BIG NEWS AGAIN - Avid TurboProp

21 posts in this topic

Posted

Dear friends,

a little surprising information for me, but definitely big new for AVID community:

AVID TurboProp is reality in Europe.

Company Stuttgart Engineering developed STV-100 shaft-turbine engine for light aircraft - it is already known information for a while. They are working on 100HP and 130 HP variants of completely new engines.

Surprise is that they decided for first installation on AVID aircraft  ;)  I have no more news or data, just a few pictures I am sharing with you for now. Enjoy

Avid_TURBO_1.jpg

Avid_TURBO.jpg

Avid_TURBO_2.jpg

Avid_TURBO_3.jpg

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Posted

That's Awesome! More power and less weight! Please keep us posted, Bryce

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Posted

I will do my best ;)
but you know, they are informing just ocasionally

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Posted

Memories of  Inodyne come to mind.

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Posted

Awesome....only aesthetic detail I don't like is the cowling / spinner junction. It's too big of a gap and size of spinner is not right.

Totally subjective of course:)

 

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Posted

Exhaust pipe envy! :-)

 

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Posted

Exhaust pipe envy! :-)

 

No kidding!

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Posted

What kind of fuel burn does something like that have?

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Posted

I think they said 12 gals/hr

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Posted

Not much bigger than the alternator

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Posted

What kind of fuel burn does something like that have?

STV 100 HP  diesel fuel, 27kg per hour (+145 gram per hour turbine oil), weight 28kg

STV 130 HP diesel fuel 32kg per hour (+145 gram per hour turbine oil) weight 30kg

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Posted (edited)

This sounds way cool!

But, with about 5k hrs in turboprop time, I wonder about a couple things.

Yeah there's the GPH downside, but at least in MN you could get "non road tax" diesel for $2.29 a gall (when non-ethanol gas is like $3.80)

But also don't forget the spool up problem, especially on a geared or direct drive turboprop.  Planes with those motors generally require a very high drag setup and stabilized power during approach to force spool up and reasonable power response.

It'll be interesting to see how that issue is addressed.

Edited by Yamma-Fox

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Posted

I will do my best, for now, no more info from producer ...

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Posted (edited)

i just stumbled over the stuttgart.engineering webpage today. they have some specs and a final price for the 500 first units published on their page. one can even spend some 1000€ to pre-order the engine.

i have to say i totally dig the appeal of such an engine when it comes to noise, appeal of the airplane and overall ramp presence and attention when you start your engine.. and AFAIK you don't need to wait for your engine to warm up, simply start and take off..

BUT .. i fail completely to see the objective advantage this engine would have over a normal 100hp rotax engine.

- Power: well there is one advantage to start with.. it will have more power at altitude as a naturally aspirated rotax.. but the 914 or any turbo kit would solve that issue

- Weight: then enige is only about 30kg .. that's about 30-40kg lighter than a 100hp rotax.. this sounds awesome at first but now comes the issue: Fuelburn. according to the manufacturer, the turbine will use some 27kg of diesel per hour.. compare this to a rotax 912 which will burn about 17l or less of fuel (that's about 12kg) per hour. so each hour of endurance will add 15kg to take-off weight of the turbine aircraft vs. the rotax one. so if you fuel for about 2hours of endurance + reserve, the rotax powered airplane will be the same weight as the turbine powered one. I'd hardly ever start a trip further than some local traffic patterns with less than 2 hours of endurance.

- Weight again: will a turbine work behind a fixed pitch prop? i assume not, so this would then mean, that i need to put a heavy variable pitch prop at the very front of my avid, adding another 5-10 or even more kg to the airplane.. so the weight advantage is even less now. i guess the very light weight IVO IFA prop won't work either..

- Fuel Burn: well besides the weight, there is also the endurance.. assuming diesel is about the same weight as Jet A1, 27kg would be abou 33 liters. with the two tank avids holding about 120liers, that's about 3 hours of flying + reserve. In your rotax powered avid, you could fly for about 6 hours + reserve, so you would get twice as far or you'd need to refuel about half as much.

