Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: CMC Airboss on May 03, 2005, 01:47:29 PM
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A small, cheap, and powerful turboprop engine for light aircraft is now available. This thing looks pretty amazing and just sips fuel compared to most turbines. Best of all, the cost is a tiny fraction of a PT-6.
Innodyn Turbines have a centrifugal compressor and a radial inflow turbine. They are direct spooled and feature digital computer control with a redundant analog system. Innodyn Turbines operate on several different fuels and require little regular maintenance.
Each Turbine weighs no more than 188 pounds, and is designed for use with our firewall forward kits. Because the Innodyn Turbine is directly driven, rather than spooled, there is virtually no lag associated with increasing speed. In general, we have found our internal flight data indicating fuel usage of approximately 7 gallons per 100 hp per hour.
Innodyn 165TE
165 Horsepower
Introductory Price: $26,500
Innodyn 185TE
185 Horsepower
Introductory Price: $28,000
Innodyn 205TE
205 Horsepower
Introductory Price: $29,500
Innodyn 255TE
255 Horsepower
Introductory Price: $34,500
There are 2 basic controls to Innodyn Turbines the propeller RPM throttle and the propeller pitch. The computer manages the amount of fuel the Turbine draws, and alerts the pilot with a warning light if too much power is being requested. The computer control will not let the Turbine over-heat, and it will not let the Turbine over-speed.
Innodyn will offer a line of firewall forward kits. At the present time, the following kits are either readily available or under development and will be available in the near future:
Vans Aircraft: RV-4, RV-6, RV-7, RV-8, RV-9, RV-10
Smith Aviation PA-18 Modified SuperCub
Lancair 360
Glassair Sportsman
Canard type kits
More info: http://www.innodyn.com/aviation/products.html
Videos of an Innodyn powered RV
http://www.innodyn.com/aviation/action.html
MiG
ps. I have no connection to this company or its products.
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I wish my Mooney...well...enuf said...
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Yeah I would love to have a turboprop on my P35 Bonanza but they are just to cost prohibitive at this point. If they would offer a 300HP model under 40K I could see me putting it on my Beechcraft. That is, once the FAA gives them the green light.
I think it would look great on my bird. I have always wanted a turbo prop. I fly a PC-12 part time. I love those big PT6s. If these can prove the be as reliable as a PT6 this thing should fly though an FAA cert for putting them on cert aircraft. I bet with one of these on my P35 she would really move then.
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Seems reasonable enough. I mean, a new IO-360 will cost you 25K without breaking a sweat. Continental along the same lines + accessories. Hope it does get an STC.
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Id really like to see fuel-burn comparisons between a recip and turbo-prop aircraft in the same configuration.
Few guys I know went with the Quantum Turbo Prop for the BD-5, while great power in a very light package...a very impressive fuel burn too.
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I don't think they have a production version yet.
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I read an article on them, they look promising. The fuel burn is about 7 gallons per 100hp per hour.
http://www.innodyn.com/aviation/faq.html
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From their website on a section regarding constant speed props and takeoff procedures:
It will not be possible to accidentally enter a negative pitch into the propeller while airborne, as this would be a very alarming development.
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Lepaul,
General comparison between recip and the data they put in the quote here.
Cessna 172 165 hp @ 7GPH
My old Comanche 180 @ 8.5 to 9.5 GPH
Their data is 7 GPH per 100 HP. In the case of my Comanche the 55 Gal usable would go away pretty darn fast at almost 14 GPH. But then again my bladder limited me to about 3 hours anyhow.
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I would wager you did not operate your comanche at full throttle the whole time airborne, so the ~9 gallons was probably not buying you all 180hp for an hour....time to go into business selling JetA tanks, pumps, etc. to FBOs
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I've been reading more about this engine tonight, and the more I read, the more I fall in love with it. Something to figure when working out the cost to run, the TBO is around 5000 instead of 2500, and looks to be the same price.
Fewer moving parts, they have firewall-forward kits... this thing is gonna be big.
Check out the videos. That sound... oh my.
I gotta get me some of that turbine action. Time to get an RV-10 with one of these bad boys... holy crap.
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Ok, I've been reading about it on the vansairforce.com forums, and I guess I should 'throttle back' the enthusiasm a little. They might not be as super dooper as their website claims, we need to wait a little more, I guess.
But still...
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Originally posted by Chairboy
I read an article on them, they look promising. The fuel burn is about 7 gallons per 100hp per hour.
http://www.innodyn.com/aviation/faq.html
That engine is more expensive and consumes a helluva lot more than a Diesel, to which a lot of people are converting their Cessnas at the moment.
