A New, and Plausible, Competitor in the Aviation Diesel Sweepstakes

SMA light aircraft engines sent a rep to Oshkosh to sing the praises of their new engine.

What makes it different is that it’s designed to operate at 2,200 rpm, which means no reduction gearing between the engine and the prop, so the engine has a 2,000 hour TBO, and they expect to push it out to 3K hours, as compared to the gearbox on the Thielert, for example, that needed to be rebuilt/replaced every 300 hours.

It’s turbocharged, and rated at 230hp for five minutes and 200hp continuous up to 10,000 feet.

It displaces 5 liters, which is larger than the 2.0 liter Thielert obviously, but my guess is that the swept volume (rpm x displacement) are probably pretty similar.

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