Kawasaki aviation engines

[N201MKTurbo]

3 hours ago, dkkim73 said:

Hydrogen fuel seems to me one of those very elegant ideas that's thorny in practice. 

Since you mention production, one of the most inspiring ideas I've heard of in ages is the work Valar Atomics is doing: they're trying to synthesize hydrocarbons using atomic power. 

Valor Atomics just got 19M in seed money. As someone who is working and investing in a biotech startup, you can’t do jack with 19 million.

[AJ88V]

I know Kaw makes a fine engine, but by the time this becomes real real, it won't be that much different from a Rotax if it's aimed at the GA market.  It won't be able to spin motorcycle fast (e.g. 10,000+RPM) to make that much power for very long, so they'll end up increasing displacement and reducing RPM just to get.a sustainable gear reduction system.

It would make more sense if they were targeting expendable military drones as @toto suggested.  A 200hp engine in the $5000 range that could hold together for even 200 hours reliably would likely find a market.  Recall that the best power to weight engines of WWII only had TBOs on the order of 500-800 hours for manned applications.  A 200 hp / 200 hr service life engine would carry a significant payload for some sort of loitering munition.  It doubly makes sense, as we should expect Japan to significantly ramp up defense spending re. CHN.

[N201MKTurbo]

6 hours ago, AJ88V said:

I know Kaw makes a fine engine, but by the time this becomes real real, it won't be that much different from a Rotax if it's aimed at the GA market.  It won't be able to spin motorcycle fast (e.g. 10,000+RPM) to make that much power for very long, so they'll end up increasing displacement and reducing RPM just to get.a sustainable gear reduction system.

It would make more sense if they were targeting expendable military drones as @toto suggested.  A 200hp engine in the $5000 range that could hold together for even 200 hours reliably would likely find a market.  Recall that the best power to weight engines of WWII only had TBOs on the order of 500-800 hours for manned applications.  A 200 hp / 200 hr service life engine would carry a significant payload for some sort of loitering munition.  It doubly makes sense, as we should expect Japan to significantly ramp up defense spending re. CHN.

Yep, they are going to end up looking like our 1920s tractor engines. With green valve covers.