Cosworth races into AE1rospace

from Aero Gizmo (476 articles)

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July 27, 2006 Cosworth is a name that has been associated with auto racing at the highest level since Keith Duckworth and Mike Costin got together in 1958, most commonly in Formula One where its engines have won 176 Grands Prix plus countless competitions from World Rally Championship to World Sports Car Championship to World Touring Car Championship to CART/Indy titles. Now there’s a new engine from Northamptonshire that looks set to do very well in an entirely new sphere – UAV propulsion. Over the next decade the market for reconnaissance & surveillance UAVs is expected to be worth US$11 billion, so Cosworth’s new AE1 engine attracted a lot of attention from key international players in the UAV sector at this year’s Farnborough International Air Show. It’s not the big snarling four-stroke you might imagine wearing the Cosworth name – it’s a single cylinder 100 cc two stroke.

Cosworth’s advanced single cylinder 100cc direct injection compression-ignition all-aluminium-alloy, port and reed-valve induction motor; designed to run on multi-fuels ranging from JP5, JP8, DF1 and DF2 specification – was of great interest at a show with significant presence of UAV and UAV related products.

"It was a delight to see the positive response from so many exhibition visitors, a credit to the entire Cosworth AE1 engine programme team that has worked very hard to get the engine to the prototype stage in readiness for flight tests," said Ian Pocock, Director of Cosworth Engineering.

The company also received many enquiries for its "make to print" AE1rospace components service; Cosworth is regularly winning new contracts from clients requiring precision engineered AE1rospace components in short lead times.

"We are very pleased with our inaugural exhibition with the Midland’s AE1rospace Alliance at the 2006 Farnborough International Air Show, it provided a great opportunity to network and obtain very good quality leads from major international players," commented Jog Lall, Marketing Director, Cosworth.

During the week long show, Cosworth’s stand was attended by major defence equipment contractors, airframe manufacturers, UAV design and development companies and the general public.