Quote:
Originally Posted by kgood
With the diesel, there's no priming, boost pump, mags, mixture, carb heat, flooding, plug fowling, egt to worry about or mess with. Just get in, start up, cycle the prop, and fly.
You can do math any way you want, but in the real world, the diesel is much more efficient, especially when you consider the entire flight profile. An avgas engine running LOP may start to approach diesel efficiency at cruise, but never for the entire flight.
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All good points, especially about "entire flight" efficiency. Diesels will use considerably fewer gallons per trip. And, certainly Jet-A is less prone to wildfire...
But a valid comparison is by weight of the fuel burned, any additional engine mass, etc. Cost is not a valid comparison, as costs vary wildly by location. the types of turbodiesels used in aircraft may suffer some efficiency losses when compared to the "ideal diesel".
AND, there is no reason not to produce a direct injection, high compression, electronically controlled, forced induction Avgas burning engine.
I feel that from an engineering standpoint, it's absurd to compare a turbocharged diesel engine (especially a modern one) to a normally aspirated gasoline engine of antiquated design.