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DELTAHAWK 180HP jet A for RV15

M

Mike Houston

Active Member
The new DeltaHawk engine might be a very good fit for the RV15. Especially in the European and Overseas markets, in Europe Jet A is around half the price of 100LL. The savings are about $260 in a 50 gallon fuelling, if 50 gallons is 5 hrs flight and you do 200hrs a year, it comes to $20,800 savings in one year.

Thats not chump change and these figures dont allow for the claimed 40% more efficieny than a Lycoming engine. Only issue, and a big one, is lack of pedigree for the company or engine

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/de...0 hp,efficiently into modern aircraft cowling.
 
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Mike Houston said:
Thats not chump change and these figures dont allow for the claimed 40% more efficieny than a Lycoming engine. Only issue, and a big one, is lack of pedigree for the company or engine

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/de...0 hp,efficiently into modern aircraft cowling.
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The published BSFC of the DH is about the same as a Lyc running LOP. No 40% savings in reality. If their information was correct, that would mean they're achieving something like .24- better than the biggest stationary and marine diesels- pure fantasy for a small 2 stroke diesel.
 
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Didn't they mention they're focused on the certified and not catering to the experimental market? Tough to put one in if you can't get one. I could be wrong as I can't remember where I recall this information from. We will most likely hear a bit from them during OSHforums and press releases.
 
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My understanding is that when you fill out the order form and state aircraft type they will reject the order if experimental. Maybe someone has more up to date info.
 
I got on the Delta Hawk buyer list in 1999 for my first RV build, and have the T shirt to prove it. It never panned out.

Carl
 
According to the website they got it through certification. So it seems to be running at least half decent. I guess that makes them the closest to actually happening of all the jet-A engines being talked about on here.

Does anyone know the sticker price?

-Lars
 
The sky in Indianapolis is full of diesels: Lyft academy strictly uses Diamond diesel powered aircraft for training, forging future airline pilots. They fly out of Indianapolis International with both single engine and multi engine planes doing flight training using nearly every public airport with in 50 nautical miles of KIND.
 
yep

BoydBirchler said:
The sky in Indianapolis is full of diesels: Lyft academy strictly uses Diamond diesel powered aircraft for training, forging future airline pilots. They fly out of Indianapolis International with both single engine and multi engine planes doing flight training using nearly every public airport with in 50 nautical miles of KIND.
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...and they typically do not make the usual radio calls at the non towered fields. Sure glad i have a traffic display on my Garmin.

They really ought to be training the proper procedures instead of considering all the little airports their own...
 
Seems promising on paper,

Talked to a rep at KOSH.
The engine in itself is (visually) a nice piece of engineering and seems well built. Of course, I didn't see the innards.

See the attached tech sheet.
Concerns I have:
- 24 Volts system
- Heavy
- Expensive. He said that they are targeting 2023 delivery with a price tag of +/- $ 100,000.00 USD
Then my knees buckled...
 

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riseric said:
- Expensive. He said that they are targeting 2023 delivery with a price tag of +/- $ 100,000.00 USD
Then my knees buckled...
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If it costs twice what a Lycoming costs, how much fuel does one need to burn to break even?
Even when a gallon of 100LL is $10 and Jet-A $5, that’s 10,000 gallons. That’s 1,000 hours if you burn 10 gal/h. That’s a good amount of flying.
And based on the most ideal numbers for the diesel engine. I don’t think even in Europe the price difference is as extreme as the numbers I used. Jet-A only seems 20% cheaper than 100LL and about equal to Mogas.
I’m really curious how the total cost of ownership will compare when using accurate numbers.
Right now I don’t see the math that makes these engines economically viable. The only use case I can see is the Canadian north where 100LL is becoming unavailable.
 
We are after all Experimental builders

Delta Hawk is looking for us builders to use one of their engines in an airframe. Hopefully everyone (most) dropped by their booth. Very impressive. Obviously living in Europe a fuel advantage. I was told “we would love to discuss placing one of our engines in a Vans aircraft”. Better technology is a way to offset increased costs.
 
I think the battle they will have is turb aero and their 200 ish hp turbine engine since it sounds like they will be around the same price but with a much higher TBO and associated reliability of a turbine engine.
Delta hawk is definitely further down the road on development but the window might be small.
 
if they think $100,000 is a sensible price their problem is going to be finding any customers fullstop. The thing has no pedigree, it needs to be about the price of a Lycoming. I think the whole aircraft industry is likely to be about to get an existential shock, they have been pumping up prices in the false 0% interest rate, post covid money bath. These 5.5% interest rates are in the process of pulling the plug
 
Thebert said:
I think the battle they will have is turb aero and their 200 ish hp turbine engine since it sounds like they will be around the same price but with a much higher TBO and associated reliability of a turbine engine.
Delta hawk is definitely further down the road on development but the window might be small.
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Much as I like to see new engine designs enter the market, neither company has a track record with production engines or customer support. Prototypes are easy, production is hard to quote Elon Musk.

