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TEI Starts Off Serial Production of PG50 Engine

Speaking at the ‘Delivery Ceremony for the First TS1400 Engine and Opening of the Design Center’, TUSAŞ Engine Industries, Inc. (TEI) President and CEO Prof. Mahmut AKŞİT announced that they have designed, developed, produced and successfully operated 11 engines, 10 of which were national and 1 of which was domestic (T700-TEI-701D), in the last 7 years. AKŞİT also stated that the serial production activities have commenced for TJ90, PG115, PD155, PD170-DT and PG50 domestic and indigenous engines.

Date: Issue 104 - February 2021

Among the aforesaid engines, TJ90 is planned to be utilized on the TUSAŞ product ŞİMŞEK High Speed Target Drone, PG115 on the Heron/GÖZCÜ-I MALE UAV (I assume), PD155 on ANKA and AKSUNGUR UAVs (in flight tests), PD170-DT/ST on ANKA, AKSUNGUR, AKINCI and BAYRAKTAR TB3 Armed UAVs, and PG50 on the Loitering Munition. During his speech, AKŞİT also stated that the PG115 Engine has logged over 30,000 hours of flight and that the serial production negotiations for the PG50 Engine are ongoing.

TEI President and CEO AKŞİT, after the TEI-TJ300 Engine Start-Up Ceremony for Medium Range Anti-Ship Missile (National Penguin) held at TEI premises on June 19, 2020, informed Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa VARANK while introducing TEI products that there are several versions of the PG 50 engine (30hp PG30 with a dry weight of 19 kg and PG40 with a capacity of 40hp) and that they are in the negotiation stage for 100 engines and the propeller used in the engine will be procured from abroad.

The KARGI Project was initiated by the TÜBİTAK Defense and Security Technologies Research Grant Committee (SAVTAG) within the scope of the TÜBİTAK Support Program for Research Projects of Public Institutions (1007) in order to develop a Long-Range Loitering Munition (LM) which will replace the HARPY platform in the inventory, but the critical components of which are indigenous, and in the Aselsan 2015 annual report, it was reported that the RF Seeker System contract for the KARGI Platform was signed.

The developed system was required to have technical features similar to the HARPY LM, and a more effective warhead with some additional features that increase utilization flexibility and operational efficiency was intended to be incorporated. As in the HARPY System, the system was planned to be carried on a tactical wheeled vehicle (12 per vehicle) and similarly launched from the launcher.

The project model was designed as the development of the prototype system, its acceptance and then the award of the serial production contract. KARGI was also planned to be launched from compressed launchers with Rocket-Assisted Takeoff (RATO) technique like the HARPY and HAROP Attack Drones. According to the information we have obtained, KARGI will be superior to HARPY in many respects and will have similar capabilities with HAROP.

As per the product brochure issued by TEI, the plain-design TEI-PG50 Engine, which was developed in line with the requirement for an undisclosed unmanned aerial vehicle within the scope of the contract signed between TÜBİTAK (SAVTAG) and TEI on December 21, 2015, is a 2-stroke, two-piston/cylinder (0.5l volume) boxer type UAV gasoline engine with a power capacity of 50hp. According to TEI Magazine, 46hp was achieved in the test carried out in November with the engine, which was first started in July 2018. The first flight test of the TEI-PG50 Engine on a platform was conducted in May 2019. Designed for UAV platforms under 300 kg, the PG50 Engine has a maximum capacity of 50bhp (± 2) according to TEI data and can achieve 30bhp (± 1) at a 16,000ft altitude. TEI-PG50 Engine has a dry weight of 19 kg (± 1) excluding accessories and has an injection type fuel feeding system controlled by the Electronic Engine Control Unit (ECU).