It’s interesting to me how willing we are to accept the notion that a small amount of “abuse” of an aircraft engine can lead to serious problems. Get your leaning voodoo wrong? Blown engine. “Shock cool” a bit? Blown engine. Run at too high an RPM? Blown engine. Run at too low an RPM? Blown engine. We accept so matter-of-factly a fragility in a critical component that we would never stand for in a far less critical automobile engine.
I know this has all been discussed ad-nauseum before, but there was one notable attempt to introduce automobile technology into general aviation: the Porsche-Mooney. I remember all the pooh-poohing by the GA traditionalists: TWO generators needed? What a waste of weight! Give me my old mags any day! Oh my! What an odd engine mount. CanÂ’t remove the engine very easily. Tsk, tsk.
What I havenÂ’t heard is how well the engine actually performed and how reliable it was.
Does anyone know?
Joe
Toyota certified a water cooled V8 a few years ago. what ever happened with that?
Toyota certified a water cooled V8 a few years ago. what ever happened with that?
Back in late 1998, Toyota were apparently planning to design and manufacture two GA aircraft. I have heard nothing more since. Here’s what Avweb said in November 1998:
Toyota has made some mighty fine cars and trucks and now the company is giving aircraft building a whirl, as has long been rumored. According to a NASA report, Toyota Motor Sales is searching for 40 U.S. engineers to begin development of two aircraft for the General Aviation market. The company is apparently planning to set up a stand-alone corporation over the next year in the United States to complete and certify two aircraft. The Toyota Advanced Aircraft-1 will be fixed gear with a 139-knot cruise and 160-horsepower engine. The TAA-2 will also have fixed gear and cruise at 160 knots behind a 200-HP engine. AVweb is told the company has hired former Beech engineer Ed Hooper to direct engineering. Dr. Yoshihira Matsura, who will head up the new company, was the chief engineer on both the Camry
and Lexus ES300. We’re told Toyota has been putting a tremendous amount of energy into new-generation avionics that it hopes will evolve from the NASA AGATE program.
If I recall correctly the article I read described the toyota test aircraft that crashed as a Piper Archer which had been modified for engine monitoring and it went down out over the ocean with the pilot and two engineers aboard.
Not much of that made sense to me.
I heard that Toyota once advertised for aeronautical engineers in Duluth.
Toyota certified a water cooled V8 a few years ago. what ever happened with that?
Back in late 1998, Toyota were apparently planning to design and manufacture two GA aircraft. I have heard nothing more since. Here’s what Avweb said in November 1998:
I remember reading that they crashed the test plane and all aboard died. I think it said at that time Toyota was giving up on the idea.