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TurbAero's RV7T - Turbine RV7A

Turbine Aeronautics

Active Member
Hello everyone.

TurbAero will be using this thread to detail the construction and modification of our RV7A kit to accept the TurbAero Talon 200hp turboprop engine.
We have decided to designate our aircraft as an RV7T with the “T” standing for Turbine.

We shall also be publicising the build in the form of a monthly video on our YouTube channel (find it at https://www.youtube.com/turbaero). The first episode of the series will be released in the week after Oshkosh and thereafter, on or around the 01st of each month, detailing the progress that has been made during the previous month.

Given the proliferation of RV enthusiasts on this site and the interest that is likely to be shown in what we are doing, Doug (the site owner) has kindly allowed us to document our build in this thread.

We will aim to add content to this thread regularly and will endeavor to interact as much as possible with participants and contributors to the thread.

Please note that this thread is about the build and modification of the aircraft to accept the Talon engine. We will answer questions around the integration of the engine into the airframe and generic installation questions, but for any technical discussion around the engine itself, I suggest that those questions be posed in the thread devoted to our engine in the Alternative Engines section of this forum.

Thanks in advance for your interest.

Dave Limmer
Founder TurbAero
 
Exciting!

I'll be watching this! My RV7A has 1250 hours on its IO360. Maybe instead of overhaul in five years, i swap in a turbine!
 
Sounds Like A Fun One

Best of luck on the project; I’ll b watching….
 
Oshkosh photo

Thanks for the support shown here.

Here’s a shot of our RV7T project from Oshkosh, just to give a flavor to what we have ahead of us in our build.

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I think you should have used a F1 Rocket airframe!

There are lots of airframes that we would have liked to use. Availability of suitable kits, prices etc. all played a part in the selection of the airframe that we ultimately bought. The RV7 will be quite adequate for the functional testing and flight demonstrations that we want/need to do.

Also, we wanted to engage with the Vans community, hence the strong desire to obtain an RVX, rather than a non-Vans aircraft type.

In due course, we will get it on a F1, Lancair, Glasair, Dark Aero, Velocity etc etc.
 
Dave, will the turbine require a longer cowl, with the prop more forward?
 
Here's a photo from Oshkosh that shows the comparison between the stock cowling and their custom one.
 

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Episode 1 - The build before we bought it

This kit was started in 2020 and is essentially a COVID build by the previous owner. I guess there are some benefits to the pandemic!
This first post will provide a snapshot of the build of the kit prior to us taking over the project. We have a photographic record of the build to date, and I will post several photos from that collection.
In future posts, we will provide more detail about the activities that are being undertaken by the TurbAero build team in the photos.

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Episode 1 - continued

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Of course, we are removing the O-360 from the firewall and replacing it with the TurbAero Talon.

We are now preparing Episode 2 of our YouTube series. We are planning to get it out on or near to 01 September. Please check it out. After the YouTube video comes out, I'll post some more photos here.
 
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Our apologises for not updating this thread sooner - at the start of September, we released episode 2 of our Built An RV7T With Me series which detailed an in-depth preliminary inspection of the project to determine whether we need to carry out any rectification work on what has been done to date on our RV7T.
It was concluded that there are several areas where we intend to tidy up the work that’s already been done to bring it up to the standard that we aim to achieve, and that more detailed internal inspection work will be required to fully determine the extent of any potential rectification work.
You can find the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm8h7Sc4xcU
 
Total Performance

Just getting up to speed on trying to understand this project. Seems like a lot of smart experienced people involved in making it happen but there seems (to me at least) to be a disconnect between the mission for a turbine powered RV-7A and the original piston (IO-360) powered version that the Vans airframe was designed around.

I find it hard to believe that a new design 200 hp turbine would have a better fuel consumption figure, be cheaper or more durable than the equivalent piston powered aircraft. I could be convinced that it would be smoother, less vibration and have better high altitude performance and in time be more reliable than piston power, but that will take time and it will be a steep hill with lots of cost to amortize over a relatively few number of production units. All the aircraft design classes I attended all emphasized that airframe design starts with selecting the engine performance needed to perform the mission. The flight testing I have done on the RV-7A I built convinces me that a IO-360 is perfectly suited to the Vans RV-7A airframe and all the important characteristics are sufficiently well balanced to keep the RV grin on my face after every flight.
So I am really curious what aspect of the performance envelope this project is addressing. Maybe I just missed attending the most important airplane design classes and others can fill in the gaps.
If the turbine was being designed for the 300 -350hp range and flying in a RV-10 test bed I could better understand the mission.
KeithTurner
 
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