Microlighters

Turbo Diesel aircraft engine.
Ultralight pilots have used a variety of engines to power their aircraft. Go cart engines, chainsaw engines, snowmobile engines, rotary engines, aircraft engines, and this year Ramphos U.S.A. introduced a turbo diesel engine.
The engine is not new to the market with millions having been installed in the Smart Car, manufactured by Mercedes in Europe and Canada for the past 5 years. The complete unit installed weighs in at 9 lbs less than a Rotax 912, and can put out between 40 and 64 DIESEL horsepower. The power is controlled by the electronics that are installed in the engine package.

The max torque on the engine comes in at 3,000 rpm. and the torque is equal to that of a Rotax 912 at 5800 rpm. Cruise comes in at 3100 rpm! The engine is very quiet and using an astounding 3/4 of a U.S. gallon of fuel per hour. It can run on diesel, jet A mixed with diesel, and on bio diesel.

The first engine installation was on a Zenair which has about 200 hours on it in Europe. In February of 2005 it was decided to do an engine installation on the Ramphos trike. The engine was shipped to Ramphos USA in New York and the installation was completed and the craft flown just prior to Sun N Fun.

The fuel system is totally electronic and compensates for altitude, temperature, density altitude, and fuel temperature. Plus it has a back up on the chip incase of failure that converts the engine over to a low, medium or high power setting. The engine will also be coming with a computer start up check list. When the engine is first started the engine will self diagnose itself and tell you whether it is safe to fly.

TBO is expected to in the 5,000 hour range.

The only problem to date has been that the quality of diesel fuel used in the U.S. is of a lower grade than that used in Europe, which will require the engine to be re-chipped when it gets back to New York.

Delivery times are currently 4 to 6 weeks.

For more information contact:
Ramphos USA
Box 578 Hampton Bays
NY 11946
631-872-2332
gil@ramphosusa.com

Bennie, jy is n sucker vir pinishment my ou. Spaar vir daai 582. Trek virrie softness visnet kouse en stilettos aan en jaag haar straat toe om te help verdien........ :D








ROTAX RULES :D

This looks interesting to me.

But I'm pretty sure the diesel quality in SA will be poor as well?

DieselFan, what is your take on this?

I have definetely started looking at Smart cars in new ways! Everytime one zips by I wonder if the engine will be reliable in an aerie.

Bennie, hoe lyk dit? Sit een in, lyk my jou hou van speel.

Barnstormer wrote:This looks interesting to me.

But I'm pretty sure the diesel quality in SA will be poor as well?

DieselFan, what is your take on this?

I have definetely started looking at Smart cars in new ways! Everytime one zips by I wonder if the engine will be reliable in an aerie.

Bennie, hoe lyk dit? Sit een in, lyk my jou hou van speel.

Quality of diesel in SA is not a problem, their diesel (the americans) problem was related to the low Cetane rating of Diesel being around 40, In SA our's is mostly 49/50 same as Europe. They fit a 912 prop on a 40hp diesel engine...nice torque. They mixed their own diesel and this was getting tiresome. Their fuel burn on a xcrountry was around 2.8l/h, and on landing had a small amount of soot on prop

My take? Diesel aircraft engines are the way of the future...and I'm trying not to be biast . You want reliability have a look at Thielerts diesel engines, big brother of the Smart CDI, or www.dieselair.com.

Last I looked was something like over 500 engines sold, with a recent failure in Germany. Couldn't find any further failures tho.

Speak to anyone who's flown the 1.7l diesel (Tielert) engine, opinions have only been positive.

Some of the lucky buggers are on the forum.

DieselFan wrote:Speak to anyone who's flown the 1.7l diesel (Tielert) engine, opinions have only been positive.

Some of the lucky buggers are on the forum.

Have you read the recent article in SA Flyer about ferry the three diesel powered diamond aircraft from Austria to South Africa. 38.5 hours for the flight, and only one plane made it. The rest had to stop with technical problems. Not neccessarily engine related, but does not inspire too much confidence in the new diesel engine technology.

Personally I to burn a little more fuel in a good onld fashioned carburated engine than to take chances with finiky electronics...

But that is just my opinion. Many people prefer the high tech motors...

-justin

Justin your comments are quite valid regarding "electronics reliability" and so on. After many years in Industrial specialist machine design and its related "unreliable electronics". Sure machine tools dont kill people when they die..but in most cases faults are caused by simple electrical cable connections and not neccessary device failures in the units themselves. Unless wrongly specified..
In aircraft the engine manufacturer has no real call over what happens in the installations and types of materials used. Fortunately we have in recent years seen a massive improvement in cable connectors and cable materials used in installations and this has improved somewhat reliability.
An interesting development has been in the use of RJ45s and their ruggedising enclosures allowing "laced cables". ROHS doesnt help much as the solders are much more brittle..

To stick to the original thread it would be very nice to obtain a Smart diesel and install one..we most certainly have the technology and the mechanical kit in this country to "go our own way" and develop the installation. The management systems and related software are "off the shelf" in the Pinetown area...I can point you in the right direction.

The nice bit about a smart car is they get front ended and in most cases are written off, the motor lives in the back and survive so they should be relatively inexpensive. They come complete with engine management software as well.
Bennie and Diesel fan go for it..

Maybe we have some forum members in Europe that could sniff one out for you.

Zulu1

Diesel / Zulu

Has anybody done this in SA? Does anybody know of someone flying with the ECO friendly SMART?

Which would be the better option: SMART Diesel or SMART Petrol?

Taking the whole development into consideration. Does it really make a difference to the engine management whether you go diesel or petrol?

What things are to be considered and changed to adapt an engine to be used in aviation?

The petrol way, dual ignition etc and the diesel way?

Let's not forget: It has to be a cheaper, better and safer option, without putting any of our lives at risk.

I had a look at http://www.ecofly.de/ pricing for a "aviation ready" engine is € 11.315,80! Then you still need some other goodies to make the installation complete. Then you may as well give your aerie a Rat-ass (or nose for that matter) {Don't get me wrong, Rotax gets my vote, at a price. But I just can't help wondering if we are staying with the safer option because we are afraid to explore beyond the known. In the IT industry, we have successfully implemented many open source solutions which WERE unknown, but have now proved to be superior. Yes, it took time and effort, but the cost to client was muuuuuuch less. In some cases 10% of the "known" routes! And it created a whole new line of business for us!}

Importing a complete solution is, in my opinion and looking at the above mentioned pricing, not feasible. Therefore I agree with Zulu 100% on developing it locally!

Vliegvark, I'm pretty sure it took you a while to figure the BMW option out. It sure sounds as though you are happy. How much did the whole project cost?

I know of a guy (instructor) who is busy installing a Simmonini 92HP (?) engine in a Cheetah at halve the price a Rotax 582 would cost. He is sure breaking ground and I can't wait to see how it goes, Umm flies. There is just so many options out there! Somebody just has to have the guts to go and take the glory!

So...

Let's hear what everybody has to say.

Are we going to be pioneers? Who knows, we may even get Boet to let us try the SMART in his Bush Baby!

Barnstormer....

What is the progress of the chap installing a Simonini in a Cheetah?

Imagine what a Cheetah / Skyranger would fly like with a Jab 3300 engine installed!!!!

Still agree though, DIESEL the way to go with all this Part 24 stuff!

There is already many of these flying.

FK Lightplanes model FK9 has this diesel engine fitted and they seem to fly ok.

I am not to convinced yet. Has anyone flown in those 172's from rand with the diesel engines fitted. I have and they are crap to say the least.

I cant wait for a decent diesel turbo engine to replace the 912. I hope this Smart is the one.

The ecofly project (link to website above) was started by the designer/founder of FK Planes, Peter Funk.

There are various serious diesel Projects on the go of which the Vulcan Aircraft engine with the 4 cylinder Raptor 105 seems to be targeted directly at the BRP - Rotax market. This engine returns 914 performance figures at the cost of a 912uls!!!

BAD NAV wrote:Barnstormer....

What is the progress of the chap installing a Simonini in a Cheetah?

Imagine what a Cheetah / Skyranger would fly like with a Jab 3300 engine installed!!!!

Still agree though, DIESEL the way to go with all this Part 24 stuff!

BN he had some problems with the Simonini... Installed it, made the cowl et al. Then he noticed that the engine wasn't brand new. The rest of the story gets complicated and uninteresting. He sent the engine (3?) back to the supplier.

To cut to the chase. He imported a Rotax 583 which is single ignition. After having problems with the CDI and finding a new CDI in December, he fitted a 582 top and CDI's to the 583, which made it dual ignition!

Boetie, you must hear that little engine go Jy hoor sommer hoe die perde aankom

Now that he is content with the engine, he is completing the build.

The grass is not always greener on the Diesel side...

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Br ... 928-1.html

AVFLASH NEWS: January 9, 2008

British Flight School Sues Diamond Over Diesels
By Meredith Saini, Managing Editor

Millen Aviation Services of Kent, England, filed a lawsuit on Dec. 17, 2007, against Diamond Aircraft Industries in Wiener Neustadt, Austria, over their Thielert diesel-powered DA40s. "The claim for damages is based on our experience with our two DA40 1.7 TDIs, their extremely poor reliability, high maintenance costs, waiting time for spare parts and, our firm belief of their premature release to market without sufficient research, development and testing," company partner Mike Millen said in a prepared statement. Diamond did not immediately respond to AVweb's request for comment.

http://www.raptorturbodiesel.com/

Hmmmmmm....... A serious option for NTCA!

Please enlighten me, what is a Rotax 583?

90 odd HP Rotax motor used in a SKI DOO......