Author Topic: More diesel questions  (Read 17953 times)

Offline Frank N. O.

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More diesel questions
« on: December 11, 2006, 03:33:43 AM »
I've been thinking, I've heard here that most turbo airplane engines are normalized and not positively charged, but what about the diesel engines, are they running at reduced boost, and why does the airplane piston engines not use positive boost?
Speaking of diesel conversions, have you heard that Subaru is planning to make diesel engines, in boxer-form of course, and with help from Porsche, sounds very interesting indeed.

Btw, does anyone know of a low-level fly-by clip of a diesel plane? I've been wondering how one sounds, and how is the noise-level compared to a classic airplane engine?

I also wonder if MSFS can simulate a small automotive derived turbodiesel engine.

Frank
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undatc

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2006, 05:38:03 AM »
dunno about the conversions or anything, but i can attest to the sound.

Personally i cant tell a difference, but maybe im not attuned to airplane sound.  Diamond runs diesels in their airplanes and they send a few up here to UND evey year for us to play with and abuse to see if we want to switch over.  From what i hear they are great engines, low fuel costs, great emmissions etc etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsZvVGyaKrk

here is a link to a 172 on diesel, not real good, but gives you an idea.

Offline Baradium

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2006, 08:24:59 AM »
undatc, the only diamond factory availible with diesel engines is the twin star, which is a twin engine aircraft.

All their other aircraft are normal aircraft spark engines.   The 40s use lycomings and I want to say that the 20s use continentals (but they might be lycoming as well). 

So are they bringing twin stars by UND?

I'm not even aware of any of their singles that have been refit with diesels, although there may be one out there.  I don't believe diamond has explored that themselves yet though.
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undatc

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2006, 02:08:45 PM »
Yea, they are twin stars, thought i said that but i guess i didnt.  We have the largest non military fleet in the world for aiplanes, so all the companines send up airplanes to play with.  We currently are running semionals but every two years "they" reevaluate to see if they want to switch, so every two years, brand new models, last spring we had two twin stars, like 4 diamond stars, a couple new 182's and 172's, sr20 and 22, and some other twin i cant remember.  We actually are supposed to be getting the first two VLJ eclipse 500's that roll off too, however it seems our order has been pushed back.  We are contracted with eclipse to provide training on them for pilots, so i assume they are gonna get a lot of flight time in the near future.

We also are home to NASA's DC-9  ;D  They have 'given' it to us for experiments and such, so its kinda weird seeing 70 warriors 30 arrows 30 semonals 15 sr20's our smattering of decathalons and cubs and then the DC9 sitting on our ramp.  We have a baron and ust to have a small lear jet, but ther meterology department crashed it up in alaska about a year ago.

Offline Gulfstream Driver

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2006, 05:08:23 PM »
UND also had a couple of BeechJet 400's, but sold them after the Chinese students left.

Didn't know they were getting all of those cool aircraft.  Almost wish I was still there.  (almost)
Behind every great man, there is a woman rolling her eyes.  --Bruce Almighty

fireflyr

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #5 on: December 12, 2006, 11:56:52 PM »
  We have the largest non military fleet in the world for aiplanes,
WHOOPS----maybe oughta check that out and qualify it ???

undatc

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2006, 03:51:19 AM »
WHOOPS----maybe oughta check that out and qualify it ???
Quote

We do.  At grand forks alone we have about 160 aircraft not including our fleet of helicopters, i think we have about 15 of them.  We also have satalite campuses around the nation in Phoenix, Honolulu, Spokane, Crookson, Lumberton, and Williston, each of which about about 20 aircraft each, so add that up and we have 175+(6x20) is about 295 aircraft.  Then you can also count the aircraft we lease out to other flight schools, i dont know exactly how many we do, but i know its quite a few.  So say about 360ish aircraft.  We also have an extension campus in Duluth that is teamed up with Cirrus to provide factory training with about 20 of our cirrus aircraft, so with that were up around 380 aircraft total system wide.

http://www.und.edu/president/reports/2005/info.html

If you go close to the bottom of the page it reads, "UND has the world's largest non-military training fleet of training aircraft."

Offline chuckar101

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2006, 04:15:56 AM »
I can verify the 20 aircraft at phoenix.  The planes aren't bad but the can't say the same for the students.   No offense to UND but the students here in phoenix can be a little scary.  But od cours they probably say the same thing about us ATP students so I'm really just blowing smoke out my ass.
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Offline tundra_flier

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2006, 04:29:18 AM »
I've been thinking, I've heard here that most turbo airplane engines are normalized and not positively charged, but what about the diesel engines, are they running at reduced boost, and why does the airplane piston engines not use positive boost?
Speaking of diesel conversions, have you heard that Subaru is planning to make diesel engines, in boxer-form of course, and with help from Porsche, sounds very interesting indeed.

