Robert Helm discusses UL's Past, Present And Future Engine Installations And Efforts

By Anthony Liberatore

Robert Helms, General Manager UL Power North America, LLC held a news conference at AirVenture to elaborate on UL's history, their engines development, and  current status of UL Power's engine lineup. Mr. Helms spoke of his background coming from an aviation family, getting into aviation law, and ultimately getting into the high tech sector in California which lead to an early retirement. As luck with have it discussing his post retirement boredom with Sebastian Heintz, Sebastian suggested he look into a new aircraft engine from Belgium that is awesome. Helms's pursuit of this opportunity led to his current status as General Manager of UL North America.

Helms elaborated on how a desire for a modified Jabiru engine ( higher output ) for a small European helicopter culminated in UL designing a new engine from scratch, and since 2003, UL has shipped 1000 engines worldwide with 150 of them sold in the US market. With UL's auto racing background it was easy for them to be a lot more innovative. The are producing a  direct drive air cooled, FADEC (full authority digital engine control) equipped engine  with multi-point electronic fuel injection, and dual electronic ignition with variable timing. With the FADEC mixture control and carburetor heat are a thing of the past. Helm's noted his competitors were taking to social media  to make their owners aware of winter starting procedures, he retorted via social media, "Get used to doing nothing" since with the FADEC doing all the work, Helms noted; "ours just turn the key".  Delving into the subject more, Helms noted the ECU corrects automatically as the sensors know what the engine's parameters are.

Helms noted they are not pursuing the LSA Market (via ASTM certification) as they feel the LSA market is smaller than the experimental amateur built .  Helms also discussed that UL prefers it's customers to use auto fuel, however 100LL can be used and they require the high compression versions in their lineup use 98 octane or greater. Helms said they recommend Aeroshell 15w-50 oil for their engines, and that each engine has a 2 yr warranty that begins when the engine is shipped to the customer. Helms discussed engine availability, as their are various options that can effect delivery time such as prop flange and alternator options and noted it can be as short as 3 weeks for some standard installations (Zenith) but he often quotes a 10 week lead time. Helms noted overhaul cost is 1/3 of a certified engine and UL Power is discussing options to facilitate overhauling as well modern methodologies to work with customers to maintain their engines such as single source oil analysis of customers engines.

Helms also discussed the interest in their larger engine offerings both the UL390 and UL520 series. Helms said Bede Aircraft is will offer a firewall forward package for the 200hp version of the UL520 that would be 100lbs lighter than the current 180 hp powerplant they are utilizing. Aero-News spoke with Jim Bede Jr. Of BD Corp. and he noted there is a BD-4 builder in South Africa who is far along on his installation of his UL engine and the BD factory will do a parallel firewall forward packaging mock up which will be mutually beneficial.  In this 200 hp class Helms noted that UL in Belgium is working with a Helicopter company  that is looking for an alternative to their expensive turbine and wants a 200 hp engine de-rated to 180 hp and it needs to be a reverse rotation engine.  UL's engineering team has agreed to build this client a prototype reverse rotation engine, and Helms said,  "How many other companies will do this for someone who has a dream."

FMI: www.ulpower.net