X-Mozilla-Keys:                                                                                 
Bill Freeman wrote:

 ***  BIG SNIP *******

Why do they HAVE to be wasting it?  Is it impossible for Continental
to come up with a marketable, workable diesel with a better BSFC
than anything else out there and which runs on Jet A?  They might
fail, but they might succeed.  I seem to remember that they built
the engine with the best BSFC that I have ever seen reliably
reported for a spark ignition engine (Voyager engine).  Sadly,
there seems to be no market for a watercooled fuel efficient
engine for aircraft.

Bill

IF there were a viable market for an aircraft diesel
private industry would get the money together and
develop and market something. I don't think the market
really cares. If you have a 1/4 million to buy a
new Cessna 182 you are not going to worry about
whether it gets 14 gal per hour or only 12 gallons
per hour.

I think Renault is subsidized
by the French government. A lot of this kind of
stuff is just pork. Why do you think they call it
the "Glenn" Learning Technologies Project. Glenn
is a congressmen (senator?) from that district.

Paul Lamar

OK, I agree that in general government money spent
on developing production hardware is not a good thing.
I *really* am not a big government supporter, but --
assuming that the choice has already been made by some
bureaucrat I hope they succeed and produce a marketable
engine. OTOH, I would agree to not do this sort of project
(pork) if they had asked me before the fact.

Bill

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