Category Archives: Aircraft Propulsion & Energy

New Lycoming Multi-Fuel Engine Soars Past 10,000 Flight Hours

AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems, an operating unit of Textron Systems, and Lycoming Engines, a division of Avco Corporation, announced today that Lycoming’s new EL-005 multi-fuel engine has surpassed 10,000 deployed flight hours with the Aerosonde Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) in service of U.S. Department of Defense customers in Afghanistan. Continue reading

Andalusian Solar Powered UAS Prototype Unveiled

Proyecto PEGASO 2Leaders from the tech centres IAT (Andalusian Institute for Technology, CATEC (Centre for Advanced Aerospace Technologies), CITIC (Andalusian Centre for Innovation and Information and Communication Technology) and CTAER (Advanced Technological Centre for Renewable Energy), grouped under the consortium C4T, have provided a preview of the PEGASO project (Aerial Experimental Platform for Advanced and Sustainable Management of on-board energy), which is seeking to produce a demonstrator of an unmanned solar aircraft, equipped with efficient management of on-board energy. The first prototype rolled out in Andalusia represents an innovation in the national and international sphere within the aerospace market. Continue reading

Orbital Develops NextGen Multi-Fuel UAS Engine for Insitu

Cutaway headOrbital has announced that it has successfully completed the design phase of its design, development and validation programme for the next generation Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) propulsion system for Insitu Inc. Insitu Inc, a subsidiary of The Boeing Company, is one of the largest and most experienced operators of UAS in the world.

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Singapore-Israel Cooperation Leads to World’s First Civilian Fuel Cell UAS

Bluebird

Horizon Energy Systems of Singapore has produced an ultra-light fuel cell power system that has led to a new flight duration breakthrough for civilian unmanned aircraft systems.  As part of a cooperation between Singapore and Israel, the programme has enabled the start of commercialisation of a first hydrogen fuel cell powered, long endurance civilian UA system able to fly for up to 10 hours at a time, able to cover a much wider area and lowering operational cost for end-users. Continue reading

UAV Factory Announces EFI Engine Upgrade

EFIUAV Factory has released an EFI engine upgrade for the Penguin B platform. The upgrade includes the addition of a temperature control system for the cylinder head, a silent muffler, a  new fuel injector map as well as a new air intake assembly. The upgrade extends the operational limits of the engine, reduces fuel consumption and improves reliability of the system. Continue reading