Following
on from the first Heavy Fuel Engine (HFE) designed and released in March
2012, the Schiebel engineering team has been undertaking extensive testing,
redesign and development of a new HFE, adapted from a commercially available
rotary engine core to power the CAMCOPTER® S-100.
The head of capability, Chris Day stated that “The CAMCOPTER®
S-100 customers demand an HFE able to operate across all climatic environments,
from the coldest Arctic areas to the hottest desserts. There are many
variables associated with the reliable use of heavy fuel that make these
conditions especially challenging; such as variation in fuel quality.
Demand for an HFE remains strongest with our Naval customers and so
we have spent considerable time developing this new engine to meet the
operational requirements and reducing the cost of maintenance”.
The engineering team at Schiebel has designed the aircraft installation
to retain backwards compatibility with the existing gasoline engine.
This allows customers the maximum flexibility with fuel choice and the
broadest operational capability within a multifuel environment. The
new heavy fuel engine can accommodate JP-5 (F-44), Jet A-1 (F-35) and
JP-8 (F-34) and will be ready for delivery to customers early in 2016.
As part of the redesign weight savings have also been identified with
new batteries, an upgraded exhaust system and a completely new engine
control unit to manage the fuel flow and engine power output. The operational
performance of the CAMCOPTER® S-100 is unaffected by the new engine
retaining the standard 6 hour endurance with full operational payload
and an optional 10 hour endurance with an auxiliary fuel tank. Schiebel
expects that with ongoing development this endurance could be extended
further.
The owner and chairman, Hans Georg Schiebel stated “One of the
primary aims of the HFE development programme has been to help our customers
by improving the engine MTBO (Mean Time Between Overhauls), greatly
reducing costs and the overall logistics burden when deployed on extended
maritime missions or operations in remote areas.” Hundreds of
operational testing hours have already been completed with the latest
engine and refinements continue to push the engine to new performance
boundaries. |
