Remember when Porsche dabbled in the G.A. engine market?

In the early to mid 1980's, Cessna and Mooney flirted with them in the US market. The engines really did not work out for a number of reasons, starting with power to weight ratio, then cost, and then Cessna putting small aircraft production on hiatus. I believe there were some technical issues like cooling issues as well.

But the one thing that came with the PFM experiment was better styling. Check out the cowling and intake on the Cessna 172 with the PFM. I don't believe there has ever been a factory built, high wing Cessna that looked better in the nose. (The C&O turboprop conversion for the C 210 has a cowling that resembles it, but that is a later and different story).

http://porscheaviation.com/

The designers/engineers at Cessna should be looking back at that to update the appearance of the high wing line of aircraft (size and dimensions of the engines presently in use would be a factor in cowling design, of course, but they could use an update).

http://porscheaviation.com/index.php/cessna-pfm

Agree. That looks awesome

Mooney offered the 231 with either the Porsche engine or Continental for a couple of years, everything was the same from firewall back except the electrical system. The Porsche powered version had 6 pounds less useful load, cruised 4 Knots slower at 75% power, and cost $52,000.00 more to buy. Sales were not much. The electrical issue was a major killer for manufacturers, because the Porsche had 2 alternators, and the FAA decided that planes had to have 1/2 of their critical systems on each one or some such nonsense (don't remember the exact details anymore). The 2 alternators issue basically killed the market for retrofitting it into existing airplanes.

One more reminder that as archaic as they are, Continental, Lycoming and Franklin met the unique demands of light general aviation powerplant design with simple, practical and elegant solutions.

I’ve over thirty four years and counting as an auto mechanic. I’ve seen some amazing technology come along.
There isn’t an automobile engine I’d fly somewhere behind.
Sometimes the olde fashioned three pound hammer works better then the cordless drill.

I don't want to get a slap down for contributing to a (clearly) non-backcountry aircraft discussion, but I can't resist. Up front I'll have to admit that I'm an unabashed enthusiast of Mooney and Porsche, but I never loved this plane (and still don't).

I can't find it right now but a few years ago I read a very long article on the partnership that resulted in the PFM Mooney. It was like a Paul Harvey "the rest of the story" and it was quite interesting.

Basically the deal worked out really well for Mooney because Porsche had to pay for all the certification on that long fuselage. If they hadn't done so we would never have seen a big breather 6 cylinder on a Mooney (they sure as hell haven't had the R&D money at any time in my adult life).

Yes there was some scope creep which resulted in dual alternators, etc. Mechanics bitched about the motor mount and access to pretty much everything (nothing new with Mooney though).

My recollection was that the biggest detractor was the single lever power, which the world was obviously not ready for at the time but has since embraced like it's a thing. Had it been a fire breathing monster, 30 knots faster and sound like a 917* on a low pass they would have sold quite well. As it is, besides the not-ready-for-joe-average FADEC it was heavier and not a performance bump we would hope for.

The other part in the article was in contradiction to what I read elsewhere (including my search for support just now), and that is that Porsche agreed from the beginning that it was an experiment and that they would eventually re-engine every one of the PFM planes with O-5XX upon the end of the program. Any remaining PFM planes are like Beech Starship owners holding out.

*volume up: