Engines

My next-door hangar neighbor, GlaStar builder and KITPLANES® web manager, Omar Filipovic, had already cast his steely gaze upon the Titan IO-340 hanging from my GlaStar’s nose. A few days before “the event,” I had mechanic friend Will Steenrod pop over to provide another set of eyes. His expertise involves cars and motorcycles—as a factory-trained wrench for […]

I didn’t buy this GlaStar intending to commit significant resources to the engine in the first year. Indeed, few of us intend to do that—but it happens. Who does that? But I always knew it was a possibility. My GlaStar’s Lycoming O-320-E3D, originally in a Piper Warrior, had seen service in three airplanes, completed a […]

Rolls-Royce announced the delivery of the 100th Pearl 15 engine to Bombardier in Montreal, Canada, this week. The engine type, which was custom-designed for Bombardier’s Global 5500 and Global 6500 business jets, was developed and manufactured at Rolls-Royce’s facility in Dahlewitz, Germany. As previously reported by AVweb, the Pearl 15 and the Pearl engine family […]

BRP-Rotax has announced that it plans to end production of the two-stroke Rotax 582 UL aircraft engine by end of 2021. According to the company, the decision was made due to the “nearly full transition” of the light and ultralight aircraft markets to four-stroke engines. Rotax says the 582 UL will remain available for as […]

Pratt & Whitney Canada will partner with De Havilland Canada to develop a hybrid-electric propulsion system for regional airliners. The government of Canada has invested about $130 million USD in the project, which will involve De Havilland modifying a legacy Dash-8-100 turboprop regional airliner for the hybrid system. A turbine engine will be mounted in […]

Pratt & Whitney officially opened the doors to its new ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) engineering and development “Center of Excellence” on Tuesday. According to the company, the center will be used as an engineering, development and low-rate production facility dedicated to CMCs for aerospace applications. Pratt & Whitney says that the use of CMCs allows […]

Yamaha is dipping a tentative toe into the aviation engine market in a partnership with a Japanese manufacturer. The recreational and industrial vehicle giant will modify one of its existing small engine designs to fit a RANS S-6 to be adapted by ShinMaywa Industries. “Under this agreement, Yamaha Motor will explore avenues for adapting its […]

GE Aviation and Safran this week jointly launched a development program for what they call an “open fan” airliner engine design. Under the auspices of the two companies’ cooperative CFM International business unit, the RISE (Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines) initiative focuses on lowering fuel consumption and carbon emissions, and the team projects greater than […]

Rolls-Royce officially opened the doors to its new 7,500-square-meter (80,729-square-foot) testbed facility in Derby, U.K., last week. Called Testbed 80, the testbed can collect data for more than 10,000 different engine parameters and detect vibrations at a rate of up to 200,000 samples per second. Along with being able to handle Rolls-Royce’s UltraFan demonstrator, which […]

Pratt & Whitney Canada is celebrating the production of its 100th PT6 E-Series general aviation turboprop engine this week. The latest in a long line of PT6 models, the E-Series was launched in October 2019.  According to Pratt & Whitney, it is the first turboprop engine serving the general aviation market to offer a dual-channel […]