Continental Motors diesels surpass 5 million flight hours

Mobile, Alabama – Continental Motors Group, an AVIC International Holding Corp. company, celebrated a major milestone when its CD-100 family of jet-fuel burning piston engines passed the 5 million flight-hours mark by the end of January 2016. More than 4,750 Continental diesel engines in 99kW and 114kW (135hp and 155hp) versions have been delivered since series production started in 2002, surpassing all other manufacturers combined for diesel aero engine deliveries. The company plans to exceed the 5,000-engine milestone in 2016.

 

“The fuel-efficient and reliable Continental diesel engines became a success story in a challenging market environment,” said Jürgen Schwarz, vice president of engineering, Continental Motors Group. “In the last 9 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.” 

 

Product dependability has increased also, 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,” Schwarz added.

 

During the last 52 weeks, the CD-135 only had 1.74 in-flight shut downs per 100,000 flight hours, which is beyond industry standard.

 

According to the FAA statistics, engines used in general aviation (GA) 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. 

 

High-frequency flyers, such as flying schools or aero-clubs, benefit not only from the product quality that insures high dispatch rates, 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 more than 250 hours, reaching more than 1,000 hours in certain flight schools, and is thus nearly 3x higher than the overall average in general aviation.

 

Continental is an international operation employing approximately 450 team members in Mobile and Baldwin counties, Alabama, USA; 200 team members in St. Egidien, Germany; and 8 team members in Beijing, China.