Continental Motors Group is celebrating a milestone: The logging of more than 4.5 million flight hours by close to 4,500 Continental diesel engines delivered since start of series production in 2002.
Company officials also note that over the last 52 weeks, the CD-135 had only 3.31 inflight shut downs per 100,000 flight hours.
“The fuel-efficient, reliable, and environmentally friendly Continental Diesel engines became a success story in a challenging market environment,” stated Ken Suda, director of the Continental Motors Group. “Since start of production, close to 4,500 new engines of the models Centurion 1.7, CD-135, both with 99 kW power, CD-155, with 114 kW power, and CD-230 with 171 kW have been manufactured and delivered. The amount of cumulative flight time logged has risen by half a million hours to 4.5 million hours, a figure that shows just how intensively these engines have been operated by Continental’s loyal diesel customers.”
High volume flight operators, such as flying schools, benefit from the diesel engines, which can run on most aviation Jet-A, company officials noted, adding this is also important to pilots operating in regions of the world where no leaded aviation gasoline is available.
The annual utilization of each Continental diesel engine tops 250 hours, nearly three times higher than the overall average in general aviation, company officials said.
According to the FAA statistics, engines used in general aviation experience an average of 10 engine failures or “in-flight shutdowns” in 100,000 flight hours. The shutdown rate of Continental Diesel engines is around 50% lower and has been reduced even further since model change from Centurion 1.7 to CD-135, according to Continental officials.
Since its introduction in 2002, the shutdown rate for all Continental Diesel engine models is 4.1 every 100,000 flight hours. For the current CD-135 the rate is even lower, with just 3.31 in-flight shutdowns per 100,000 hours, company officials report.