Top technologies for 2000

Every month, Aerospace Engineering publishes the latest technologies. The Aerospace Engineering editors have reviewed thousands of reader responses submitted during the past year and, based on your feedback, have chosen the top technologies. Of the winners, “the best of the best” are presented here followed by a list of the runners-up.

For full coverage of the Top 15 technologies for 2000, visit our website at www.sae.org.

Aerospatiale Matra and Renault Sport's partnership to create a new diesel engine for general aviation aircraft is progressing. Socata is developing an aircraft based on its new MS fleet (a design extrapolated from the TB line), which could use the new power unit with deliveries in 2001. Thinking behind the project centered on the cost of Avgas I00LL and its limited availability at airfields, particularly in Europe, and also on the fact that as a leaded fuel, it is regarded as environmentally undesirable. A turbocharged compression-ignition engine running on Jet A1 fuel is believed to offer a cleaner and cheaper solution, and the market for such an engine is potentially very large.