8 Light Plane Engines

At least to some degree, it’s not accurate to call electric propulsive devices “engines.” They are actually “motors” because, unlike engines, they don’t produce the energy that they convert into motion. Then again, the terms have become almost interchangeable, to the point that MIT’s guidance on the subject is that the two terms are, for […]

It might seem odd to break off the Continental and Lycoming six-cylinder engine models from the four-cylinder air-cooled opposed models they were based upon, but their impact on light aviation has been huge. The two companies’ star engines, the 550-series for Continental Aerospace Technologies and the 540-series for Lycoming, have given developers of high-performance single- […]

The latest update to light GA aircraft that has had much impact was the Thielert Centurion 1.7, introduced by Diamond aircraft in its DA42 (then called the Twin Star) in the early 2000s. The engine is an extensive conversion of a Mercedes automobile engine. It was the first successful diesel aero engine, though in this […]

One of the most revolutionary engines in light aircraft history, the Rotax 912 has gone into hundreds of different models of certificated and sport aircraft. A four-cylinder, hybrid cooling (air and liquid) engine, the first 912, introduced in 1989, boasted 80 horsepower of smooth, efficient power that helped catapult sport aviation to another level. Previously, […]

The increasingly urgent need for greater speed and payload demanded that commercial and military applications go with large radial engines or, less frequently, inline or V-configuration designs. But for light aircraft, those layouts didn’t translate well, as they were relatively heavy, complex and expensive to produce. The engines that caught on were the series of […]

In light aviation before the era of the air-cooled opposed aero engine, the radial engine was the dominant engine type. This is in part because United States military planners voted strongly for the type, and their hunch paid off handsomely, as a number of radial engines from relatively compact to staggeringly powerful were installed in […]

The Liberty L-12, which emerged toward the end of WWI as a real player, is a fork-in-the-road product, one that marks the divergence of lower-powered engines from engines that would get bigger and more powerful. The L-12 is actually a family of engines, with six- and eight-cylinder models produced, as well. But it was the […]

Even by the start of the 1910s, it had long been known that weight is the enemy of flight. Power, conversely, was an airplane’s best friend. So, the quest to build ever-lighter and more powerful engines was the critical pursuit as designers around the world sought to create engines to power new, truly practical aircraft.  […]