JABIRU CELEBRATES 25 YEARS WITH A TWIN

13 Sep 2013

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Australian company Jabiru is celebrating 25 years making aircraft and engines at this week's AUSFLY event for private and sport pilots. AND, the company has just announced a twin engine Jabiru!

The twin has been built by Jabiru's Southern Africa dealers, Len and Les Alford and had its first flight recently. A video of the flight can be seen here.

"Len approached us a year and a half ago suggesting there was a market for a twin engine Jabiru in Africa," says Jabiru boss Rodney Stiff.

"Len explained that parts of Africa are best flown over at a great height! The prevalence of wild animals and AK47s tends to make you nervous about outfield landings and the comfort of two engines is hard to replace.

"I had walked around the concept of a twin some time prior to Len’s call," continues Rodney,"but could not face up to the complexity generated by hanging the engines off the wings. This would have meant going back to basics on wing structure and all the difficulties of fire proofing the wings etc.

"Another physical difficulty was the engine pods completely obstructed the entry and exit points to the cabin. I then struck upon the idea of mounting the engines on a short canard mounted on the firewall. Some quick calculations on the weight and balance weren’t too frightening and I was able to get the propellers quite close together to reduce the amount of asymmetric thrust on one engine."

Jabiru Aircraft first appeared in 1988, when agriculture engineer Rodney Stiff looked for a project for his retirement. He scaled down a Cessna and constructed it in composite materials that made it light and inexpensive. 25 years later, Jabiru sells factory made and kit aircraft all over the world - and its own range of engines.

LINKS
Jabiru Aircraft

AUSFLY

Video of first flight

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