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FADEC - First Flight
First Flight of New FADEC Powered Diamond Katana DA-20 C1
Mobile Alabama, June 2, 1999: At 10:30 AM, Diamond Katana, N108CL powered by a Continental IOF-240-B departed runway 14 and took to the air. Piloted by contract FAA DER test pilot Pat Moe of Starflight Consultants, Inc., a new era in General Aviation was born. The new IOF-240-B is a FADEC controlled Continental engine. FADEC is an acronym, which stands for Full Authority Digital Engine Control. This Flight test marks the final phase of in-house development leading to FAA Certification.
The flight tests ran for three days with the first day involving introductions and flight test briefings. The first flight included warm up and try-out periods. The third day, the second day of flight testing, involved gathering data with sensor instruments monitoring all facets of the power plants performance. During this phase of flight testing Pat took the aircraft through its entire maneuvering envelope. TCM's Director of Engineering, John Barton, said, we've probably put the aircraft through maneuvers that most people would never want to see the Katana go through and the engine performed as expected the entire time.
Pat Moe Talks to TCM about his Flight Test
It had what I considered two enhancing characteristics, the first it eliminated the need for mixture control. The second enhancing characteristic I found was that it helped prevent over-speed of the fixed pitch prop. During normal start, it starts just like a car. It worked as advertised and it performed well.
Pat logged 12.4 hours. The test flights involved high speed taxing, takeoffs and landings, high altitude flights to 14,000 ft., spins and stalls and other maneuvers listed in the flight manual and anything else they could do to make the engine quit. Pat intentionally shut the engine down and performed engine restarts in both wind-milling and in stalled prop conditions.
About the FADEC System
The FADEC system being developed by TCM and Aerosance offers the aviation community many long anticipated advantages, such as automatic mixture management, high energy solid state variable timing ignition system, and closed-loop management of operating engine parameters. These features will allow TCM to offer an engine with increased fuel economy, a higher level of operational reliability, decreased pilot workload and reduced maintenance costs.
The FADEC has control of both fuel delivery and ignition timing. The fuel system uses sequential direct port injection. The ability to independently manage the fuel delivered to each cylinder allows the system to match fuel flow rates to each cylinders breathing characteristics. Managing the fuel in this manner affords maximum engine performance and efficiency.
The ignition system is a waste-spark type utilizing two coils per cylinder pair. Timing is variable, allowing for great starting characteristics and excellent acceleration from idle through full power. The higher spark energy levels available from this system increase combustion efficiency and reduce the possibility of plug fouling.
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