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Maybe Mora,
BUT - try flying on 100 LL in your country when it is $13.00 a gal for 100 octane. You can't do it for very long - and Kerosene, Diesel or JP, or Jet A doesn't require the complex refining of 100 LL - so while the burn rate maybe higher, the operating costs are less in the long term.
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The truth is your really not burning that much more an hour in fuel and like
Wolfala said it is cheaper in the long run. I am about to go the way of tip tanks on my bird. Currently I burn around 18-20 gal and hour. I carry enough fuel onboard for around 4 and a half hours of safe flying. In truth nobody is wanting to stay up in the air that long in a small plane. So it isnt even an issue. I would love to be able to burn Jet-A and run my enigne at full power all the time. My plane is fast as it sits now. But it is held back on the perf flying due to the restrictions built into my wallet. I think an afforidable turbo prop would correct this. And pay for it's self over time.
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Originally posted by Wolfala
Maybe Mora,
BUT - try flying on 100 LL in your country when it is $13.00 a gal for 100 octane. You can't do it for very long - and Kerosene, Diesel or JP, or Jet A doesn't require the complex refining of 100 LL - so while the burn rate maybe higher, the operating costs are less in the long term.
I think that a Diesel is a better choice to you too because of the price and fuel economy. 100LL is around $7/gal here and a non-taxed(not for road use) diesel is $2,5/gal. Jet A is probably around the same.
"The Thielert engine uses ordinary diesel fuel, Jet A1 kerosene or a mixture of these. The fuel economy is much improved from the old engine: the endurance of the aircraft was increased from 4 hours to no less than 8 hours. More advanced silencer design and a modern three-bladed adjustable-pitch propeller reduce the noise of the aircraft very efficiently."
http://www.pelastamalmi.org/en/news/new_equipment.html
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Something else, don't forget that there's a higher time between overhaul. A 2000 TBO is typical on a reciprocating engine, while Innodyn claims 5000 TBO on theirs, and they say they'll perform the overhaul for 1/3rd the purchase price, which works out to slightly cheaper then a reciprocating overhaul.
Not too shabby.
I like the fact that the turboprop is like a goat and will run on anything. They advertise that it will use Jet-A, Kerosene, and Diesel. They're testing to see if it will run on biodiesel, plus it could probably use mineral oil, cooking oil, whatever's laying around. That appeals to my post-apocalyptic future planning. Wait, people don't say that anymore. Um, it appeals to my conservationist, alternative fuels side. There, that's better.
Funny thing about biodiesel, you know that it's not all Birkenstock wearing hippies using it, and that there are plenty of end-of-the-world types watching that technology VERY closely.
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Chairboy,
TBO is only part of the situation. There likely will be at least 1 or more "hot box" inspections that require a medium to "heavy" teardown of the engine. The combustion chamber will need to be inspected and other routine maintenance such as turbine cleaning.
On the face of it, the concept sounds nice. On the other hand since power will be rated to comparable to the recip the only real advantage in performance will be the ability to maintain power up into the flight levels. Of course that means oxy for the occupants but the higher alt "could" give you greater speed depending on how long and how much fuel it took to get there.
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I've followed the turbines and such closely for years. The BD-5 was developed with a mid-engine design, based on a engine that wasnt available yet. So if there has been any such new, light, powerful, etc engines come out, the BD-5 enthusiasts have been on the edge of their chair wondering if THIS was the one to use.
It'll be cool to see how this engine pans out. Or others.
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I wonder why a turboprop burns more juice than a Diesel? You'd think that constant burning would deliver better efficiency?
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Turbines are completely different beasts then recips, so you can't make a comparison between the two for efficiency.
Maverick, good points. The Innodyn website claims that the engine needs 500 hour oil changes with complimentary inspection, but their language suggested that this would be similar to what would happen during an annual anyways.
Of course, it's not being sold/flown in the real world yet, so there's no real world data to back any of this up yet, but it's definately worth watching.
I thought the BD-5 was a turbine aircraft, while this is a turboprop, so that might be why there isn't a big ruckus.
Check this out, some guy used turbines built for R/C Jets to power his plane:
http://www.amtjets.com/gallery_real_plain.html
(http://www.amtjets.com/cri_cri_10_gallery.jpg)
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There are three versions (http://www.bd-micro.com/FLS.HTM) of the BD-5. Recip, turboprop and jet