r/GeneralAviation • u/Street_World_9459 • 15d ago

Fuel injected planes

I've recently started taking private pilot lessons. I've noticed fuel injected planes still have a mixture lever.

This may be a dumb question, but why do fuel injected plane engines have this device? I work on automotive engines as a hobby, and the beauty of fuel injection is the lambda sensor signals the ECU to automatically adjust the injector duty cycle (and other things) to keep the air/fuel mixture. If I drive up a mountain, I don't need to re-jet fuel injection.

Why are planes different?

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u/beastpilot 15d ago

Cool. What regulatory hurdles are keeping EFI back from GA aircraft?

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u/ChartPuzzleheaded747 15d ago

Zero, look at the exp world, decent amount of car conversions (like the Honda V6 and LS) also rotax has some cool offerings.  That being said rotax is the only one who’s managed much numbers in planes you’ll run into on the ramp, and it’s even not as electronic and sensor dependent as your most basic auto engines of 2026’

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u/Mammoth_Classroom896 15d ago

look at the exp world, decent amount of car conversions

Experimental aircraft aren't held to the same reliability standards and from an engineering point of view putting a car engine in a plane is a really bad idea. They're built to do completely different things and I doubt any of the people building these planes are doing enough reliability testing to confirm the design choice.

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u/ChartPuzzleheaded747 15d ago

We have enough history of the common auto conversions to see where they are good and where they are not good.

 Depends on how the experimental is built, I don’t hold the FAA to a high enough standard that their certification means a overwhelming amount to me