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How turbine engines work: 1) Compress air into an enclosed space. 2) Heat it. 3) Release thru turbine that powers the compressor. This process accelerates air pluse anything else injected into the enclosed space, like fuel and water. Mass acceleration is called "thrust". (c) LHB,2010
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If you right mouse click the link you can open it up into a new window! And not have to re-open this page over and over. Then you can drag and drop links from here into the new window. I've worked on this list since 1996. If you know of a new project please let me know: click here and tell me about the project and/or web site, thanks!
2007 Nov: Farhan Ahmed told me about his new web page and DIY jet engine project a month ago. I asked him to put a counter on his page just to see if my link to him here would do any good. His counter was at 465 on Nov 6th 2007. (update: Jan27,08: 8265, new average=100/day) I think what he has accomplished is VERY COOL! --- Ha! I wonder if he is located in Pakistan because our Pfranc (Dr. Haroon) has signed his guest book! Small world. And a more fun world with more homemade jet engines in it! Way to go Farhan!
2007 Jan: Don Giandomenico has designed and built the most beautiful and complete DIY turbine engines I've seen, and even a turboshaft version with starter and generator. (64,056 3/20/07, ... 118,600 1/27/08 avg: 6k/mo.)
2006 Sept: Sal's DIY Home Built Jet Engine --- Sal has the most cool DIY turbine engine CAD drawings I've ever seen. (19,937 on 9/7/06) (65,005 3/20/07=45k/7mo)
2006 Sept: Bruce Simpson Wow, where have I been these last 4 years? Or 10 for that matter? Ha, dreaming of helicopters! Turbine powered ultralight ones someday - I hope. Enough about me, I thought Burce was doing only pulse jets, I remember wondering if I had the personal metal bandwidth to add pulse jets to my pages here... and decided I didn't, and besides they really suck! Last I knew he had no interest in turbines but in 2000 he did one and just the other day I found myself discovering great info and help on his website! Thanks for sharing Bruce! ...great links to how-to balance things and make ignitors, AND he manages a DIY turbine forum with 3000 members! --- well, better late than never? Check it out, and join his Yahoo forum! I did.
2004 October: Sam Barros, ME/EE at Michigan Technology University asked me to link to his really great turbine project here: http://www.powerlabs.org/turbine.htm. I'm very happy to regardless, but was especially honored and happy to hear from Sam that my old turbine project here actually inspire him to build his turbine. Thanks Sam! I think you'll be inspiring many more to come - which is a real high!
2002 October: Clint Davis, college student, turbine engine builder, carries on, and expands upon how to make a turbine engine for under $200.
2001 July: *** Worlds first gas turbine engine beer cooler! Combining 2 things I love, jet engines and Guinness, Simon Jansen has built the coolest DIY gas turbine engine web site I've seen! This is a must visit site!
2001 April: Mitch's DIY turbine engine with a car turbocharger and visits to Lowes Home Improvement centers! As of 4/7/2000 (or is that 2001 Mitch?) it does not appear to be running yet.
1999 Nov: Michael Davis's How to build a primitive turbine engine. Very cool.
99 Sept: Kevin Wolfe's Homemade Turbine. Kevin is using a huge truck turbo following the lead of Gayland Springer. Good looking engine Kevin.
99 July: Bill Patrick's Yet Another Do It Yourself Gas Turbine Web Page one of the purdyest (is that a word?) combustion chambers I've seen. Nice job Bill. We are taking up a collection to get Bill a new pair of blue jeans for christmass. Send $1 to $5 donations to: New Jeans, c/o Larry Berg, PO box 100, Murphy, OR 97533. I'll let you know here when we have enough.
98 October: Brad Lotsberg Writes very well and, unlike some of us, actually studied jet engines before trying to build one. Photos soon, I hope.
98 August: Dave Barr saw the New Scientest magazine article about my turbine and then built a working engine of his own in ONE WEEK! Wow! Must be a record.
