The Sealand RED V12 Diesel Beaver flies!
 

A new era begins! We flew the Sealand RED V12 diesel powered DHC-2 Beaver yesterday. We have development and certification work ahead, and lots of testing, but this is the perfect engine for the Beaver. This fine airplane has outlived the P&W R985, and is going into the next era with a modern engine option!


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What a fine craft, Pilot DAR! Are you able to divulge any performance figures? Does all that forward weight affect CG and stall characteristics? Is the array of lights on the center panel an annunciator console? So many questions, so little time! You should be proud to bring this new baby into the world. Congratulations!

- Ed

Nice. The Beaver is getting closer to its original design concept, with the Gipsy Queen:


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It's not my place to provide any detailed information, I am a team member in certification. That said, very pleasing! Yes, it is an annunciator panel in the top center, the FADEC and airplane systems have some annuciation. I hope that Sealand and RED will soon provide more detailed information. In the mean time, we flew it, and it's great! A comprehensive certification program will begin soon, including the need to demonstrate design compliance for many requirements, including cold testing, hot testing, noise testing, and powerplant operating characteristics. As Sealand and RED agree, I'll post a little test information, though Sealand and RED are the primary source of official information.

Never realised they used the Chipmunk fin design as a basis on the Beaver, thanks IFT for the diagram.

So what advantage has this over all the P&W PT-6 turbo Beavers flying today?

The PT6 powered Beavers, and Turbo Beavers are excellent planes, though burn half again to twice the fuel for the same performance as the diesel Beaver has shown. We'll do some more flight testing in the weeks to come, it may come to be shown that the diesel Beaver has a slightly faster cruise than the PT6 version. Though the PT6 engines are easy to start and operate, getting it wrong can be very expensive. The diesel is piston engine simple to start and operate, with much less possibility of accidental mis handling the engine and engine damage.

Interesting but surely burning diesel is not exactly environmentally friendly? Is the carbon footprint produced by a diesel aero engine as great as that from a car engine? Surely the future has to be an electric powered Beaver?

The RED diesel, as other aircraft diesels, runs on Jet fuel, so you're still polluting, but with lower fuel consumption, lower pollution for the same flight.

Yesterday, some great air to air, following an excellent climb test. Photo credit to Sealand's photographer, Robert Kobzey

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I was flying the boss... You can't see it in the photo, but what a big smile on his face!

Today, into the details of testing the functionality of the RED A-03 diesel engine operation. A first for me, shutting off "half" the engine, while continuing the flight on the other "half". The RED A-03 V12 is effectively two inline six engines, on a common crankshaft to gearbox and propeller. You can shut down half, and continue normal flight on the remaining half. It produced 43% power, which is lots for continued flight, or a gentle climb. In flight restarts were simple and easy. This is a really innovative engine design, and builds great confidence in flying and testing! Sealand will STC the RED A-03 into the DHC-2 Beaver, and it's going to be a great advancement to a great airplane!

You sure a Mack truck or Caterpillar earth mover is not missing a piece of equipment DAR? :p Wishing the company the very best in it's endeavors.

https://red-aircraft.com/a03-engine/

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How practical for the sort of bush flying Beavers are used for?

Excellent photos!

It's certainly the right time to move lower end general aviation to modern kerosene and diesel fuel burning piston engines that are SAF capable later on. Not everything needs to be turbine powered.
How about battery failures on the RED? Could the engine keep itself running? IIRC it can "split" the cylinder banks sort of to make them redundant?

When running on 'half' the engine is the unused bank somehow decoupled or is it still driven by the other half - which would seem wasteful and inefficient?

The non power producing half is not decoupled, so it does consume power from the running half. It is simply that other than common crankshaft and gearbox, no part of the engine depends upon the other half to continue running. The remaining 43% power with one half shut down was enough for even a gentle climb if needed. The older Cadillac system did actually hold open valves to decouple certain cylinders for efficiency, but that involved yet another "system". I'm very content with the duality which RED has designed in, it does what [hopefully you don't] need, better than any other single engine!

I had some recent help uploading one of videos of my flight testing last summer, this one is an engine shutdown, and windmill start test:

Excellent video Pilot DAR! Is the V-12 Diesel susceptible to shock cooling? What noise levels does one experience in the cockpit compared with turbine and radial engine variants? (The video sounds relatively quiet to me.) Presuming shut down and restart are a function of fuel flow, how many prop revolutions are necessary to achieve a restart once fuel is reintroduced? What sort of service ceilings is your team expecting?

Thank you for posting that video! Now back to our regularly scheduled program....

- Ed

The RED A-03 diesel is liquid cooled, so have very low vulnerability to shock cooling. Cabin noise... I can't say it's more quiet than the piston or turbine, though I do not have numbers. Yes, the FADEC had two "lanes", shutting them both off, removes fuel. On of the unusual beneficial characteristics of this engine, is that as a V12, it can be run on only one side (six inline) should their be a failure on the other side of the engine, everything other than the crankshaft and gearbox are left/right redundant.

As for service ceiling, haven't found it yet. I tried though, at 6000 pounds (900 pounds heavier than a radial Beaver), here's where I've been so far (note the VSI):


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Interesting! It looks like it makes for an easy to operate, smooth running engine. A bit like the Thielert/Austro diesels.