Mooney.  Any one remeber the Zoch Aero Diesel?  It was at Oshkosh for years but turned out to be another flash in the pan that went know where.  I believe that we will be using flat engines for some time to come.

I have thought of the Eggenfellner http://www.eggenfellneraircraft.com/Subaru/Subaru.html Subaru conversion for a replacement for the 360 Lycoming.  They are in production and flying in many homebuilt airframes and a one point had a turbocharged version. They are cheap by comparison and burn 93 octane fuel which we won't run out of for some time.

Unfortunately in Canada de-certifying a Mooney is much harder than in the US, it would make an interesting project as there are more 360 power Mooney's than any other model.

Just a thought,

Clarence

 

[Piloto]

Quote: DaV8or

          Who knows what the future holds, but I think we'll see Jet A options before we'll see MOGAS engine conversions.

[skyking]

Clarence: It is not that difficult to de-certify the Mooney here. I know 2 guys that have "A" models that are both now under the 51% rule. While i have no plans to do it if you wish ican give you their names and numbers and they can tell you how it was done. They are both in your area too.

I agree with the mogas idea too and hope that it goes that way, but i honestly think we will see diesel's first as the option to AvGas.

[DaV8or]

Welcome to the forums Clarence! You might be the only M18 owner here. The Subaru conversion is probably the best auto conversion out there, but I still have concerns about long life in aircraft applications, particularly heavier four place aircraft. The Subaru H6 engine is about 183 cubic inches and Eggenfellner claims 200hp, so that means nearly 1.1 horse power per cubic inch vs. Lycoming's .56 hp per cubic inch. That would suggest a pretty stressed engine at full power. That's OK in a auto application because nobody ever uses full throttle very long in a car, but airplanes go full throttle for quite extended periods.

I don't know, maybe somebody will put one in an RV-10 and fly it 2000 hours, but I doubt it.

[Jerry 5TJ]

I'm pondering the post-100LL future like the rest of us piston airplane folk. 

The cost of a conversion is interesting to discuss in the aviation community.  While talking with fellow airport types earlier this year I asked "what would you pay to convert your engine to use MOGAS?"  Answers ranged from "nothing" to around $15,000.  That was an informal poll over beer and hot dogs at the pilot association meeting. 

I thought those figures were revealing. 

The O-360 A1A in my "C" currently lists at $41K, and about $36K discounted.   See http://www.airpowerinc.com/ for that quote.  The core value is $13K, but I assume the core value will go to zero unless the MOGAS future is FADEC, unlikely for a non-injected engine like mine.

I figure the Diesel engine will cost at least as much as today's O-360 A1A, plus it will need a prop, engine mount and a new cowl and the STC.  We're looking at what, at least $60K?   If my poll is at all accurate, virtually none of my fellow pilots will pay for a diesel conversion of their airplane.   

As an aside, there is a Rolls-Royce turbine engine small enough to fit into a Mooney airframe.  There is a 317 hp variant of the RR250 series engine.   It is used in the P210 Silver Eagle.  Nice little engine, so small it looks like a toy but it reliably cranks out the hp.  It is not a paper flight-of-fancy PR speculation, either; RR have built over 30,000 of them.    That engine costs about $400K, alas.

 

[KSMooniac]

Anything requiring a separate gear box to swing a prop is going to be a bad idea IMO.

[Mcstealth]

Come on guys. In the experimental world, there are Subi engines that have run trouble free till TBO. True, Subi doesn't have the countless hours that Lyc obviously has but to down play them is stuff of a Yahoo board. I could easily state something inflamatory, about anything...........

I say good on them for producing a viable engine alternative for the avaition market, and the fact that they are still in business in these poor aviation conditions, speaks voulmes.

Sincerely, David

[Barry]

I had a GO-300 in a Cessna 175 which went to TBO. It used half an oil tanker of oil during this time, however (leaks, not burn). When I would land and go into the FBO for an hour or so, upon return, the plane would be mapped into the tarmac with a huge oil stain the shape of the plane )

[Barry]

Yep, 1200 was the TBO. Also, it is amazing the low time on airframe/engine for homebuilts. I guess the idea that there are builders and there are flyers, but not too many builder/flyers, is accurate.