Moniman

Hi, I am considering the purchase of a kerosene start turbine and I have questions. Why has there not been kero start until now? What is the difference, other then the gas start, between the two? Will the kero start present new problems? I hesitate to "get in on the ground floor" until a concept has been proven. Any comments welcome. Thanks, Moniman

SJN

Never having seen one myself, but I think they use alot of power, so you need large batteries, which also means charging time. Thats just my guess

Milliways

The old Turbomin TN-60 and TN-100 turbines of the mid 1990's were kero start. Used the same power packs as the current turbines do to run the pump motor. The only difference being that a spark plug was used instead of the glo-plug we use today. Therefore the start equipment needed to generate a HT current to the plug and this (in turbomin's case) used a "Ground Start Box" with a 12V pack and an inverter curcuit to produce the spark.

They (the turbines) were originally designed a snow blowers/melters on the front of trains or so Turbomin said at the time.

Miniflyer

Todays kero start use the ignition sticks of automotive winter heaters, basically working like a huge glowplug. Kerosene is pumped right over the hot stick, vaporizing and self igniting.
Until recently, large amounts of power were needed to heat the stick. Auxilliary power or high capacity batterys were needed.
Recently someone got the idea to lathe the sticks down in size, reducing the amount of energy needed to heat them. It worked....apparently the kerostart will work with regular size onboard batterys for quite a few starts. JetCat is supposed to have terrific sticks....
Personally i havent used kero start, but will probably start experimenting as soon as we get our big homebuilt turbine running acceptably.

F86_SABRE

Actually the Sophia 850 did use standard glow plugs and no gas of any sort to start it up.

Reuben

weasel33

This is one on the Tamjet demo plane worked perfectly everytime

uncleTom

My Feedback: (30)

The BMT has had a great system for a long time now!

Harley Condra

My Feedback: (4)

The non-kero start JetCat engines are supplied with a 7.2 VDC 1250 Ma Ni-Cad pack.
The kero-Start engines are supplied with a 3300 Ma Ni-Cad battery to power the starter, pump and to light the hot stick. The increase in capacity is needed to get a few flights between battery charges.

Lithium batteries are not recommended by jetCat.
I have a P-180 on the way, and very shortly I will let you know how it works.

Harley Condra
BVM REP
JetCat REP

cmjets

Hi All:

In Spain, The Merlin and the Artes turbines, shown theirs prototipes in the last Mallorca Jet Meeting ( May 2004 ).

Start up withow gas.

If I get photos I put it.