What engine is Scott Marr using on his KingCat. I noticed that it isn't a JetCat. Does anyone know what it is or how it performs?

Antony

scott has the bmt kero start 160. i think he has a couple of them between himself and his "wingman" joey. it runs great.

Antony,
Pat is correct. Its a BMT kero start and I have it set to 125K from 128K max. Production numbers have been limited, so I dont rant and rave about it for fear of frustrating people. I love the engine. Solenoids are under front cover so instal is miniscule. atomizer unscrews in a snap if ever it gets clogged. Very nice programming and even comes with speed sensor. Super smooth and powerful. Andre told me in an email this week that he had 25 more coming soon. But its been some time since the last ones came in. I believe he had a theft set him back, but is getting things together. Before the dollar got so weak this engine was a giveaway, but its still a great value for what you get. Starts very fast. Very happy. Would like to see more of these engines. He is working on a 200 thats in the same can as the 120 and 160. This should be interesting.
Scott Marr

Scott, Pat,

Thanks for the info. That's a neat engine, and it sounds like it has served you well thus far. The specs for the 160 are pretty impressive! I am still putting together my engine comparison chart so that I can make a decision for my KingCat. I will check back with you when I am finished "building" the main structures.

Antony

Scott, can you explain to me what this means:

No charger needed. GSU has built in Fast Charger for Pump Battery and RX NiCad.

the GSU has a charger built into it so when you connect to the airframe it will charge both the ecu battery and the rx battery.

I have a much more difficult question about Scott's Kingcat ... what color is it ?

scott is not married so he does not have to worry about it... but it is a great idea. no honey it is not a new one, just looks bigger, it really is the same airplane.

Now that is a truly devious mind at work. I like it !

Gordon

You could try this Gordon, my wife and I have an agreement, she won't look in my workshop and I won't look in the Amazon boxes that arrive.

Antony

Hi Antony,
Scott is correct about us rebuilding our production tooling. We had a break in a few days after we had our last CNC lathe delivered. In the chaos of broken down walls to get the monster inside the building via the building next door, burglars cleared out everything that looked like metal.
We have almost completed the replacement production tooling and toolpaths (Our workshop cad/cam PC was also stolen) and at the same time run a small batch of engines. The new production tooling is aimed at providing consistent high quality at higher production rates and have taken considerable time and money.
Also the US$ has not been kind to us as our US made Haas machines have halved in price since we got them ( so we are paying double on them now) and our margin on engines have been just about wiped out, hence the price increase.
We hope that the situation will reverse at some point once again making the BMT very competetivly priced. BMT is financially very sound due to our strong IT/electronics capabilities allowing us to do quality work at an unhurried pace. We have had 100% reliability on the KS series so far bar 2 FOD incidents on customer engines.
Surprisingly (to some) even the complex kero start mechanism has proved to be more reliable than propane gas starting.

Seanreit,
I have include a pic of the RX and TCU charge input adapter. The GSU has its own built in charger fully adjustable in the menu system. This allows the user to charge the RX NiCad and the pump battery at the field. This eliminates a field charger altogether. You also don't need propane of course...

Best Regards
Andre Baird

Andre:

Thanks for your candor and I am sorry to hear about your setback. I hope that you were well insured and that the police are able to recover your equipment. Would you be willing to tell us how many KS engines you have in the field and for how long. 100% reliability sounds wonderful, it would just be nice to put that in some context.

Could you also tell us how our micro turbine engine manufacturing is related to your core business, or is it your core business. Do you guys have a business plan that addresses growth in and support of the US market?

Sorry to pry, but these are the kinds of questions I would love to have all of the manufacturers answer.

Antony

Hi Antony,
Depends on how we define core business. I spend 90% of my resources and time on turbine R&D and manufacture. It does not account for 1% of my income. I am in fact re-writing secure EFT network software for a big retail chain this weekend. It makes me more money than building 20 turbines....The reason I persist has to do with the long term aerospace capability I am building locally. Already we are supplying high speed sea skimming UAV's to the military where the combined electronic/software/aerospace capability stood us in good stead. Turbine R&D is a very good school for us and also a passion. So we have no reason to put anything but the best we can build out into the market. The first batch of KS engines were made mostly from outsourced parts but the delivery times and quality issues were simply not sustainable.
I will have to be honest in saying I have no intension of outselling any other turbine in numbers. We just want to have the best engine and the best/happiest customers. Mickey at A1 hobbies remain my loyal supporter and distributor in the US.

