Austro Engines

Discussions specific to Austro engines

Moderators: Rick, Lance Murray

User avatar
krellis
4 Diamonds Member
4 Diamonds Member
Posts: 339
Joined: Fri Apr 29, 2011 10:42 am
First Name: Keith
Aircraft Type: OTHER
Aircraft Registration: N853DF
Airports: GA04
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 63 times

Austro Engines

Post by krellis »

What's the chance Austro will develop an aluminum block and not simply manufacture the boat anchor cast iron blocks of the MB OM640? And how "competitive" will the price be when they are making a few hundred engines a year versus the tens of thousands manufactured by MB?

https://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/ ... ail#232382
User avatar
ememic99
5 Diamonds Member
5 Diamonds Member
Posts: 1078
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 10:31 am
First Name: Emir
Aircraft Type: DA42
Aircraft Registration: SEMAD
Airports: LDZA LDVA
Has thanked: 203 times
Been thanked: 390 times

Re: Austro Engines

Post by ememic99 »

Hardly. I guess that would cause a lot of additional work in certification and who knows what status on overhaul possibility.
User avatar
Keith M
4 Diamonds Member
4 Diamonds Member
Posts: 363
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2011 9:54 am
First Name: Keith
Aircraft Type: DA40D
Airports: EGNH
Has thanked: 29 times
Been thanked: 46 times

Re: Austro Engines

Post by Keith M »

The original 1.7 litre Mercedes engine used by Thielert had an aluminium block. Mercedes superseded it with a 2 litre cast iron block, and Thielert chose to adapt it with their own aluminium block so that it could be substituted with no change to W&B. This expense, for the benefit of Diamond, helped to bankrupt them.

Austro just took the Mercedes engine as is, and Diamond beefed up the airframe to cope with the extra 50kg, so had to go through the recertification process.

Mercedes have now superseded that engine with another with an aluminium block. Maybe Austro will have to adopt it, if they run out of supplies for their current engines, or maybe Mercedes will abandon diesel engines altogether, now that the truth is known about their particulate emissions.
User avatar
krellis
4 Diamonds Member
4 Diamonds Member
Posts: 339
Joined: Fri Apr 29, 2011 10:42 am
First Name: Keith
Aircraft Type: OTHER
Aircraft Registration: N853DF
Airports: GA04
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 63 times

Re: Austro Engines

Post by krellis »

I read the article to state that Austro was going to manufacture a "copy" of the cast iron MB OM640 for their use.

What a great idea though - adopt the much lighter MB aluminum block, keep the increased gross weight and pick up 50Kg or so in useful load.
User avatar
CFIDave
5 Diamonds Member
5 Diamonds Member
Posts: 2678
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:40 pm
First Name: Dave
Aircraft Type: OTHER
Aircraft Registration: N333GX
Airports: KJYO Leesburg VA
Has thanked: 231 times
Been thanked: 1473 times

Re: Austro Engines

Post by CFIDave »

Back around 2006-2009 Diamond (actually the Dries family that owned Diamond back then) invested around $50m to start Austro Engine and certify the AE300 engine. They wisely leveraged as much proven Mercedes-Benz auto engine technology as possible by purchasing a large number of OM640 car engines directly from Mercedes -- engines that Austro put into storage.

Every time they needed to build a new aircraft engine, Austro went into their "back room" to get an OM640 engine, stripped off the Mercedes accessories; added a gearbox, Bosch ECUs, and other aircraft accessories; and created an AE300 or AE330. They didn't need to take apart the OM640 engine core, including the cast-iron block.

Now with more than a thousand Austro engines flying, Austro is running out of original OM640 Mercedes car engines. Mercedes 4-cylinder car diesels are now 2+ generations newer, so Mercedes stopped producing OM640 engines many years ago.

Austro cannot change the design of the AE300/330 without very expensive re-certification of the engines (and Diamond would need to re-certify its aircraft), so it's highly unlikely that Austro would start producing a different engine based on newer-generation Mercedes engines, even if based on a lighter aluminum block.

