Quote:
Originally Posted by breister
(Post 1402503)
Hey Dave, <SNIP> any news to report for the past 4 months?
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Hi Bill,
We have commenced prototyping of components, some of which will undergo individual testing and others which will be going straight into the prototype engine. It is very exciting for me to see some hardware after many years of design.
One of the most important components of our engine is the recuperator. This is the technology that will have the single highest influence on achieving the necessary fuel efficiency for our engine. We have what we believe to be the optimum recuperator design for our engine but what we need to do is test that design to enable a correlation between the theoretical performance determined by analyses and actual performance determined on a test rig. We have fabricated 3 recuperator test sections; two of our earlier designs along with our latest design. During February, we shall be testing all 3 test sections and will compare the actual performance against the theoretical performance. Once we have the correlation for each configuration, we will then be able to determine with more accuracy whether we need to redesign in theory, in order to achieve the actual performance required for the engine. I am looking forward keenly to seeing those results.
The rest of the engine design looks like a piece of art to me. It has been amazing seeing it come together. I need to give my engineering team full credit for their dedication to our project, I am extremely fortunate to have such a talented team. We have had around 15 engineers working on the program, some of who have come out of the Pratt & Whitneys, Honeywells, Allied Signals etc. and they are now working on a project where they are not constrained by conventional thinking and have the opportunity to both suggest and implement innovative ideas.
Due to the lead time required to produce components, we are still a few months away from assembling and running the engine but mid-year is an achievable target. We are confident of running the engine before Oshkosh and we are pretty excited to have reserved a booth at Oshkosh this year where we intend to display for the first time. Actual hardware that is, not vapourware. The booth is within about 50 yards of the Vans display so access will be easy for those visiting the Vans booth. We intend to have an actual engine on display. Naturally, this is all predicated on maintaining our current development timeline, but we are confident of doing so. However, I need to place the usual caveat for a development program and that is that delays do happen....
We have been developing a new website and we just launched a new holding page. The full website will go up around May but will coincide with first engine runs. Through the new site, we will be launching a more public profile. As I have mentioned previously, we have been trying to maintain a low profile so as to manage expectations. There are always delays in a highly technical development program like ours so we only want to start our concerted marketing campaign, once we have a high degree of certainty that we can deliver within a specific timeframe. We are not too far from that point.
Our first customer will be installing his engine in his new-build RV14 so an RV will be one of the first aircraft to fly with our engine. You can rest assured that we will start a thread on this forum about that aircraft when it happens.
So, it'll be fairly quiet for the next six months from the news perspective while we prototype components, assemble the prototype engine and get it on to the test stand. From the technical perspective, me and my team will be extremely busy!! I know that readers of this forum are Vans fans, but I sure can't wait to put a 200hp turbine on the front of my new-build Lightning Bug which is the reason I started this venture in the first place 9 years ago. I'm looking forward to leaving those Legacies in my wake!! :D