If it had even a modest reduction drive, you could run the engine at a reasonable power setting while maintaining a more efficient tip speed but the prop and engine engineers had to meet in the middle resulting in a highly compromised solution.
If it had even a modest reduction drive, you could run the engine at a reasonable power setting while maintaining a more efficient tip speed but the prop and engine engineers had to meet in the middle resulting in a highly compromised solution.
Sure there have been improvements in modern engines, but these primarily target efficiency across power outputs whereas (as sibling noted) planes tend to have stable power requirements.
Not sure what your point is about constant speed or gearing because I already said that.
Is it? I've always thought that while GA engines are in many ways stuck in the 1940'ies, they are actually quite efficient. Wikipedia seems to back that up at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-specific_fuel_consumptio... , with a couple of Lycoming engines producing BSFC numbers in the same ballpark as a modern car engine or Rotax.
Edit: A dyno graph from an late 1990's Corvette C5 engine (5.7L) shows about 170HP @ 2700 RPM. That's at the wheels, so probably close-ish to 195HP at the crank: https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.corvetteforum.com-vbulletin...