I am a relative newcomer to diesels having bought my first one this past summer. I am not at all surprised at the numbers. Diesels are a niche product and are not likely to become mainstream in the US any time soon. Modelers are not particularly resistant to change, in fact they are pretty receptive to new things that offer significant advantage. A case in point is the glow plug. When I begun flying powered models all engines were spark ignition. When Mr. Arden came out with his glow plug, it swept the field, and within just a few years spark ignition engines vanished from the hobby shop shelves. The key to the change was a significant improvement in operation.

Model diesels have been around for at least fifty years and were the predominant power plant in Europe for many years. If there were a really significant overall advantage to the diesel over the glow engines I believe modelers would have changed over by now. If the average sport modeler was too dense to understand it, certainly the serious competition fliers would have changed over and the winner’s circle would be dominated by diesels. There must be a reason that this has not happened.

Although diesels have some uncontested advantages over glow powered engines, there are some real drawbacks. I won’t try to list all the pros and cons here as any such list would be incomplete, and any particular item would be subject to further discussion. Those who have operated diesels for years have learned to deal with the idiosyncrasies and have no problems. If the performance gains were enough, this wouldn’t matter, but in the everyday world of R/C flying there is not enough advantage to justify the trouble for most people.

I must say that I have enjoyed my little PAW and have learned a lot about diesels by tinkering with it. I hope to have it in an airplane again soon, but I doubt if I will buy another.