Turbaero is long ways from production and their technology isn't even proven at this point. Money is always a concern as the project draws out longer and ROI gets further away.

I wouldn't relate traditional turbine TBOs with any new turbine design until proven. Lots of the low cost ones in production now require inspection and overhaul at only a few hundred hours. P&W they are not.

Fuel flow at low altitudes will always be a challenge on small turbines as well.
 
Delta hawk currently doing a firewall forward kit for RV14, it would seem on the release of an RV15 fairly inevitable they do one for this aircraft as well.

I think outside the USA this would be a very compelling offering. The fuel burn is lower at 7.3 gall at 135 HP vs 9.5 gall in IO 360 and given the huge cost differential between JETA & Diesel in Europe it would be a no brainier. For example in UK if you where flying for 100hrs in a year you would save around $5800 a year in fuel, not to mention the maintenance savings Estimated at upto $6000 a year.
 
They were at OshKosh last year. They were testing one of their engines on a twin engine velocity. They paired it up w/ a io360 I think. Very impressive design and build however as someone earlier mentioned can they really achieve 40% more efficiency? The diesel industry would be using the technology if that were true. According to the reps, they are only targeting the 160-180HP range until the bugs are worked out. The 300HP model is down the line a few years after...........
 
rv6ejguy said:
Early Adopter

I'd never be an early adopter of any new engine. They have lots to prove here.
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Come on Ross - don't be such a naysayer. You wouldn't be an early adopter at this point, they've been around for more than 20 years! :cool:
 
DCorwith said:
They were at OshKosh last year. They were testing one of their engines on a twin engine velocity. They paired it up w/ a io360 I think. Very impressive design and build however as someone earlier mentioned can they really achieve 40% more efficiency? The diesel industry would be using the technology if that were true. According to the reps, they are only targeting the 160-180HP range until the bugs are worked out. The 300HP model is down the line a few years after...........
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Do not be deceived...that information was what I was told decades ago...
 
Mike Houston said:
Delta hawk currently doing a firewall forward kit for RV14, it would seem on the release of an RV15 fairly inevitable they do one for this aircraft as well.

I think outside the USA this would be a very compelling offering. The fuel burn is lower at 7.3 gall at 135 HP vs 9.5 gall in IO 360 and given the huge cost differential between JETA & Diesel in Europe it would be a no brainier. For example in UK if you where flying for 100hrs in a year you would save around $5800 a year in fuel, not to mention the maintenance savings Estimated at upto $6000 a year.
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Can you elaborate on that savings math? $5800/100h means $58/h. That’s a lot of savings.
I took a look around Europe and in the UK jet A costs half of 100LL so the numbers may work out but going over to Germany, jet A costs more like 85% of what 100LL costs. So much less savings potential.
Not to mention that at least in Germany Mogas is cheaper than Jet A. So maybe anything burning Mogas at a reasonable rate is the wind in Germany.

Unrelated to money, has Deltahawk done any math on what having 10% more fuel weight in the tank does to the wing structure? People are very worried about the additional loads of ER tanks, so what effect does the heavier Jet A cause?
 
rvbuilder2002 said:
I am interested in hearing how there could be this much savings on maintenance costs compared to a traditional aircraft engine?
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I am currently constructing the RV14 with a DeltaHawk engine mentioned in the recent press releases - partnering with both DeltaHawk and Synergy Air of Eugene, OR. We are targeting late spring to have the plane in the air and are quite far along in the build process as I write this. Currently I own another RV14 completed in 2020 with about 600 hours on it - and previously put 1000+ hours on an RV7. Synergy Air has supported over 200 RV builds - many of them RV14s. Hopefully, this will provide a reasonable basis to evaluate the comparitive advantages/disadvantages of the DH vs the Lycoming - at least from the owner/builder/operator angles. That said, the DH engine I believe will compare very favorably with the Lycoming IO-390 - in overall cost to install, maintain and operate. The performance should be equal or better in virtually all flight scenerios. And, I am almost giddy about one last thing (which is odd, since in the whole scheme of things other items seem much more significant) - there is no Mixture Knob! Much more to come on all this later as the project proceeds. And, we are hopeful to be at Oshkosh this year with the plane completed and flyiing.

All that aside, and to your question - I recommend reading this recently published article from the Cessna Pilots Magazine (November 2023):


There is a lot of detailed information on your topic, and others, that address many questions about the company and the engine(s).


Also, if you look at the Kitplanes release of a few days ago, please pay special attention to one of the quotes:

“The DeltaHawk engine and its derivatives brings many unique and exciting benefits to aviation in general and, specifically, to RV aircraft..."

There is reason for this wording.

 
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