98 July: ( http://www.tcc.com.au/jet ) Page not found: let me know if another is found. Turbocharger Jet Engine by Andy Clay & Russ Denyer. Nice looking engine but hard to see in the photos. Andy, next time move over to the right against that white wall.
98 June: Just starting out Les' Turbine Page is small but he has BIG plans because he has a really B I G turbine from no less than an M-60 tank! He writes well and I'll be checking back here from time to time. What do they say? Les is more?
98 June: David Young is building a Tesla turboshaft in the garage. Tesla invented a bladeless turbine in 1910. Tesla believers would say I'm bogged in "Bladed Cultural Inertia". I say I'll look at it when there's a Toyota Tesla Turbocharger at Joe's Auto-Wreckers for $25. (15GBP) I'm way to poor, dumb, and old to go against the flow (or the blade).
98 May: Patrick Arnold's homemade gas turbine engine ... very nice looking! Awesome photos! You must see the afterburner photo. (same one that's in the New Scientist 25Jul98.)
97 Nov 10: Today, I received an e-mail from Bennie van de Goor of AMT Netherlands. Wow, his company designs and manufactures real Gas Turbine Engines for use in R/C model aircraft! I am very happy to send all potential customers in his direction. Hey, if you can spare the price of a 1st class round trip ticket to the Netherlands, instead order one of these beauties from www.atm.nl, then stay home some weekend, and have first class jet fun, maybe with your son. It'd be a real cool thing, Dad!
97 Aug 25: IAN BENNETT!!! has started a web site! He contacted me late 1996 ( seeing my web pages) and sent me a letter and video tape, from the UK! Thanks Ian and welcome to the net. There are many on a list waiting to see the video, but someone has not forwarded it on. Whoever you are, it's not too late. Else, you'll be off the list forever and the best is yet to come!
97July 24: Kenneth Moller homemade Gas Turbine Engine. Here you can HEAR the engine!
97July 23: http://www.cbjet.demon.co.uk/turbo2.html --- not working! *** Chris Bennett's Gas Turbine Engine Project
97July 23: *** Roger Marmion's Turbocharger Turbine Page. Nice job Roger.
97Jun24: Jan of Denmark has proved the Springer design! $50 and 3 months. Success! Well done!
97May9: ... Finland Flyers ... I made that up. The creators, Kimmo, Sami, Matti and Kimmo, call it the Eunuch 1 which is a homemade turbine engine mounted on a bicycle which they drag race in the university parking lot. So is it a turbo-charged bike?
97Apr18: Mark Pryma's homemade gas turbine and other crazy and amazing stuff and folks. "sometimes you feel like a nut"... BIG jpg's, but if you love turbines, you'll love this ...
97Apr13: (missing URL)... James Elliott, technology teacher, helping kids stay off the streets, has arrived on the scene with a great page and engine project. I'm real happy to think that Gaylen Springer, and me, helped some, and am honored to indirectly be helping kids "turn on" to learning and doing good stuff.
97Apr..: Sophia (a real company) is in production, see it here: Coleman fuel and kerosene. is the fuel for this 3.5 pound (1.6kg) beauty (a real engine for model aircraft).
97Mar: ... 10 foot long F/A-18E/F Super Hornet , Robert J. Vess vess@alpha.mae.ncsu.edu sent this link to me today. He is the chief design engineer and test pilot of this all composite RPV .... with two SWB turbojet engines in it! Awesome.
Jan97: Capstone turbo-generator with air bearings.
Very cool. Very expensive.15JAN97: Charles Napier made this engine with a large turbo charger. Blame me for the poor scan of photos.
31OCT96 Toine Martens super cool info on the AMT gas turbine for RC aircraft!!! And nice pages too.
5OCT96: Micro Aircraft is selling an engine I sure would like to have for my Ultralight but I think it would cook my rudder and maybe the more immediate problem is ... it costs too much! In the mean time I will continue to dream on.
