The process of designing a new engine system has been a challenge but we are very close to the completion of our goal. The engine system itself has been running flawlessly. Where we encountered the greatest challenges was initially mating our new ECU's with the new turbo-charged engine.

10/1/09 We have now fully "mapped" and integrated our new Electronic control modules to control the VP engine throughout all RPM ranges.

It took several months to build and outfit our dyno room. We purchased a used walk-in freezer to function as our dyno room engine test center. The walls are very thick and well insulated to contain the noise of the engine testing. They are covered with galvanized steel inside and out which is a good for fire suppression. We also have the ability to "cold soak" our engines to test them at very low temperatures.

Andrew Burr built the dyno stand, control panels, dyno cooling system and engine cooling system, as well as installing the power, control, and monitor wiring over the course of several more weeks.

The photo above shows the VPS engine and dyno water break during the construction of the dyno stand.

The photo above shows the dyno stand being fitted with all of the needed brackets and hard points required for dyno testing of the VPS engines

The above photo shows the completed dyno stand during installation into our walk-in-cooler dyno room.

We had a custom drive shaft built to our specifications and installed a heavy flywheel to dampen the engine pulses to the dyno. Once all was in place with the engine and turbo installed the dyno testing of the new VPS turbocharged engine began in earnest. Below you can see the engine in the Dyno stand with most system hook-ups nearly completed.

The first phase of the testing was to map the new ECUs that will be controlling the engine throughout the full RPM range. This is a laborious process and is accomplished in a methodical step by step sequence to insure that the engine will have the proper timing and optimum fuel to air ratio for every RPM range and loading that the engine will encounter when installed in the helicopter or airplane. Once the mapping has been completed, that MAP is then downloaded onto each pair of ECUs that will accompany each VPS engine in the Dyno room during the run-in testing prior to shipment of the engine with it's ECUs to our customers.

The photo below was taken once the dyno testing was well under way.

Although it has been a long road to get to this point, the new VPS engine is performing as well as we expected it to. Here is a sample of the power that the new engine is producing:

At 4420 RPM, which produces a main rotor RPM at the top of the green arc of 104.%, we are consistently seeing 282 Ft/Lbs of torque and producing a true 236 horsepower.

Of course we will not be using all of that power in the experiemental helicopter application as we will de-rate the engine by placing manifold pressure limitations to insure long term reliability. In the experimental helicopter application, with the engine running at the top of the green arc on the Main Rotor RPM gauge, the engine will be required to produce a maximum horsepower for flight of only 150 HP which is the design limit of the rotor system on our test ship. The VPS turbocharged engine will be producing only 63.6% of it's maximum horsepower during maximum-power-demand flight to produce the 150 Hp.

During typical cruise flight the test helicopter model requires around 120 HP. This means that the VPS turbocharged engine will be running at only a 50% power setting under those conditions..

Reliability testing is continuing and we have now removed the VPS engine from the Dyno and installed it into our test helicopter where it is undergoing rigorous in-flight testing.

The next step will be the assembly and dyno run-in of several more engines, one tubo-charged and the others normally aspirated, that will begin Beta flight testing in the field. The normally aspirated engines are being assembled and will soon be installed into the dyno. We currently have orders for five more Beta test engines that will be built in the first months of 2010 which will be placed in various customer owned helicopters for further in-flight testing.

Once we are confident that we have achieved all of our goals of durability and reliablity for this engine, we will begin providing engines to our growing list of potential retail customers.

Update: 9/15/2009

Andrew reports that the new Turbocharged VPS, LLC engine has completed undergoing our dyno testing program and has been run with both computers concurrently. Both computers run all engine functions at the same time.

If either computer fails, the engine continues to run on the other computer with no changes in operation as all functions are controlled by both computers concurrently. The pilot simply sees an on-dash computer fault indicator. The engine runs identically with either or both computers on line providing true redundancy and back-up capability.

11/10/09---The VP turbocharged engine has been "abused" for many months now during full-power dyno testing. The engine is now currently undergoing flight testing to altitude at full gross weight.

We have received a number of inquiries from both helicopter and fixed wing manufacturers regarding the capabilities and availability of the VP engines for their particular applications. VPHelo, LLc will begin by providing our engines for the builder-owned kit built helicopters utilizing the existing engine castings. We will soon begin producing our own castings thereby producing the entire VP engine for sale to the Experimental and non-certified market.

We will keep the web site updated as we determine the power output of the normally aspirated version of our new engine.

To read more about our in-flight engine testing

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