Swift 100R is now ASTM

[hazek]

8 hours ago, Rick Junkin said:

Having a bad day?

Just extremely disappointed with bullshit. You Americans have no idea how much worse it is here in Europe for light GA. I’m seriously questioning whether or not my plane will be able to fly after the AVGAS extension until 2032 passes. I lost all motivation to put any upgrades into my plane or do any facelifting and it desperately needs both. And it’s all because of this bullshit.

I mean look at what SpaceX accomplished in just 4 years at Starbase, and we can’t get a reliable high powered engine running on less than some prehistoric fuel?? While there are Billions of cars on the road? Laughable. Well it would be if it wasn’t so sad.

[hazek]

2 hours ago, MikeOH said:

The real answer, as usual, to this problem is not poor engineering, failure to take advantage of new technologies, or 'lazy poor excuses from engineers', but ECONOMICS.

What is the volume and price of turboprop engines these days compared with GA piston powerplants?

And, yet again, how many 'spaceship' car engines do suppose are built and sold every year compared with GA piston powerplants?

Finally, given the testing and certification costs for aviation products, on top of rather significant development costs associated with a clean sheet design, just how long do you suppose the payback is going to be given the miniscule market volume of GA piston powerplants?

Yes of course that’s the real problem. But that IS an engineering problem! What did Musk do with SpaceX really? Did he find a new market and some new economics to make his company viable? No. He figured out all the waste and poor engineering of legacy rockets and found solutions that made his rocket better and cheaper. And now they dominate.

If either Lycoming or Continental had someone like Musk, willing to and capable, that would seriously look at what upfront capital investment is needed to design and build engines much cheaply and better, they could recuperate that investment once their engine became the dominant product. I know it’s possible to do! It’s a fact! How? Rotax! And maybe now Adept!

But it’s of course much much easier and safer to milk the cash cow for as long as possible.

(and I apologise for the emotionally charged style of writing, but this issue really pisses me off)

[Ibra]

41 minutes ago, hazek said:

I know it’s possible to do! It’s a fact! How? Rotax! And maybe now Adept!

We still need to see those Rotax that match 200hp-310hp bands, say IO360 or TSIO550, Rotax made lot of competition and innovation 80hp-160hp band, however, they still short in 200hp-310hp band, they tried V6Cyl AeroEngine but no luck

https://www.kitplanes.com/crystal-balling-what-will-rotax-do-next/

The problem now for GA is that they have a lot of money to make in multi-rotors or drones markets, so they will become another dinosaur in 80hp-180hp band.

The Rotax market is the same as UL94 market (or UL91 or Mogas in Europe) with 80hp-160hp engines, these already have unleaded fuel solution even with Lyco or Conti, when it comes to detonation?

There is a big added value from Rotax in 80hp-160hp band: being able to crunch 80-87 MON Mogas Autofuel with 10% ethanol and full of aromatics without vapour lock. However, they have not made any major discoveries to replace "100MON engines".

They also have own detonation problems when running turbos on SP95, SP98, UL91, UL94, 100LL with octane rating from 80MOM to 100MON, their last service letters made lot of advisories on MP/RPM operating envelopes and choice of fuels...

UL91 in Turbo Bristell,

https://www.bristell.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ADxC-73-SB-042_A-Fuel-Grade-UL91-avoidance.pdf

MAP limits for SP95 and SP98 auto-fuels,

https://share.google/zArSzOfzxGHFd7Ovt

I am sure they have smart people to innovate but getting into the "real 100 octane market" is not a walk in the park: my understanding, they are going for twin engines market with  2×160hp rather than 310hp single engine market while consolidating their position in 80hp-160hp, especially with drone applications (zero incentive to try anything else).

Edited Friday at 07:07 AM by Ibra

[1980Mooney]

7 hours ago, hazek said:

Yes of course that’s the real problem. But that IS an engineering problem! What did Musk do with SpaceX really? Did he find a new market and some new economics to make his company viable? No. He figured out all the waste and poor engineering of legacy rockets and found solutions that made his rocket better and cheaper. And now they dominate.

If either Lycoming or Continental had someone like Musk, willing to and capable, that would seriously look at what upfront capital investment is needed to design and build engines much cheaply and better, they could recuperate that investment once their engine became the dominant product. I know it’s possible to do! It’s a fact! How? Rotax! And maybe now Adept!

But it’s of course much much easier and safer to milk the cash cow for as long as possible.

