More Than 4,750 Of The Engines Have Been Delivered Since 2002

Continental Motors Group celebrated a major milestone recently when its CD-100 family of jet fuel burning piston engines passed the 5 million flight hours mark, with a total of now over 4,750 Continental Diesel engines delivered since start of series production in 2002. As a result, Continental is the undisputed leader in the field of diesel aircraft engines in the history of aviation, surpassing all other manufacturers combined.

“The Fuel-efficient and reliable Continental Diesel engines became a success story in a challenging market environment. Since start of production in 2002, over 4,750 new engines with 99 kW and 114 kW (135 and 155 hp) have been installed on aircraft in the field with plans to exceed the 5,000-engine milestone in 2016. In the last nine months, the cumulative flight time logged by end-users has risen by half a million hours to 5 million hours, a figure that shows just how intensively these engines are being operated by Continental’s loyal diesel customers,” said Jürgen Schwarz, Vice President Engineering, Continental Motors Group. “As a result of continuous product development and improvement we have also increased product dependability significantly with just 1.1 unscheduled maintenance actions per 1,000 hr. Therefore, we can also claim the highest reliability rate for an aircraft piston engine,” he added.

High-frequency flyers, such as flying schools or aero-clubs, benefit not only from the product quality that insures the highest dispatch rates in the industry, but also from the fact that these engines can run on most aviation jet fuels, usually much cheaper than avgas. Pilots operating aircraft in regions of the world where no leaded avgas is available also appreciate these fuel-efficient diesel engines. Accordingly, the annual utilization of each Continental Diesel engine is over 250 hours, reaching over 1,000 hours in certain flight schools, and is thus nearly three times higher than the overall average in General Aviation. This helps to explain why the users of Continental Diesel engines reported 5 million cumulative flying hours by the end of January 2016.

The company has also reported excellent figures regarding the reliability and safety of its engines as a result of continued product improvement over the years.
Over the last 52 weeks the CD-135 only had 1.74 in-flight shut downs per 100,000 flight hours which is far beyond industry standard.

According to the FAA statistics, engines used in general aviation experience an average of 10 engine failures or engine-related “in-flight shutdowns” (IFSDs) in 100,000 flight hours. Since market introduction, the IFSD rate for Continental has always been less than half of the GA average and has steadily decreased year over year. The most recent CD-155 shows only 1.57 IFSD due to improved field quality. The CD-135 and CD-155 are therefore probably proven to be the most reliable piston engines in general aviation.

(Source: Continental Motors news release. Image from file)

FMI: www.continentalmotors.aero