Despite being mutually dependent, Diamond Aircraft and Thielert Aircraft Engines (TAE) have never enjoyed the easiest of relationships. Diamond's single-engine DA40 and DA42 twin have been the only original-build applications for the German company's pioneering diesel engines, while the money-saving diesel technology has been behind Diamond's emergence as general aviation's biggest non-US player.
However - after disagreements over field service and technical problems, and TAE's appointment of an insolvency administrator last month - Diamond is distancing itself from its troubled supplier. At Berlin's ILA show this month, Diamond founder and chief executive Christian Dries will confirm that the company is expanding its fledgling engine manufacturing business with a new diesel engine, the Austro, to replace the TAE Centurion 2.0 on all new aircraft from October. Although customers will still be offered the Centurion - assuming TAE can be rescued - Dries expects what he claims is the Austro's 26% better fuel consumption to clinch most deals.
Ramping Up Production
Dries also hopes many operators of the 500 DA42s and 360 diesel DA40s will be persuaded to swap their Thielert engines for the Austro. The 170hp (126kW) Austro, like the Centurion, is based on Mercedes-Benz technology and has been developed with the car maker's MBtech consultancy division. It will have a Bosch full-authority digital engine control.
Dries expects the engine division - which produces around 200 engines a year for small unmanned air vehicles and light sport aircraft at the Wiener Neustadt factory, near Vienna - to ramp up from 56 employees to 200 by the end of the year. With Diamond production prior to the Thielert crisis running at five twins and three singles per week in Austria - and with its new Chinese venture set to assemble up to 1,000 mostly single-engine aircraft a year by 2010 - Dries expects output of Austro engines to reach 2,000 a year. That could include third parties Thielert had a growing retrofit market on Cessnas and Pipers in the USA, although its problems have put Cessna's plans to build a diesel-powered 172 Skyhawk on hold.
However, like its engine supplier, Diamond faces immediate problems in meeting production schedules and supporting customers with parts. Although manufacturing is continuing, lack of engines has meant aircraft have been stuck on the production line for two weeks. With most replacement components also held by Thielert, the situation is worrying. Dries was due to meet with the lawyer charged with sorting out TAE's affairs late last week. "He has a reputation that he takes quite a time," says Dries. "But time is what we don't have."
Reports of a criminal investigation into Thielert by the Hamburg authorities have circulated for some time, and "information received" from Hamburg's investigators was cited as a reason for the 23 April dismissal of Frank Thielert and financial chief Roswitha Grosser by parent company Thielert AG's supervisory board. When a deal to provide capital fell through, the company declared insolvency and the administrators were called in.
It was a humiliating exit for the entrepreneur credited with developing the first successful GA diesel engine. Frank Thielert made his reputation in racing engines before launching TAE nine years ago. Only last year, the company was riding high TAE had opened a factory in Altenburg, eastern Germany, and acquired Dallas-based replacement parts manufacturer Superior Air Parts. A second model, the 350hp Centurion 4.0, was in production. Output was 120 engines a month and turnover had quadrupled in four years.
The Diesel Revolution
Cessna's decision to fit the Centurion 2.0 appeared to provide Thielert with its longed-for credibility in the US GA establishment after success in the retrofit market. Whether Thielert can survive is in the hands of the numerous potential investors who have been in contact with the administrator.
One thing is certain: Diamond will not be a suitor. "We have no interest in the facilities," says Dries. "In three months we will have everything they have, except it will be more modern."
Meanwhile, the field TAE had to itself could become more crowded. With gasoline becoming ever scarcer and more expensive, TAE's US rivals are developing diesels. Lycoming unveiled a prototype diesel engine at the Oshkosh AirVenture show in 2006 and senior vice-president Ian Walsh says the company will have an engine on the market "well before 2020". Teledyne Continental Motors has launched "an aggressive programme to develop a family of Jet A engines for aviation applications, free of the inherent disadvantages associated with automotive-based engines". First run of a 350hp engine is expected in 2009.
As Dries says: "The future is jet fuel." Ironically, the first company to anticipate GA's diesel revolution is fighting for its life.
Read more about how Diamond became Europe's GA leader at flightglobal.com/diamond
Source: Flight International