- Fuel availability: at least here in europe, if you travel to smaller airfields, it is hard to get Jet A1, not to mention diesel at the airfield.. you will have to bring some fuel tanks with you that you can take to a nearby fuelstation and carry back 27kg of fuel for each hour you would want to keep flying for! UL91, Mogas, Avgas and any other kind of regular unleaded gas is available even at most ultralight fields around here. and keep in mind, you need only halve as many refueling possibilities on your trip with the rotax due to the before mentioned range difference between the two

- Reliability.. well this is kind of a difficult one.. in theory, at least from what i've heared (i am by no means an expert, in contrary, i know little to nothing about turbines) the turbine should be a lot more reliable than any piston engine.. BUT.. this is a completely new engine with zero references out in the field. as a matter of fact, i found no information on a maiden flight of the avid that is the prototyping platform for this engine. on the other hand you have rotax, which is by now a well proven desing and is working reliably in hundreds of thousands of aircraft of all kind around the globe.

- parts availability: whatever goes wrong will ground you for as long as it takes that one source of parts to supply the needed replacement to you.

- speaking of one source for parts and all that.. if stuttgart engineering goes bankrupt, this engine will lose all its value immediately as there will be zero spares available and no support from anybody because it is a completely unknown engine.

- since i mentioned value: 39k euro, which currently is about $43k isn'nt a small amount you are willing to throw on the table to "give it a try" .. at least it isn't for me.. if this was pocket money for me, i'd probably be building another aircraft where i'd be searching for engines in the 200+ hp range ;)

 

so looking at all that, it seems that the only place the turbine engine is undeniably better than any rotax will be on the apron in front of a lot of spectators. this would make it about the same as a rotec radial engine, which turns heads, sounds awesome and because it can't kill you while you're on the ground, would just be as suitable for the job :).. but the rotec would be cheaper ;)

 

cheers

Pascal

Edited by Pascal
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Posted

This must be a special design turbine. I've never seen any turbine with a GPH at 12.  I would say that is very, very, understated. I would tend to believe in the neighborhood of 25-30GPH +. But what do I know!

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Posted

It looks extremely cool and undoubtedly will get a lot of ramp attention but  have to think this is just for proof of concept.  I think anyone seriously thinking about putting a turbine on an Avid would want it at about 300 hp.  Who cares about the fuel burn, it would really only be for thrills and STOL playing in the local area.

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Posted

Got to admit, that would be one cool toy!

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Posted (edited)


Well, there are many questions to be considered, fuel consumption (and fuel weight as well) is one of big cons. But still manageable ... as well as CS propeller weight about 8-10kg. 130 HP would be nice ... at high altitude even more, gain of cruising speed at FL120 really does matter (cca 20-24 kts difference).

But the biggest cons is the price now revealed ... it is really going to kill the whole project I think.

Price € 39.000 / 49.000 plus taxes where applicable - it is nonsense. There is home made modification of turbine APU around here on the internet - produced in thousands btw. - installed in Zenair CH701, 100HP as well for fraction of price mentioned above. Maybe not so sophisticated, maybe even bigger fuel consumption ...  but flying well.

CH 701 turboprop Garrett JFS 100-13A N742DE, owner/builder Scott Ehni and Kary McCord from Texas ...

Edited by Jenki

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Posted

49K is not bad for a turboprop even though I'll never see one. A few here in the US will have one if they become available. When you look at 37K for a 915 it doesn't seem so crazy.

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Posted (edited)

Anybody remember Innodyn lots of big claims, money collected and then they just disappeared.  Backcountry Super Cubs actually had one that they tried to make work in a cub. I talked to the test pilot, he said that he had a flameout in flight and he would not fly it again.  Also they (Innodyn) claimed that the fuel burn would be the same as a piston engine which of course was not even close to true but typical of a turbine.

Edited by wypaul
spelling

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Posted (edited)

I really am amazed and thankful for all the developers out there that invest the time and money that they do in bringing new technology to the EAB world.  It's just awesome that they do that!!

This thing is really cool and might just be ahead of it's time (as also have been other turbine attempts).  But for now I guess I still look at this as a prototype design that has some proving out to do.

Down the road I would guess it might work out well especially for the 180-300+  HP power applications.  But it doesn't seem like a good fit at the low 100 HP point when trying to compete with all the options we currently have unless the ticket price were to really come down.

Edited by Yamma-Fox

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