If you saw the red, black and white Sportsman at the Glasair booth at AirVenture this summer, it may not have looked a lot different from the airplanes the company has displayed in the past. But the bright green lettering on the side of the nose and the modified bottom cowl tell a different story. Beneath that cowl is a new engine option — one that more customers around the world and here in the United States are starting to request. If you got close enough to hear the sound of the engine, you might know what I’m talking about — a diesel engine.
For well over a decade, diesel engines have become increasingly popular power plants for piston airplanes. With the high price and lack of availability of 100LL fuels in Europe, it should come as no surprise that a couple of European companies, namely the French SMA with its 230-horsepower SR305 and the German Thielert with its series of Centurion engines, started the recent trend of installing diesel engines into popular airplanes such as Cessnas, Pipers, Diamonds and Socatas, mostly under supplemental type certificates.
