is orbital going to corner the military engine mar

I think there is good chance they might.


Hirth launches world's first 45kw lightweight UAV

Goebler-Hirthmotoren of Benningen, Germany is launching the world's
first 45kw fuel efficient heavy fuel aircraft engine for the global
military UAV market. The Hirth heavy fuel aircraft engine project
was started in June of 2004 in response to NATO's desire to
eradicate gasoline from the battlefield because of safety and
logistics reasons. All existing gasoline military engines will need
to operate on kerosene or diesel based fuels under this new one fuel
policy. Some applications have shifted to compression ignition
diesel solutions but these engines are significantly heavier than
their gasoline counterparts and are not the best solution for
unmanned aircraft where low weight is desired.



Hirth developed the 45kw twin cylinder engine as the first step in
meeting global demands for heavy fuel aircraft engines. The intent
is to use the same engine cylinder configuration to launch a family
of engines from 1 cylinder to 4 cylinders that produce 20kw to
80kw. The technology will also be applied to a twin cylinder 140cc
2-stroke boxer engine to meet the demands of smaller UAV's.



The Hirth engine uses Orbital's air-assisted direct injection fuel
system and Hirth worked with Orbital to develop this engine. A base
Hirth 3503 625cc gasoline twin cylinder 2-stroke was adapted to
Orbital's direct injection system to enable the engine to reliably
spark ignite military kerosene based fuels such as NATO-F44 (JP5)
and NATO-F34 (JP8). This is the same direct injection technology
that was successfully applied to Mercury's 3.0L heavy fuel outboard
for the US DoD and EP Barrus's 40hp heavy fuel outboard for the UK
MoD in 2004.



Hirth's 45kw engine is the only lightweight heavy fuel aircraft
engine available on the market today that provides similar cold
start and transient response to the current 2-stroke MOGAS engines
being used on UAV's today, while offering a significant fuel economy
benefit.



The next step is to market this lightweight heavy fuel engine family
to global UAV manufacturers so they can meet NATO's one fuel
policy. The technology can also be applied to other military
applications such as generators, water pumps, ATV's and motorcycles.