> I worry about people who use a word like 'superior' without any dimensions. Well, let me clarify that as "superior in whatever dimensions the designers of th

> I worry about people who use a word like 'superior' without any dimensions. Well, let me clarify that as "superior in whatever dimensions the designers of those post-WWII piston engined planes considered important". Hope that helps. > I can think of plenty of reasons the simpler design with one less failure mode might dominate production during the war, without being the obviously better choice given peacetime applications and seventy years of technical advances. To be clear, I was writing about the immediate post-WWII environment before jets made piston engines obsolete except for the lowest end of the market. Aviation piston engine development pretty much stopped then. Sure, a "modern" aviation piston engine for the GA market will quite likely be a water cooled design, if for no other reason that there is so little R&D money available for piston aviation engine development that most likely it's going to be based on a car engine.