Buckeye, Arizona’s SkyTrax specializes in gearbox solutions for light aircraft engines. The company’s bolt-on adaptors reduce crankshaft RPMs to rotational rates appropriate to aircraft propellers.
SkyTrax’s early efforts concentrated on Rotax’s C-gearbox, but were refocused on Yamaha snowmobile engines when Rotax discontinued the C-gearbox and halted production of two-stroke engines. The excellent power-to-weight ratios of snowmobile engines render such powerplants particularly conducive to light-sport and STOL aircraft.
SkyTrax’s Apex gearbox is designed to pair with Yamaha’s four-cylinder, four-stroke, 150-horsepower Apex snowmobile engine. The SkyTrax unit reduces the mill’s characteristically high RPMs—a function of Yamaha’s five-valve (three intake, two exhaust) Genesis head—by a factor of 3.83 to one
The Apex engine’s lofty RPMs and the high-power engendered by such have endeared the powerplant to top STOL competitors, many of whom have fitted the contraption with turbochargers, thereby boosting its output to well over two-hundred horsepower. Perennial STOL luminary and two-time AirVenture STOL competition reserve grand champion Steve Henry has boosted the Apex engine in his Just Aircraft Super-STOL Highlander to a gravity-defying 350-horsepower.
SkyTrax owner Teal Jenkins warns that such highly-modified, ultra-boosted, performance-optimized engines are eminently experimental, and should under no circumstances—within the contexts of reliability and range—be thought of as equivalents to or substitutions for conventional powerplants the likes of Lycoming’s iO-540. Mr. Jenkin’s states: “The biggest appeal for these particular engines is the power-to-weight ratio, obviously. You’re not going to beat a Lycoming in fuel-burn … but the biggest thing is I can climb at over two-thousand-feet-per-minute, even at 15,000-feet … and then I lost about fifty-pounds off the O-235 that was on there before.”
Cognizant of the fact that pairing engine and propeller is among the most common and complex challenges facing home aircraft builders, SkyTrax has designed its gearboxes to be installed without drilling, machining, or other similarly cumbersome retrofits to aircraft engine housings. Mr. Jenkins asserts SkyTrax gearboxes can be installed by reasonably competent do-it-yourselfers in under two-hours.
In addition to its Apex gearbox for Yamaha Apex engines, SkyTrax offers a Nytro gearbox for three-cylinder Yamaha and Arctic Cat snowmobile engines, as well as a Phazer gearbox for the Yamaha engine that powered the Japanese company’s Phazer model snowmobiles from 2007 through 2018. Combined, the Phazer engine and gearbox weigh a scant one-hundred-pounds.
Aero-TV is a production of the Internationally syndicated Aero-News Network. Seen worldwide by hundreds of thousands of aviators and aviation adherents, ANN's Aero-TV has produced over 5000 aviation and feature programs, including nearly 2000 episodes of our daily aviation news program, AIRBORNE UNLIMITED, currently hosted by Holland Lee. Now in its third decade of operation, parent company Aero-News Network, has the most aggressive and intensive editorial profile of any aviation news organization and has published nearly a half-million news and feature stories since its inception -- having pioneered the online 24/7 aviation new-media model that so many have emulated.
Airbus Racer Demonstrator Makes Inaugural Flight Airbus Helicopters' ambitious Racer demonstrator has achieved its inaugural flight as part of the Clean Sky 2 initiative, a corners>[...]
A little Bit Quieter, Said Testers, But in the End it's Still a DA40 Diamond Aircraft recently completed a little pilot project with Lufthansa Aviation Training, putting a pair of >[...]
Line Up And Wait (LUAW) Used by ATC to inform a pilot to taxi onto the departure runway to line up and wait. It is not authorization for takeoff. It is used when takeoff clearance >[...]
Contributing To The Accident Was The Pilot’s Use Of Methamphetamine... Analysis: The pilot departed on a local flight to perform low-altitude maneuvers in a nearby desert val>[...]
From 2015 (YouTube Version): Overcoming Obstacles To Achieve Their Dreams… At EAA AirVenture 2015, FedEx arrived with one of their Airbus freight-hauling aircraft and placed>[...]
Airbus Racer Helicopter Demonstrator First Flight Part of Clean Sky 2 Initiative
See All