(and I apologise for the emotionally charged style of writing, but this issue really pisses me off)

You sound/act like there are no and have never been any smart people anywhere working on this. Tell us why Thielert tried in 1999 and failed. Tell us why you have not mentioned DeltaHawk as a possible near term solution. 

[MikeOH]

15 hours ago, hazek said:

Yes of course that’s the real problem. But that IS an engineering problem! What did Musk do with SpaceX really? Did he find a new market and some new economics to make his company viable? No. He figured out all the waste and poor engineering of legacy rockets and found solutions that made his rocket better and cheaper. And now they dominate.

If either Lycoming or Continental had someone like Musk, willing to and capable, that would seriously look at what upfront capital investment is needed to design and build engines much cheaply and better, they could recuperate that investment once their engine became the dominant product. I know it’s possible to do! It’s a fact! How? Rotax! And maybe now Adept!

But it’s of course much much easier and safer to milk the cash cow for as long as possible.

(and I apologise for the emotionally charged style of writing, but this issue really pisses me off)

No, it is NOT an engineering problem!  The SpaceX/Musk analogy is FALSE!  He absolutely saw a HUGE market (launching other people/countries' satellites) for ENORMOUS amounts of money. It was absolutely worth the STAGGERING amount of development costs because the payback has been AMAZING.  No NEW economics; just the same old ones: see an emerging market, use your capital and expertise to, well, capitalize on it!

There is NO such payback waiting for the development of a clean sheet GA piston engine.  It is about as much of an antithesis to SpaceX as I can imagine.  If SpaceX was publicly traded, I'd invest in a heartbeat.  IMHO, only a fool would invest in a 'new' GA piston engine project

And, hey, I understand the emotional nature of this...I, too, am royally pissed off!  For me it's this 'no lead' mandate being forced down our throats!

[Shadrach]

On 9/18/2025 at 2:10 PM, GeeBee said:

Nobody buys them because nobody has to buy them. Necessity is the "mother of invention"?

Yes, government mandated innovation is the key to success…thank God they made horses illegal in the early 1900s or the automobile would’ve never been invented and city streets would still be full of horseshit.

[GeeBee]

2 hours ago, Shadrach said:

Yes, government mandated innovation is the key to success…thank God they made horses illegal in the early 1900s or the automobile would’ve never been invented and city streets would still be full of horseshit.

Actually fuel was the reason for horses going away. To create fuel for horses hay and silage had to be hauled into the city to the livery stables. Livery stables required large plots of land which as cities grew was too expensive and resulted in "high ramp fees" for horses and we have not even talked about water troughs. Many cities outlawed livery stables within the municipal confines because of health and economic reasons, just like leaded fuel now.

[Justin Schmidt]

Ultimately, everything comes down to economics.  Is there a market and can i make a profit 

[N201MKTurbo]

2 hours ago, GeeBee said:

Actually fuel was the reason for horses going away. To create fuel for horses hay and silage had to be hauled into the city to the livery stables. Livery stables required large plots of land which as cities grew was too expensive and resulted in "high ramp fees" for horses and we have not even talked about water troughs. Many cities outlawed livery stables within the municipal confines because of health and economic reasons, just like leaded fuel now.

1894 was peak horse shit in NYC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of_1894

 

 

[Ibra]

9 hours ago, Shadrach said:

thank God they made horses illegal in the early 1900s or the automobile would’ve never been invented and city streets would still be full of horseshit.

That is very true, people and government seem alarmed these days with pollution, however, there is literally nothing new under the sun !

I recall reading the most polluted day in history of Paris was in 1900, the solution was switching to ICE cars (politician are exactly the same: making laws on the fly, showing they are doing something, taxes and bans here and there…).

https://earth.org/data_visualization/air-pollution-in-paris/

Around the year 1900, Parisians knew they had a serious pollution problem. No, not smog and particulate matter, they said, but the dung from over 80,000 horses carrying people and loads around the city everyday. Officials decided to test moving horse-drawn vehicles to the verge of the Champs-Elysees causeway, while motorized vehicles would be given the center. The contrast between the manure-laden and rubber-smoothed aisles left people convinced (translated from a French article in the “Figaro”): “It is easy to see that, from a hygienic standpoint, automobiles whose exhaust is rapidly absorbed by the air, are preferable to equestrian carriages.”

https://www.lefigaro.fr/histoire/archives/2016/07/01/26010-20160701ARTFIG00300-en-1900-le-pic-de-pollution-a-paris-est-du-aux-moteurs-a-crottin.php#:~:text=En 1900%2C on compte près,%2C de «parfums pernicieux».

