Production Specification Engine Installation

It has been a while since the MT Propeller on our Ravin 500 demonstration aircraft was turning. Since our memorable display of the ADEPT 320T at the last Virginia Airshow, all of our activity has been largely out of sight of the public eye.

Dyno testing and flight testing of the initial prototype engines confirmed that the ADEPT engine has all the desirable characteristics we had designed into the package from day one. We then set to work – learning lessons from the operation, maintenance and installation of the prototype engines. Certain aspects of the design were refined to make production easier, and production quality systems were implemented. The culmination of this activity was the low volume manufacture of a batch of components, and final assembly representing the production specification for our new range of ADEPT V6 engines.

The production specification engines have now been thoroughly tested in our in-house test facility, and the time came to swop out the prototype engine fitted to ZU-VEE with a production specification engine. This was a great opportunity to ensure that all applications engineering for the aircraft installation now meets the same exacting standard of the engine that is fitted.

After much dedicated effort from our installation team, on 6 July 2016, the beautiful sound of ZU-VEE’s ADEPT engine purring could be heard at Virginia airport. The quality of the installation of the engine is superb, and sets the standard for all OEM customer installations going forward.