In several of my previous columns, I have proposed that part of the problem with general aviation is the lack of new technology in piston-powered aircraft.

The fact that the engines are based on 1930s and 1940s technology means that many of today’s future pilots do not relate to their operating systems.

I proposed that manufacturers adapt technology from the automotive world to new aviation engines. I have received a lot of responses. The two most common are “Do you know how much that will cost?” and “Pilots prefer the old tried and proven engines.”

When I was young, I used to watch the TV series Dragnet. One of the famous lines from that series was “The facts, ma’am, just the facts.”

But today the question has become what are the facts and whose facts are correct?

When I watch the news, on almost every issue, one party will show facts and/or data showing their side and the other party will show just the opposite. So, which one is correct? Well kind of sort of both.

When I started in the fuels and lubes research business in 1967, a big part of my job was to monitor changes in automotive technology and the effect that these changes had on the fuels and lubricant requirements.

I remember the first emission control engines and their effect on temperature and operating conditions. I followed the technology through VW’s electronic fuel injection to electronic ignition, EGR, catalytic converters, and on and on.

The new technology worked very well, except for a few initial problems like when one of the manufacturers used aluminum connectors in its electronic ignition circuits. Just a small amount of corrosion increased the resistance and the engines died. But these gremlins were worked out and the new systems work very well.

In my January column, “All 100 octane fuels are not equal,” I explained some of the problems with assuming that an octane rating is an absolute number. One of the comments from that column concerned cetane rating for compression ignition — diesel cycle — engines.

In general, octane ratings and cetane ratings are more or less opposite. In other words, the higher the octane rating the lower the cetane rating and vice versa.

Although it is not a straight line relationship, it does follow a general trend. In octane rating we are measuring a fuel’s ability to limit auto-ignition, while the cetane rating is a measurement of a fuel’s quickness or ease to auto-ignite. [Read more…]

Recently, a friend of mine was working on a Holly carburetor off his vintage car when his nephew stopped by. The nephew looked at the carburetor and asked “what does that thing do?”

The scary point here is that the nephew had just graduated from a technical school with a degree in auto mechanics!

If new auto mechanics don’t know what a carburetor is, then how difficult is it going to be to teach Millenials how to fly?

Alas, here is a list of some, but not all, of the problems with teaching them to become pilots. [Read more…]