Edited Saturday at 08:14 AM by Ibra

[GeeBee]

If you have ever been to Mackinac island, where cars are not allowed, you know what a pollution problem horses represent. Even though they have "poop patrols" and aprons behind the carriage horses the air constantly reeks of horse poop, which means there is a high coliform  count in the air (read sickness).  They are also a huge safety hazard. As we were going down to the ferry a piece of building insulation blew across the road, spooked the horses and as they backed in fear the wagon started to jack knife and tip over. My brother and I were hanging off the side like a couple sailors on a healing sailboat to keep the wagon upright. It is a reminder how dangerous life was in that time.

[1980Mooney]

On 9/18/2025 at 11:16 PM, McMooney said:

But they could run at 2700 rpm damn near forever 8), 3500 rpm, 4000 rpm???  there's really no reason you need to run at wot unless you want like 400hp or soemthing

Unless you have a heavy foot or are drag racing from every light, the engines on modern cars with 7-11 speed transmissions may not touch 3,000 rpm for even a moment.  And they are rarely ever at WOT.  

I bought a Mooney to fly fast.  I am WOT takeoff, climb and cruise.  And when descending from the low teens also WOT.

Now if you want to use an automotive engine limited to 2,700 RPM in an airplane, then don't plan on having much HP.  In fact plan on tripling the size of your engine if you want 200 hp for climb (or 300 hp for Long Bodies).

• I have a turbo MB which shows HP and Torque.  At WOT with RPM at 2,700, the HP was about 85 out of a maximum 241.  That is only 35% of rated HP. 
• Look at a normally aspirated Ford 350GT.  It produces about 140 HP at 2,700 RPM out of a max 467.  That is only 30% of peak.

Many here think it would be so easy to just slap an automotive engine into an airplane.  Thielert, Austro and Orenda could not adapt automotive engines to run at 2,700 RPM.  They all need gear reduction.  Rotax needs gear reduction also (2.27/1 or 2.43/1 rpm reduction)

Although many also think the engineers at Lycoming and Continental to be lazy and stupid, those engines are an amazing combination of compact power density, simplicity, light weight and RELIABILITY.  My MB M274 DE20 engine weighs over 300 lbs. reportedly - I bet it does not include the radiator.  M20K owners would need almost three of those limited to 2,700 rpm to equal the TSIO-360.  At least 900 lbs on the the nose...

The Ford VooDoo 5.2 GT350 weighs about 430 lbs without accessories.  So Ovation owners would need over 2 of those limited to 2,700 RPM to equal the IO-550.....only about 1,000 lbs on the nose....

Edited 14 hours ago by 1980Mooney

[1980Mooney]

OMG I forgot:

• How can we forget the Porsche PFM 3200 - an inferior engine from a lot of "smart guys"
• And Toyota tried to adapt a Lexus V-8 for GA - the 360hp FV2400-2TC- Toyota is cleared to produce piston aero-engine | News | Flight Global  Reportedly certificated but never commercialized.  
• Reportedly Honda looked the possibility and passed - developed their turbine instead.
• And Kawasaki is diddling around.  It will be brilliant packaging hanging that off the nose of a Mooney....
  • 

[1980Mooney]

9 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

OMG I forgot:

• How can we forget the Porsche PFM 3200 - an inferior engine from a lot of "smart guys"
• And Toyota tried to adapt a Lexus V-8 for GA - the 360hp FV2400-2TC- Toyota is cleared to produce piston aero-engine | News | Flight Global  Reportedly certificated but never commercialized.  
• Reportedly Honda looked the possibility and passed - developed their turbine instead.
• And Kawasaki is diddling around.  It will be brilliant packaging hanging that off the nose of a Mooney....
  • 

Check out the drag inducing radiator on this Kawasaki concept.  The good news it can double as a belly saver during gear-ups!  Kawasaki Aero Piston Engine | Kawasaki Motors, Ltd.

Edited 15 hours ago by 1980Mooney

[EricJ]

18 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

Check out the drag inducing radiator on this Kawasaki concept.  The good news it can double as a belly saver during gear-ups!  Kawasaki Aero Piston Engine | Kawasaki Motors, Ltd.