The logical step is for Austro to start producing its own OM640 engine cores. I'm guessing they can utilize many of the same component parts suppliers that originally supplied Mercedes-Benz, as well as outsourcing core engine assembly.
Epic Aircraft E1000 GX
Former DA40XLS, DA42-VI, and DA62 owner
ATP, CFI, CFI-I, MEI
User avatar
NDCDA62
3 Diamonds Member
3 Diamonds Member
Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2018 3:15 pm
First Name: Nigel
Aircraft Type: DA62
Aircraft Registration: DINDC
Airports: EDRY
Has thanked: 83 times
Been thanked: 117 times

Re: Austro Engines

Post by NDCDA62 »

If I understood correctly when in Weiner Neustadt recently, Austro now holds the licence from MB to manufacture the subject engines. As quite rightly pointed out, to deviate would require recertification and all that this entails. There was no concern shown with regard to this development.
User avatar
Colin
5 Diamonds Member
5 Diamonds Member
Posts: 2006
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2010 8:37 pm
First Name: Colin
Aircraft Type: DA42
Aircraft Registration: N972RD
Airports: KFHR
Has thanked: 319 times
Been thanked: 527 times

Re: Austro Engines

Post by Colin »

They re-certified to put the NG on the DA42 in the first place, it seems short-sighted not to use the opportunity to move up in engine technology. But I'm not writing the checks and I don't know what that effort cost them.
Colin Summers, PP Multi-Engine IFR, ~3,000hrs
colin@mightycheese.com * send email rather than PM
http://www.flyingsummers.com
N972RD DA42 G1000 2.0 s/n 42.AC100 (sold!)
N971RD DA40 G1000 s/n 40.508 (traded)
User avatar
CFIDave
5 Diamonds Member
5 Diamonds Member
Posts: 2678
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:40 pm
First Name: Dave
Aircraft Type: OTHER
Aircraft Registration: N333GX
Airports: KJYO Leesburg VA
Has thanked: 231 times
Been thanked: 1473 times

Re: Austro Engines

Post by CFIDave »

Colin wrote: Wed Mar 13, 2019 4:29 pm They re-certified to put the NG on the DA42 in the first place, it seems short-sighted not to use the opportunity to move up in engine technology. But I'm not writing the checks and I don't know what that effort cost them.
Diamond didn't have a choice back in 2008 with Thielert going bankrupt; it was temporarily stuck with DA42 airframes with no engines until the DA42NG with Austro engines was certified in 2009. So Diamond HAD to spend the money for AE300 certification.

Diamond today is in a completely different (i.e., MUCH better) position. But the economics of spending large sums of money to certify an all-new aviation engine that will only ship a few hundred per year are still unfavorable. That's why Lycoming and Continental are still building antiquated piston engines with tractor magnetos -- they can't afford to certify newer engines with so few engines being produced.
Epic Aircraft E1000 GX
Former DA40XLS, DA42-VI, and DA62 owner
ATP, CFI, CFI-I, MEI
User avatar
ememic99
5 Diamonds Member
5 Diamonds Member
Posts: 1078
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 10:31 am
First Name: Emir
Aircraft Type: DA42
Aircraft Registration: SEMAD
Airports: LDZA LDVA
Has thanked: 203 times
Been thanked: 390 times

Re: Austro Engines

Post by ememic99 »

Using old engine is not unusual in aviation :) look at Lycosaurus world. The problem is when you don’t have steady production stream of new engines. Looking at Diamond’s strategy for DA42-VI and DA62, I doubt that they don’t have clear plan on producing Austro engines. Or maybe they are considering return to CD :)
User avatar
chili4way
5 Diamonds Member
5 Diamonds Member
Posts: 523
Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2018 10:51 pm
First Name: Paul
Aircraft Type: DA40NG
Aircraft Registration: N718NG
Airports: KADS
Has thanked: 1057 times
Been thanked: 482 times

Re: Austro Engines

Post by chili4way »

One of the reported differences between the cast iron core/block and the aluminum core/block is that the former can be overhauled and the latter cannot. This is not an issue for typical passenger vehicle automotive applications. Appreciate the history and perspectives of the previous posts on this thread. Thanks!
Post Reply