No I did not have insurance against work in progress theft. Was quite a setback at 9 months worh of production.
Cheers
Andre

Hi Antony (and Andre),

Sorry to horn in on this thread, but this question you have asked, is one of THE most important that should be asked by the consumer. We spend a lot of time and effort trying to figure out how to get this question into the minds of the customers and potential customers!

Matt:

You aren't horning in by any means. Would you care to answer on behalf of JetCat? I think I know the answers, but I may learn something new.

Thanks.

----------------------------

Andre:

Thank you again. Am I correct in assuming that any necessary repairs will be done by you overseas or do you have a US support facility/arrangement. Any further info. you can supply would be beneficial to all of us here in the U.S.

----------------------------

Does anyone care to answer the questions that I have posed on behalf of Artes. The Super Eagle sports an incredible price, but does it also have reliability and US support. Does any company representative care to comment on the aspects that Andre, Matt and I have been discussing -- specifically number of units in the fiels, reliability statistics, current or planned support of the U.S. market and finally a description of whether or not microturbine manufacturing is your core business or how it is related to your core business.

Thanks to all.

Antony

Hi Antony,
Mickey handles most repairs in the US. At this point we do upgrades and mayor repairs in Cape Town. Basicaly the only thing Mickey is not equiped to do is re-balance. This is soon to be taken care of by a number of swop out shaft assy's ready balanced. We designed the KS series with a high spec tolerance on all parts so that replacing any part would not require any re-work at all. The KS is also easy to service. It is for example possible to check on the burner, vaporizers and fuel ring without removing the shaft as the housing slides off completely.
Our electronics are of course state of the art and properly packaged. All electronic assy's are swop out items as well. Given the fact that the electronics can be fed just about any voltage of any polarity, failure is a rare thing for us.
Cheers
Andre

Goeie more Andre - hoe gaan dit met u vandag ?

Do you happen to know how large a stock of parts Mickey carries ?

When I was ready to purchase a BMT 120 some months ago, Mickey told me that they had no engines available, and that it would probably be a few months before he had anymore. I understand that in the US market this is a low-volume product, so there's probably no point in Mickey keeping a bunch of engines on the shelf, plus this possibly coincided with your unfortunate break-in and theft of parts, so I do understand and completely sympathize with the situation. Conversely, as a selfish consumer, my immediate thought was that if it was going to take an unspecified number of months for an engine to become available, what situation might I find myself in if I were an engine owner who needed a part replaced ? Might the wait for parts and repair be equally long and indeterminate ? Or are spare-parts stocks substantial enough (and considered inviolate such that they don't get run down to produce new engines to satisfy demand) ?

I'm definitely impressed by the features on your engines, as well as the fact that you take the approach of letting your product speak for itself instead of needing to hype it up and/or continually push it on this forum as some others do. If not for the lack of availability, followed by the unkindness of the Rand/Dollar exchange, my buddy & I would each have had a BMT120 by now. I'll keep an eye on both of those factors to see whether/when they change, and I may yet end up being a customer.

Gordon

Goeie dag Gordon,
Dis blerrie warm maar darem lekker hier by die see!

Your questions are valid ones. While it is difficult to determine which parts to keep in stock our aim is to keep 5 - 10% of engines shipped as parts in stock. Repairs are usually in two catogories. Crash damage and/or FOD. Mostly these would need new casings, starters maybe and shaft assemblies. As we now do all our parts in house and our CNC shop does nothing but turbine parts, parts stock will not be an issue within the next month or two as our stock builds (now kept in a walk in safe!).
To be frank, turn around time on repairs is something we need to improve at this point. While we have few KS series for repair we do a fair amount of upgrades for our old and loyal customers where we, for what amounts to a nominal fee, just about completely rebuild the old BMT80's to 120's. This requires a lot of custom parts and is time consuming as a result.
If the situation warrants it I will improve our staffing. Once everything is in place we will do more agressive marketing.
Hope this addresses most of your concerns.
The product speaking for itself is basically a personal philosophy. In the IT field customers approach me to to work for them based on reputation, as a result I do zero marketing in that field.
Cheers
Andre
Verlang jy nooit terug huis toe nie?

LOL - ek wens dit was warm hierso !


That's good news. We'll be keeping an eye on the availability, as well as the exchange rate. Sideshow Bob needs an engine for his new F15. D'ya think I should tell him I was only joking when I said that the ECU and manual were in Afrikaans but that I'd translate it for him if he bought me an engine too

'n bietjie ...

Gordon

What?!

Nice straightforward answers so far from Andre. We will have to wait and see how BMT develops in their US customer support department and also how the engines stand up over this year. I sure would like to see an Artes rep. chime in here with some definitive evidence rather than the anecdotal evidence we have seen thus far from customers.

Antony