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GENER AL AVIATION A direct fuel injection system will allow the engines to run on Mogas, diesel, or kerosene. 16 APRIL 2017 AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY use in some niches. Geiger Motors is con- fident to be able to make it better. Now Geiger is increasing the pace launching a third Wankel powerplant which consists of two engines coupled by a gearbox with a single shaft output — a valid reason for AMT and its European correspondent to visit the manufacturer. AVIATION AND WANKEL, NOT THE BEST PAIRING In the last decades several new, Wankel- cycle engines, were developed for aviation GEIGER SINGLE rotor A1-37 engine. GEIGER TWO- ROTOR A2-74 engine. use. Often, too often, those rotary piston engines never entered a serial production or disappeared fast and are now rarely available for purchase. There were several serious attempts in this field like Mistral from Switzerland as a certified engine and many others (noncertified) that derived either from Mazda automotive core or a few others, mainly in Europe, based on the ancient Sachs (motorcycle) engine. The Wankel engine could be the ideal choice for aeronautic use, being very com- pact, simple, lightweight, having a high power-to-weight ratio, and smooth operation. Many designs suffered some common problems. Most rele- vant were thermal problems: cooling of rotating pistons was difficult and usually a not well-solved task. Those engines suffered problems with seal- ing surfaces on the rotor perimeter and on sidewalls, resulting in high oil and fuel consumption. Many manu- facturers lacked sufficient funding, plus were not able to manufacture parts with tight tolerances, especially in smallest series. Geiger is promising betterment on the precision parts manufactur- ing side. The German Geiger Motor GmbH sees its chance. Geiger is established as a competent supplier of parts to the automotive industry and is an expert in complex compo- nents production for manufacturers like BMW, Mercedes, and others. Geiger can count on about 100 highly skilled workers, at two manufacturing sites in Germany in Upper Franconia with a huge machines park. Among them are cutting-edge, CNC controlled machines, along with other milling and precision grinding machines to assure economical production even in small production runs. Geiger, established in 1967, started in 2009 with the development and production of engines. The result is the rotary piston, Wankel four-stroke engine which consists of a low num- ber of parts not having the intake/ exhaust valves and drives. The wish to develop such an engine is understand- able knowing that from the beginning Wolfgang Bayer was involved in the engine development. He has worked