Most de Havilland Beavers in my area are still radial engines due to the nostalgia that sells to tourists. Most companies have converted their de Havilland Otters to a turbine engine. I have seen turbine Beavers from other areas. You can visually identify the engine by the shape of the plane nose. A radial engine plane has a big, round, blunt nose and sounds like an idling drag racer with a deep glug glug glug noise. A turbine engine plane has a pointy nose and sounds like the high pitch whine of a jet engine.
Given the relatively thin margins in aviation, I think it's probably less about nostalgia and more about the $1M USD price of e.g. a PT-6 turbine
Margins on transportation flights are thin. Margins on flightseeing are not. The company I worked for chartered a Beaver between $600-$700 an hour and a turbine Otter at double that. Seats for 45-minute flightseeing (through a national monument) were priced at $185-$250. 6 pax in an Beaver and 10 in an Otter.
This is why a lot of radial engine powered planes that are many decades old have no options for new engines if there are no turbine conversion available.
A radial looks, sounds, smells dangerous, like it's going to fly apart at any second, and that's awesome. Every so often some old warbirds fly over my neighbourhood and it's such a treat to hear those big radials thundering away. They should prescribe that sound as antidepressants.
Originally there was supposed to a 4 engined Lancaster as well but it wasn't deemed airworthy so that got postponed, even so, it was mighty impressive.
I’m always amazed how people don’t know this and think “jet fuel” is some magic stuff.
I’m missing steps, but I think it’s pretty much:
oil >> tanker fuel >> diesel >> kerosene >> jet fuel
With lead.
You might be thinking of avgas which has lead in it, but turbine engines don't burn avgas.
Sure, lots of older aircraft (and lots of modern small aircraft) run on avgas or diesel, whether radial or inline. But Harbour Air's fleet is almost all turbines. I think they have just a single non-turbine aircraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Canada_DHC-2_Beav...
>Viking DHC-2T Turbo Beaver
>Remanufactured Beavers by Viking Air, upgraded with a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-34 680 hp (507 kW) turboprop engine.
The Russian ASH-62 is still in production, and depending on spec can produce as much as 1100hp.
No, it isn't. The "new" 62 are just old stock, or made from old stock parts, or rebuilt frankenstein engines with some new parts, or are Dongan HS-5 restamped as original 62 to pass the type test.
I used to be an aviation fan in my childhood. Tried to build a motoglider, but the process stalled before I moved out of the country.
I'm not disagreeing, I just want to make sure we're talking about real things and not starting rumors.
These planes are DHC-2 DeHaviland Beavers, which traditionally do have radial engines that would require leaded gas. So there is some significance to the rumors.
BUT... Harbour Air (the airline featured in this article) is a large seaplane airline that have converted all their Beavers to Turbo-Beavers, so they use Turbo-prop engines, which is essentially a jet engine with a propeller on the shaft instead of a fan (turbo-fan is what most commercial jetliners use, these are essentially the same type of engine but using a propeller to convert engine revolutions into propulsion as opposed to a fan). So in this case, Harbour Air's beavers actually use Jetfuel which does NOT have lead in it.
Almost half Kenmore Air's fleet spews lead on us.
Most fuel farms at airports sell 100 octane leaded fuel by default. It is normally the odd exception that sells unleaded fuel.
The piston engine seaplanes will be using leaded fuel (as will any piston powered small plane with the exception of a few homebuilts and trainers). The turbine ones use regular Jet A.
I don't know about sea planes though. My guess is they use lead because that is the best educated guess.
edit: others are claiming that these planes are mostly turboprops which would then use lead free jet fuel.
Most people would prefer to use standard automotive gasoline. You can see people in the experimental/sports aircraft category rejoicing when they can find a "MoGas" pump.
Many attempts have been made to remove lead from Avgas but it's fairly difficult since the substitute needs to work with the vast majority of current engines and it needs to be easy to produce and distribute in large quantities around the country. Given the much smaller demand for 100LL (primarily used in general aviation) compared to Jet-A used for turbojet aircraft there hasn't been a big push.
https://www.harbourair.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Harbou...
Many of the boats nearby in the marina do use diesel, for some of the large ones, maybe even the high sulfur bunker crude which is nasty stuff.