Btw, does anyone know of a low-level fly-by clip of a diesel plane? I've been wondering how one sounds, and how is the noise-level compared to a classic airplane engine?

I also wonder if MSFS can simulate a small automotive derived turbodiesel engine.

Frank

I don't know about the engines Diamond is using, but I know some of the diesels that were being experimented with a few years ago for aircraft were 2 cycle diesels, like the old Detroits.  Those require positive boost to function well.

Phil

fireflyr

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2006, 04:32:04 AM »
WHOOPS----maybe oughta check that out and qualify it ???
Quote

We do.  At grand forks alone we have about 160 aircraft not including our fleet of helicopters, i think we have about 15 of them.  We also have satalite campuses around the nation in Phoenix, Honolulu, Spokane, Crookson, Lumberton, and Williston, each of which about about 20 aircraft each, so add that up and we have 175+(6x20) is about 295 aircraft.  Then you can also count the aircraft we lease out to other flight schools, i dont know exactly how many we do, but i know its quite a few.  So say about 360ish aircraft.  We also have an extension campus in Duluth that is teamed up with Cirrus to provide factory training with about 20 of our cirrus aircraft, so with that were up around 380 aircraft total system wide.

http://www.und.edu/president/reports/2005/info.html

If you go close to the bottom of the page it reads, "UND has the world's largest non-military training fleet of training aircraft."

I stand corrected and impressed |:)\ |:)\

undatc

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2006, 04:32:54 AM »
Never said we were the best pilots, actually a lot of guys that get their ratings outta here scare me, my self included, i can legaly fly a plane anywhere i want, but im no where proficient in flying and would definately be a danger to myself and others.  Also our satalite campusus kinda have a rep of being a lil shady....

undatc

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2006, 04:34:50 AM »
WHOOPS----maybe oughta check that out and qualify it ???
Quote

We do.  At grand forks alone we have about 160 aircraft not including our fleet of helicopters, i think we have about 15 of them.  We also have satalite campuses around the nation in Phoenix, Honolulu, Spokane, Crookson, Lumberton, and Williston, each of which about about 20 aircraft each, so add that up and we have 175+(6x20) is about 295 aircraft.  Then you can also count the aircraft we lease out to other flight schools, i dont know exactly how many we do, but i know its quite a few.  So say about 360ish aircraft.  We also have an extension campus in Duluth that is teamed up with Cirrus to provide factory training with about 20 of our cirrus aircraft, so with that were up around 380 aircraft total system wide.

http://www.und.edu/president/reports/2005/info.html

If you go close to the bottom of the page it reads, "UND has the world's largest non-military training fleet of training aircraft."

I stand corrected and impressed |:)\ |:)\

Hey no prob, sometimes I am wrong, if you want, here is a link to our aviation depatment, a lot of the number for instance the number of aircraft we have is old and outdated, but most of the stuff is the same.

[url]http://www.aero.und.edu/f1_Home/index.php[/url]
« Last Edit: December 13, 2006, 04:54:11 AM by undatc »

fireflyr

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2006, 04:48:08 AM »
Guess I hadn't paid attention to the training programs available for quit a few years----Sure looks like UND and a few others offer comprehensive aviation programs--a very good thing indeed! |:)\

Offline Frank N. O.

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2006, 05:33:44 AM »
I have heard of Detroit 2-stroke engines but not much more than the name since european truck companies make their own engines, Scania, Volvo, MAN, Mercedes etc. One problem with diesels though is that the automotive engines are mainly inlines and not boxers so even with smaller displacements I wonder how it can fit in a plane made for a boxer engine.

Diesels use the modern FADEC systems right? Does that mean that the mixture lever is obsolete then? And what about the cowl flaps for cooling control, are they still needed or is the water cooling taking care of itself?

Frank
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Offline Mic

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Re: More diesel questions
« Reply #14 on: December 13, 2006, 08:17:14 AM »
undatc, the only diamond factory availible with diesel engines is the twin star, which is a twin engine aircraft.

All their other aircraft are normal aircraft spark engines.   The 40s use lycomings and I want to say that the 20s use continentals (but they might be lycoming as well). 

Diamond is delivering directly from its factory Diamond DA40TD which is powered byt the diesel Thielert Centurion 1.7

We are (the flying school part of my Institute) using a dozen of this new aircraft. ( www.iaagepag.com )

I agree about noise reduction (helped by the low power applied on the 3 blades propeler : 135 HP instead of 180HP for the lycoming)

Just a remark : we're also operating the SOCATA TB20 (250HP, retractable landing gear, 4 places, metallic structure). Its cruise speed is 140 kts with an average consumption of 50 liters per hour

With the Diamond DA40 (135HP, fixed landing gear, 4 places, composite structure), we cruise at 130kts, 125kts at 70% burning only 19 liters of JET A1 (the Jet A1 is half the price of he AVGAS in France)
A good landing allows pilot to walk out
An excellent landing allows the plane to fly again