The Rotax 915 iS is an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

aircraft engine An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Aircraft using power components are referred to as powered flight. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbin ...

, produced by

Rotax Rotax is the brand name for a range of internal combustion engines developed and manufactured by the Austrian company BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG (until 2016 BRP-Powertrain GmbH & Co. KG), in turn owned by the Canadian Bombardier Recreational Prod ...

Gunskirchen Gunskirchen is a town in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. Geography Gunskirchen lies in the Hausruckviertel. About 11 percent of the municipality is forest, and 78 percent is farmland. Internal combustion engine maker Rotax has been headquarte ...

for use in

ultralight aircraft Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and Aircraft flight control system, conventional three-a ...

homebuilt aircraft Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenn ...

light-sport aircraft A light-sport aircraft (LSA), or light sport aircraft, is a category of small, lightweight aircraft that are simple to fly. LSAs tend to be heavier and more sophisticated than ultralight (aka "microlight") aircraft, but LSA restrictions on weigh ...

, small

helicopters A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

and

gyroplane An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), gyroscope, gyrocopter or gyroplane, is a class of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. A gyroplane "means a rotorcraft whose rotors are not engine-dr ...

s. The engine was type certified in 2017. The engine was first publicly displayed at AirVenture in July 2015 and first flown in March 2016. In January 2016 the engine was named AVweb's "Best New Engine" of 2015.

Design and development

The Rotax 915 iS is a four-cylinder

four-stroke A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directio ...

horizontally-opposed A flat engine is a piston engine where the cylinders are located on either side of a central crankshaft. Flat engines are also known as horizontally opposed engines, however this is distinct from the less common opposed-piston engine design, ...

turbocharged In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (also known as a turbo or a turbosupercharger) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake air, forcing more air into the ...

, air and liquid-cooled, gasoline engine design, with a mechanical gearbox

reduction drive A reduction drive is a mechanical device to shift rotational speed. A planetary reduction drive is a small scale version using ball bearings in an epicyclic arrangement instead of toothed gears. Reduction drives are used in engines of all kinds ...

. The turbocharger has a compression ratio of 3.5:1 and the engine will have a critical altitude of . It employs dual electronically controlled fuel injection, using dual channel

Rockwell Collins Rockwell Collins, Inc. was a multinational corporation headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, providing avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers. It was formed when the Collins Radi ...

ECUs, with dual ignition and produces for take-off and continuous. The engine can produce rated power up to and has a ceiling of . The engine is based on the

Rotax 912 The Rotax 912 is a horizontally-opposed four-cylinder, naturally-aspirated, four-stroke aircraft engine with a reduction gearbox. It features liquid-cooled cylinder heads and air-cooled cylinders. Originally equipped with carburetors, la ...

, but differs in that it has fuel injection, a reinforced crankshaft, new pistons, a new gearbox and a turbocharger.

Time between overhaul Time between overhauls (abbreviated as TBO or TBOH) is the manufacturer's recommended number of running hours or calendar time before an aircraft engine or other component requires overhaul. On rotorcraft, many components have recommended or ma ...

s was expected to eventually be raised to 2000 hours with operational experience, but started at 1200 hours. The design entered production in the second half of 2017. The

European Aviation Safety Agency The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Commission with responsibility for civil aviation safety in the European Union. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs inve ...

certified the Rotax 915 iSc3 A on 14 December 2017 and the Rotax 915 iSc3 B on 4 January 2018. In December 2021 the option to replace the 12V electrical system with a 24V one was introduced. The 24V version of the engine is designated the 915iS C24 for the non-certified version and the 915iSc C24 certified version.

Variants

;Rotax 915iS :Base version with a 12V electrical system ;Rotax 915iS C24 :Non-certified model with 24V electrical system ;Rotax 915iSc C24 :Certified model with 24V electrical system

Applications

* Pro.Mecc Freccia Anemo * Blackshape Prime * Issoire APM 41 Simba 915iS * Progressive Aerodyne SeaRey * Sling Aircraft Sling TSi *

Swiss Excellence Risen The Swiss Excellence Risen is a Swiss two-seat in side-by-side configuration, low wing ultralight aircraft, designed by Italian-Argentine aeronautical engineer Alberto Porto and produced by Swiss Excellence Airplanes. The aircraft was introdu ...

* Flying Legend Tucano Replica
Bristell B23-915 TurboTL SparkerTL Stream

Specifications (915 iS)

References

External links