If the engine is making enough heat, that type of cooler can produce enough thrust to cancel the drag it creates, so you wind up getting the cooler for free.   Liquid cooling does add maintenance,  weight and and additional failure modes, though.

[Pinecone]

On 9/18/2025 at 9:55 AM, GeeBee said:

I assure you a FADEC with a knock sensor is much better at it than you. It is the reason for instance you can burn any fuel in an automobile even if the manufacturer says otherwise. Yeah, you won't get the full performance of the engine design, but it demonstrates the capability of FADEC.

The Big 2 in aircraft don't need new engines, they need new engine controls. 

Yes, they do that by retarding the timing and reducing power.

So that hot day at higher density altitude, you get even less power that normal.

Car engines use all that tech because they run at idle to very high RPM.   Our engines run a a few different RPM and things don't change much or rapidly.

[Pinecone]

On 9/19/2025 at 12:16 AM, McMooney said:

But they could run at 2700 rpm damn near forever 8), 3500 rpm, 4000 rpm???  there's really no reason you need to run at wot unless you want like 400hp or soemthing

Are they running at 2700 RPM WOT.

Why would you put in an engine capable of 400 HP and run it at 200 HP???  And car engines run less that that power.   IIRC the Tesla cruses at something less than 20 HP.

" For example, a Model 3 might use around 10 kW (13-15 hp) on a flat road at 40 mph or 15-25 kW (20-34 hp) at 60-70 mph"

Realizing that best efficiency is at WOT due to things like pumping losses.

[McMooney]

5 hours ago, Pinecone said:

Are they running at 2700 RPM WOT.

Why would you put in an engine capable of 400 HP and run it at 200 HP???  And car engines run less that that power.   IIRC the Tesla cruses at something less than 20 HP.

" For example, a Model 3 might use around 10 kW (13-15 hp) on a flat road at 40 mph or 15-25 kW (20-34 hp) at 60-70 mph"

Realizing that best efficiency is at WOT due to things like pumping losses.

tha'ts what they do with airplane engines,  if it could run at 5k rpm it would put out massive hp also., no controversy here fuel+spark = hp.   add a turbo and things get interesting, even that DOG of a ford v8 posted earlier would put out much higher numbers at lower rpm.   

 

someone talk diamond into selling their diesel

heres a chart for my pedestrian ecodiesel

 

Edited 8 hours ago by McMooney

[Jackk]

 

8 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

Check out the drag inducing radiator on this Kawasaki concept.  The good news it can double as a belly saver during gear-ups!  Kawasaki Aero Piston Engine | Kawasaki Motors, Ltd.

Uhh

 

 

 

 

[Pinecone]

7 hours ago, McMooney said:

tha'ts what they do with airplane engines,  if it could run at 5k rpm it would put out massive hp also., no controversy here fuel+spark = hp.   add a turbo and things get interesting, even that DOG of a ford v8 posted earlier would put out much higher numbers at lower rpm.   

 

someone talk diamond into selling their diesel

heres a chart for my pedestrian ecodiesel

 

That is at WOT.  How long will that engine last at close to WOT?

My daily driver puts out 180 HP at peak (turbo with intercooler).  But my average MPG is around 35.   And my average speed is around 35 MPH.  So I average 1 GPH or 13.7 HP (assuming LOP operation).   Not enough to fly a plane.

Even at cruise on the highway I am burning about 2 GPH, or 27.4 HP.

My performance car puts out a max of 333 HP, out of 196 cubic inches.  But at a fast cruise, it burns 2.2 GPH or about 33 HP (naturally aspirated, higher compression).

[McMooney]

47 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

That is at WOT.  How long will that engine last at close to WOT?

My daily driver puts out 180 HP at peak (turbo with intercooler).  But my average MPG is around 35.   And my average speed is around 35 MPH.  So I average 1 GPH or 13.7 HP (assuming LOP operation).   Not enough to fly a plane.

Even at cruise on the highway I am burning about 2 GPH, or 27.4 HP.

My performance car puts out a max of 333 HP, out of 196 cubic inches.  But at a fast cruise, it burns 2.2 GPH or about 33 HP (naturally aspirated, higher compression).

wot doesn't matter, a better comparison is how long will it put out 200hp at sea level or something

[Pinecone]

Just now, McMooney said:

wot doesn't matter, a better comparison is how long will it put out 200hp at sea level or something

True.  

I cruise at 138 HP in my K.  So how long would that engine put out 138 HP?