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Differences between aircraft and car engines (aviation.stackexchange.com)
1 point by Harmohit on June 9, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments


I was doing some reading about the Mustang aircraft in WW2 and found about that they had V12 engines with 1000 to 2000 horsepower. But modern aerobatic aircraft only have around 300 to 500 horsepower. I was wondering if it would be possible to build a custom aircraft with 2 supercharged Corvette engines (around 700 to 800 horsepower each) and found this post on aviation stack exchange.


Fun read. A friend has a few airplanes and said they cost about $30k-50k to overhaul the engines every 2,000 to 3,000 flight hours. The FAA considers it a minor repair.

A car can go 200k-500k+ miles and the engine rebuild is about $3k-$5k or $1000 in parts and DIY.


One point not covered in the SE post is that aviation engines are designed for a different and more demanding regime than auto engines. Aviation piston engines are used at or near 100% power for minutes, and 60% or more power for periods of hours.


The second answer does address this point.


Sorry, I don't see any place where the difference in operating conditions is addressed. No auto engine is designed to operate at more than 60% rated power continuously.




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