whatever happened to the PFM???? zoom zoom!

[flyboy1963]

The Deltahawk thread got me thinking, and and OLD Flying magazine from 1988 I picked up at the clubhouse......

it sure sounded like everyone by now, would be flying behind a fully FADEC Porshe PFM geared turbo flat six!
....turns out, some folks somewhere must have one of these fabulous million dollar engines, either in an Extra 330, Mooney M20L, Socata TB-16, Robin DR400, Ruschmeyer MF-85 etc. ......apparently about 40 Mooneys were produced.
perhaps these have hit the boneyard as the engines timed out, with no parts available, or have been re-engined by some other modders like Lopresti et al.

Sure would like to see and hear an RV-10 or -14 with one of these little turbine-like units!

anyone else have any good info, or even anecdotes about this?

 

[flyvans.com]

porsche actually paid owners to remove the engines / replace with a lyc!
former management / porsche himself was aviation minded and pilot himself. so it was somewhat their pet project.
when he died / got replaced, new management saw it as a liability... :-(

i know a glider tow robin that got an io 540 i think it was instead. wasn't a bad deal for them IIRC.

the PFM engine was actually well liked and performing flawlessly. but without continued support and actual discouragement, no joy.

 

[Bob Kuykendall]

If you ask Alfred Scott, nothing happened because it was dead on arrival:

...It's often been said that Porsche has forgotten more about engine design than aviation engine manufacturers ever knew. Porsche mistook a compliment for the truth and never bothered to find out the few things that Lycoming and Continental did know...

I see this happen a lot, again and again. It is happening as we speak.

Thanks, Bob K.

 

[Neal@F14]

Ahhh German engines.... always over-engineered and underbuilt (except for diesels)

(and I'm half-German and own and drive a 15 yr old Audi A4 Quattro )

 

[dlomheim]

Porshe A/C engine on display

Is this what you're looking for?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1sr9plsuuoe5asu/Porshe Aircraft engine.jpg

I saw this at the cool Porshe museum at Stuggart last year. I also looked into getting a junk yard Porshe engine for use in my RV-9A project but when I started to price out the parts of a valve, etc, I found that the cost would be almost the same as a Lycoming...so didn't bother to go down that road and instead pursued a Mazda 13B installation...

 

[rv7charlie]

I wonder why we must go to Germany to see hardware displayed in a manner that actually allows close inspection.

Is the -3 flying yet?

Charlie