Delta Hawk DHK180

[MarkA]

Having a total-available-market of only two or three hundred units would seem to make it difficult for DeltaHawk to justify the development effort needed to support steam gauge DA40s.

[krellis]

Having a total-available-market of only two or three hundred units would seem to make it difficult for DeltaHawk to justify the development effort needed to support steam gauge DA40s.

Maybe so, but DH is developing a firewall forward kit for the Van’s RV-14. There are only 250 of these flying today and likely very few will be interested in retrofit. There is one RV-14 currently being built with the DH engine. Some builders will be interested in using this engine (most likely in countries with high 100LL prices) given that the FF package is currently estimated to be around $110k.

My point is that DH is seemingly going after whatever market might lead to some number of sales - not necessarily a large market. Granted, development for the Experimental- Amateur Build market is much less expensive than it would be for certified airplane.

[MarkA]

Don't get me wrong, I think it would be great if DeltaHawk would develop an STC package for Diamonds. It's just that the certification and support efforts to do this independent of Diamond would be significant and likely hard to amortize over such a small number of airframes.

[neema]

The G1000 gridlock issue needs to come to a head. It essentially closed the door on any non-OEM STC related powerplant. Wish FAA's MOSAIC had something baked in there for that.

The only STC I know that's worked on a G1000 plane was Crosby's CD155 conversion on the 42. So much of that was alignment of the stars, where powerplant metrics and limitations were (all?) the same. VGs were used to determine Vyse and keep it at the same figure with increased hp.

Changing gauges on a G1000 should be painfully simple with software and a screen. Easier than swapping or restriping mechanical gauges.

[TimS]

@krelis

The DH for the RV14 is actually a pretty smart play. With fairly minor changes, once completed the same package applies to a number of RVs. And they are less likely to get retrofits then new planes. By volume, RV outsells Diamond and others by large margins.
In terms of price, a new Thunderbolt engine with turbos, with a four year delivery estimate, plus a Hartzel prop is currently running around $90-100K depending on options.
DH is not far off in terms of pricing.

Tim

[krellis]

@krelis

The DH for the RV14 is actually a pretty smart play. With fairly minor changes, once completed the same package applies to a number of RVs. And they are less likely to get retrofits then new planes. By volume, RV outsells Diamond and others by large margins.
In terms of price, a new Thunderbolt engine with turbos, with a four year delivery estimate, plus a Hartzel prop is currently running around $90-100K depending on options.
DH is not far off in terms of pricing.

Tim

I agree. You can get a lot of useful data from beta testing in the E-AB world without the liability and development expense that would occur in the certified world. I hope they are successful as an alternative to Lycoming. I'm not aware of any turbocharged Thunderbolt engines being available, but I'm not sure that's really a negative. High powered RV's can get pretty close to Vne at altitude without turbocharging or turbonormalizing.

[MarkA]

Piper announces the Seminole DX Powered by 180-horsepower DeltaHawk engines

https://www.piper.com/press-releases/pi ... deltahawk/

https://www.deltahawk.com/2025/07/22/de ... minole-dx/

https://generalaviationnews.com/2025/07 ... wk-engine/

https://aopa.org/news-and-media/all-new ... l-seminole

[MarkA]

Piper receives the first US order for 5 Delta Hawk powered Seminole DXs.

https://avweb.com/aviation-news/piper-s ... -us-order/

The Seminole DX has a Garmin G1000 NXi so I assume they completed the changes needed to integrate the Delta Hawk and airframe updates into the avionics.

[Rick]

Posted on behalf of Krea Ellis:

Answer - I was at the DeltaHawk facility a few weeks back and the Seminole that will be converted to the DH engines had just arrived from Piper. The Lycoming engines had been removed and DH was beginning the process of integrating their engines to the airframe. As to integration with the G1000 - I asked about that and was told it was in work, but had not yet been accomplished. The DH diesel powered RV-14 that was there has a Garmin G3X system - and being experimental, it is very easily customizable without requiring help from either Garmin or the airframe manufacturer. There were some early teething pains on getting a valid tach signal generated (the DH has no mags of course), but this had been resolved as of my visit. The 200hp version is going on another RV-14 soon being built in Oregon and the 235hp version I understand will go on an RV-10 sometime maybe next year. There is a 6 cylinder version (350hp) under development.

It will still be a little bit before the Seminole is flying and then it has to be certified (or an STC granted). This was discussed, but I don’t recall if they said they will hold the STC or if it will be a change to the type certificate held by Piper (maybe both). Piper could sell new airframes with the DH and DH can sell firewall forward kits along with the STC for conversions.