3 ms·
Woo, turbines are great; fantastically reliable, awesome power-to-weight, able to use cheaper and safer fuel than gasoline piston engines. They are pretty expen
by jabl 8y ago
Woo, turbines are great; fantastically reliable, awesome power-to-weight, able to use cheaper and safer fuel than gasoline piston engines. They are pretty expensive though, wikipedia says the PT6 used in this project starts at around $500K.
There's a few companies designing smaller turbines (100-200 kW size) for aircraft, http://www.turbotech-aero.com/ http://www.turbotech-aero.com/ and https://www.turb.aero/ https://www.turb.aero/ , competing with Rotax 912, Lycoming, Continental. Guess we'll see if the promises of lower costs come true.
There's also a few companies making diesel aircraft engines, AFAIK these have seen some success in Europe where 100LL is crazy expensive.
Maybe GA is, ever so slowly, entering the jet (fuel) age..?
- sokoloff 8y agoYou can buy -28 PT6s for $150-200K with fresh hot section inspections, lots of time/cycles left on the rotable parts, and time since overhauls in the few thousand hour range. New they might be $500K, but no real reason to buy new vs used and inspected. Plenty of the small PT6s coming off older airframes for -135 upgrades or airframe retirements.
- walrus01 8y agoThis is awesome and all, but even a used PT6 turbine is a lot of money. If I were the sort of rich person who could afford this, I'd be looking at turbine-retrofitted DHC Beavers and Turbo Otters instead. For example the Viking Air rebuilt turbine beavers: https://www.vikingair.com/viking-aircraft/dhc-2t-turbo-beaver https://www.vikingair.com/viking-aircraft/dhc-2t-turbo-beave...
- halbritt 8y agoThe company making diesel engines was Thielert, which eventually went out of business. Most notably, they were available in the Diamond DA-42. IIRC, they consumed 7GPH each at cruise, which is roughly half the consumption of Draco at the same speed. They were bought by a company in China and are now being marketed in the US by Continental. There are STCs for many Cessnas, which seems like a pretty appealing option. http://www.continentalmotors.aero/diesel/diesel-engines.aspx http://www.continentalmotors.aero/diesel/diesel-engines.aspx