[sokoloff]

If Mazda spends $25M in NRE on a new engine program and sells that design for 8 model years, the amortized NRE is around $10 per car or about 3 basis points of the product.

If Lycoming or Continental spend $25M on a new engine program and sell them for 15 years in all 172s, it’s around $22K per airplane or around 550 basis points. When investments in engine development are over 180x more expensive on a percent of sales basis and over 2000x as expensive on a per-unit basis, it’s unsurprising that few companies are stepping up to do that development.

I don’t mind at all if you want to lobby for it; I think there are improvements that could be made, but I think you’ll find the economics daunting and the current engine tech to be pretty well matched to the application.