Small turbines for homebuilts?

Has there been any development of small jet engines for light aircraft, like
the engines used on the Eclipse 500? Small turbines would be great for high
performance homebuilts if they were cheap enough. Anything down to the
price level that could compete with high horsepower Lycoming's or
Continentals? Thanks,

David

David,

Not competing with high horsepower output like your top Lycombings or
Conti;s but interesting nevertheless.
Check out http://www.tjt.bz/ as these engines are being used very
successfully in gliders at the moment. No idea on performance figures, fuel
burn etc.

Chris

"ventus2" wrote in message
...
David,

Not competing with high horsepower output like your top Lycombings or
Conti;s but interesting nevertheless.
Check out http://www.tjt.bz/ as these engines are being used very
successfully in gliders at the moment. No idea on performance figures,
fuel
burn etc.

Chris


These little centrifugal turbojets are very inefficient consuming about
10GPH of Jet A for 50 pounds of thrust. Still, they are very cool.
Efficiencies are getting better so there's hope. I keep hearing rumors of a
8" diameter turbofan that would halve the fuel consumption.

Even today, they are a very interesting when applied to gliders. 50 pounds
of thrust would push my glider along at about 120 knots - probably a lot
more at high altitudes. Since it already has 75 gallon tanks in the wings
normally used for water ballast that could easily be converted to fuel
tanks, the range would be impressive. The airframes' aerodynamic efficiency
offsets the inefficient engine.

The engines tiny size and weight makes it easy to retract the engine into
the fuselage when flying as a glider.

Bill Daniels

Bill Daniels wrote:


"ventus2" wrote in message
...
David,

Not competing with high horsepower output like your top Lycombings or
Conti;s but interesting nevertheless.
Check out http://www.tjt.bz/ as these engines are being used very
successfully in gliders at the moment. No idea on performance figures,
fuel
burn etc.

Chris


These little centrifugal turbojets are very inefficient consuming about
10GPH of Jet A for 50 pounds of thrust. Still, they are very cool.


There 30lb thrust model specs at 5.5 gal/hour (350ml/min) which isn't
horrible for a jet. At speed 30lb is roughly 30hp so it takes 3.3 times to
get 100hp so 18 gal/hour which is about 3 times more fuel than a ricip but
it sure could be a lot of fun ;-)
John

"John" wrote in message
...
Bill Daniels wrote:


"ventus2" wrote in message
...
David,

Not competing with high horsepower output like your top Lycombings or
Conti;s but interesting nevertheless.
Check out http://www.tjt.bz/ as these engines are being used very
successfully in gliders at the moment. No idea on performance figures,
fuel
burn etc.

Chris


These little centrifugal turbojets are very inefficient consuming about
10GPH of Jet A for 50 pounds of thrust. Still, they are very cool.


There 30lb thrust model specs at 5.5 gal/hour (350ml/min) which isn't
horrible for a jet. At speed 30lb is roughly 30hp so it takes 3.3 times to
get 100hp so 18 gal/hour which is about 3 times more fuel than a ricip but
it sure could be a lot of fun ;-)
John

If I recall correctly, one pound of thrust = one HP at around 325 knots.
That's quite a bit of 'at speed'.

The most dependable, at the moment, are these

http://www.amtjets.com/

The top model gives 51,7 pounds of thrust.
I've seen many of them "At work" on RC models. Amazing.

Piero

Bill Daniels wrote:

There 30lb thrust model specs at 5.5 gal/hour (350ml/min) which isn't
horrible for a jet. At speed 30lb is roughly 30hp so it takes 3.3 times
to get 100hp so 18 gal/hour which is about 3 times more fuel than a ricip
but it sure could be a lot of fun ;-)
John

If I recall correctly, one pound of thrust = one HP at around 325 knots.
That's quite a bit of 'at speed'.

That sounds about right, I didn't have the figures in front of me. Even so
if you slowed it down to 150-200 you'd still have a fairly potent engine
for the weight. And it still would be a blast!
John

wrote:

The most dependable, at the moment, are these

http://www.amtjets.com/

The top model gives 51,7 pounds of thrust.
I've seen many of them "At work" on RC models. Amazing.

Piero

They spec 10.5 gal/hour for 52 lb thrust (51.7 actually). Which is close to
what the other 30 /b unit spec'ed
John

wrote:
The most dependable, at the moment, are these

http://www.amtjets.com/

The top model gives 51,7 pounds of thrust.
I've seen many of them "At work" on RC models. Amazing.

Piero

Did you see the skydiver with a wingsuit with 2 jets strapped to his boots?


http://www.bird-man.com/?n=windtunnel&nose=6

"pittss1c" wrote

Did you see the skydiver with a wingsuit with 2 jets strapped to his
boots?
http://www.bird-man.com/?n=windtunnel&nose=6

Too cool !!!

Did you hear him say that he was able to maintain level flight for half a
minute, until his tanks went dry? That is what I think he said.

Lets see, what if you put 6 or 8 of those 50 pound thrust units in a jetpack
type of arrangement. You should be able to maintain level hovering flight,
right? Fuel demands would mean that you could not hover for very long, but
it would be much longer than the current jet packs in use, right?

You know, if I had enough money, I might just take that project on!
--
Jim in NC