>MR> The blade assembly is cast in one solid piece. 
 > 
 > Cast as one piece? On what engine? They have a high enough reject 
 > rate now on single blade casting when x-ray inspected that I would 
 > hate to see what the reject rate would be on a one piece casting.
 > I have no prejuices against turbines. I do have experience with 
 > them. I have NOT just read about them in a book or magazine. They 
 > are simple in basic design BUT they are very exotic in materials.
There's another problem with Mike's thinking on this 'new generation of 
turbines'; he is touting the concept of running them at much lower 
temperatures than usual so as to use less-exotic materials in the blades. 
Memories of my college physics courses is a bit dim, but there's something 
about the laws of thermodynmamics floating around. Achieving high fuel 
efficiency requires high temperatures and high compression ratios. Both 
Diesel and gas engines benefit from those parameters, and I strongly suspect 
that turbines do too.
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