Turbine - What's your opinion on this one.

[KigAir]

Hi,

A friend of mine went to Sun 'n Fun this year and found a company that is selling Turbine engines for experimental aircraft such as the RV-8. I am wondering if you MX guys could take a look at the site and give me an opinion about their product. For a small aircraft, would this engine be better than a standard reciprocating engine? The site suggests that maintenance on this engine is nonexistence. Do turbines require less maintenance? My friend thinks this company is going to revolutionize the small aircraft market with these turbines. They do seem a little neat. Especially the video of the turbine powered RV-8.

Here's the link: Turbine Engines

 

[USMCmech]

I have heard a little about these guys, mainly from an article in EAAs magazine.

They have "reverse enginered" an APU turboshaft engine that was designed for a military helo (if I have my story straight).

It looks pretty intresting, I would look long and hard at all their data before hanging one on my plane. However I haven't seen anything that is a show stopper.

Supposedly they are offering this engine to the hombuilder market now and hope to eventually certify it. If they do, it will shake up the light airplane market considerably.


By nature a turbine is more reliable than a piston engine.

A turbine has only one major moving part that just spins, as opposed to a recip having hundreds of parts that bang against each other with ever stroke.

It also should be significantly lighter than a recip of similiar Hp.

 

[TrafficInSight]

Since when is anything maintenance free?

 

[kcab]

Turbines are cool and can be adapted for use in many things - see: TurboKart
for an example of just how far some folks will go to get a jet engine in their life.

The Inodyne is a pretty neat package. Maintenance free? well, they should be fairly reliable but when something does go wrong there are some pretty expensive parts in there due to the heat, pressure and rotational speeds. They also burn more gas than a recip and that fuel flow figure is constant from the moment you fire up until you shut it down, meaning you are burning 14 or 18 gph even during idle, taxi and approach. The gas is definitely cheaper but it means you need to carry more for the same range which sort of negates the weight advantage (at least for gross takeoffs),

They've definitely got some neat advantages but not exactly a slam dunk.

 

[crash-proof]

I think the fact that you'll have the coolest looking and coolest sounding plane at the airport will outweigh any of the negatives.

I saw in a mag a few years back a Mitchell flying wing ultralight fitted with a small APU turbojet, showing off at Oshkosh. (yes, jet, not t-prop). I think he had something like a 10 minute flight endurance on a full tank!