DeltaHawk Engines Inc.
Racine
Innovation: DHK180 aircraft engine
Founders: Doug Doers, Diane Doers and John Brooks
Founded: 1996
deltahawk.com
In the same way that car engines have continued to evolve over the decades to become more efficient and meet the modern desires of consumers, Racine-based DeltaHawk Engines Inc. has spent decades perfecting a new kind of aircraft engine that offers greater fuel efficiency and ease of use.
The company’s 180 horsepower DHK180 engine is the first of a forthcoming family of engines to receive Type Certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. This means the design and all component parts of the engine have received approval.
Dennis Webb, director of marketing and certification for DeltaHawk, said the DHK180 engine was first conceived by the company’s three co-founders in 1996.
“As airplanes evolved and got more modern and as the electronics in airplanes got more modern, we still had engines that were literally decades and decades old,” said Webb.
Co-founders Doug Doers, Diane Doers and John Brooks were looking to tackle the numerous issues that came with these out-of-date engines. Older engines typically use 100 octane fuel, which is more difficult to source. They also usually burn a leaded fuel, which has been illegal for several other transportation-related uses since 1975. Older aircraft engines are “fairly high maintenance” and pilots can find that they’re “finicky to work with,” according to Webb.
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A DeltaHawk Engines employee works in the company’s test cell control and monitoring station.[/caption]
“The engines found in smaller aircrafts today, the main architecture of those was a product of World War II,” he said. “That’s what’s been state of the art for decades and decades. What our founders saw was the need for a modern engine.”
The DHK180 engine is a more reliable, low-maintenance option that burns jet fuel – something readily available around the world. The engines are also 35% to 45% more fuel efficient than a standard gas engine.
Featuring an inverted-V engine block, turbocharging and supercharging, mechanical fuel injection, liquid cooling, direct drive and 40% fewer moving parts than other engines in its category, the new DeltaHawk engine is an original design secured by multiple patents.
The completion and certification of the new DeltaHawk engine was truly jump started in 2015 when entrepreneurs Alan and Christopher Ruud became the primary investors in the company. Since then, Delta Hawk has grown from about three people to now more than 50 workers. Most of those employees were brought on to specifically help produce the DHK180 engines.
“We began by completely reimagining what a general aviation engine should be,” said Christopher Ruud, chief executive officer at DeltaHawk. “And the result is that we now have a certified engine that is a game changer. It’s been a long time coming but, in engineering, simple is hard.”
The target price for the engine is $60,000, which does not include an installation package. Webb said the engine is gaining large amounts of interest from European countries, where fuel prices are even higher than in the U.S.
“We’re taking orders as of May 18 and we already have a lot, way past what we expected,” said Webb. “Very major aircraft companies are interested in our engine. Beyond that, we have interest with the Department of Defense and just the average aircraft owner.”
DeltaHawk has also received worldwide interest from airframe manufacturers, kit builders and the military. The DHK180 engine was recently selected by NASA to power the organization’s hybrid propulsion system planned for its Subsonic Single Aft Engine Aircraft scale flight test vehicle – a proof-of-concept electro-fan design for future regional transport aircraft.
The new DeltaHawk engine has also been selected by Hawthorne, California-based Ampaire Inc. for an upcoming aircraft testbed application in support of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research initiative. The company aims to begin shipping out engines in 2024. As for the rest of the engine line, several higher-powered engines are still in the works.
“It will shock people how quickly some of those will start coming out,” said Webb. “(People may not know that) a good part of the general aviation industry has been purchased by foreign owners. This is a big deal that this engine is made here in the U.S.”
