Went to a wedding reception yesterday of a pilot friend and
        another friend of mine was there that is in the know on the
        Toyota aviation program.

        Toyota spent $220 million dollars certifying and making major changes
        on the Lexes V8 for aircraft use and then abandoned the program.

        They felt so many changes were required that it would not
        be cost competitive with the real aircraft engines.

        On the other hand Ford/Mazda are sitting on a viable aircraft
        engine with no major changes required.

        Toyota are presently back developing an aircraft that uses
        a Lycoming engine. So far $120 million as been spent and they
        are losing interest again.

        He also agrees with me that the Eclipse program is doomed to failure
        having already spent $200 million of investors money.

        How to make a small fortune out of a large one :)

        We also talked about the viability of GA in general.
        We both feel something needs to be done about the ability
        of low cost airplanes (not jets) to get above the weather and be more
        comfortable. My suggestion is a pressurized dual sequential
        turbo charged rotary powered prop airplane capable of cruising
        at 45,000 feet. WW II fighter planes flew up to 45,000 feet.

        Paul Lamar

Ramón Fonseca wrote:

Maybe a twin Velocity which the factory is now developing with twin turbo 
rotary engines will do the trick. Ramón

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