3OCT96: Kalle Pihlajasaari is a net guru who just happens to love jet engines too! This is great! He is running our list and cataloguing lots of turbine stuff. Thanks Kalle. And he's also a Purple Pfranc too!
23SEP96: *** The Springer Gas Turbine Engine Project This fellow Oregonian mentions me in his new page! Unlike me he does nice neat organized work. And he did it about 100 times faster than me and gives you lots of really good information. Take a look. A must see for garage turbine engine builders.
12SEP96: THE GAS-TURBINE PRIMER by gas-turbines.com is the best "how it works" I have seen so far (but it's only 1996!).
Radio Control Jet magazine! I ordered a years worth, on the net, with my credit card, to the UK, holding my breath. .... Hey, got a invoice! Looks good!...update: got my 2ed issue (Aug/Sept) = FANTASTIC ! ! you must see this ! ! I'm moving this to the top of the list...
15AUG96, Welcome: Avon Aero Supply I got an e-mail from Bruce who says he has "inexpensive gas turbines that may be attractive for hobby use",... update Feb97, no new news. update Oct97, thanks randy for the new URL
P-15 micro-jet engine, somewhat larger than a hair dryer and weighing about 4 lbs.(1.8kg), can deliver up to 12 lb. (5.4kg) thrust by Center for Aviation and Space Technology (CAST). Phase II P-60 (60lbs, 27kg) jet engine program starting October 1, 1995
*** Mark Nye's homemade turbojet! *** Must see wood burning turbine! *** Back in '94? Mark out did me by many pounds of thrust! He found my pages here around 1996 and saw we had some things in common; an interest in the internet and making lots of noise! --->
Allison Engine Company:, How a jet engine works... boy, if anyone should know...these guys should.
SAVOY, "Build From Easy To Follow Plans"
And finally ...
A HREF="http://www.worldway.com/mall/savoy.html oops..
Sorry - Another dead URL. Hey, maybe
the internet is putting this guy out of business? ...
The ad that was here has been around for over 20 years (140 dog years)!
I wonder if anyone has actually made one work? Since I put this
here, I've heard from several people that purchased the
plans and were very disappointed. One said he returned
them for a refund but never got it. Another said he had missing
things and they never responded to his letters. They may
think that us guys who want to build jet engines are easy
targets for low level bad deals, well, we are,
but the jig is up (translate?) because now we can all talk to
each other for almost free on the internet! Update: 12/28/2002,
I received an email from Bob Miles who KNEW and worked with JOHN Savoy,
wow, let the light shine!!! Read Bob's letter here.
Now for my engine.
New Scientist magazine,
the San Diego Union-Tribune, and a UK magazine called
Tomorrows Technology Today (T3)
have each published articles about this crazy hobby. T3 actually included
photos of me!).
Since I was a kid I wanted to make a turbo jet engine from stuff you could find laying around the garage. It was 30 years before I finally made the time and effort to do it, and just in the nick of time too, because my Dad helped and he saw it run! Almost on that subject, last week I heard a guy say that when he was 6 he thought he was a John Deere tractor. A few years later he saw a movie about the Korean war and switched from running around making tractor sounds to making jet engine sounds. (His wife told him to quit talking about it so I don't know the rest of the story). Too bad because I can relate to this. I would create revolutionary new jet powered aircraft with my crayons and spend hours perfecting the sound of the engines, the guns, and explosions. What boys do, and some of us still want to....and this time we want the whole neighborhood to to share in our fun and now, with the internet, the whole world!
Click here to see: My engine.
If the above link does not work and you really need to see my engine, click here: My engine on my local site... the traffic on my sight is getting so high I'm going to have to pay my ISP more per month!
If you are interested in building your own engine for fun, and want to talk to and hear from others that do, and/or you want to join a mail list, check out this page here: Kalle's mail list.
IPO: Friday, April 19, 1996
My home page. Come see my other crazy projects.
since 6FEB97
In addition to everyone mentioned above, I want to thank: Raymond Henry Berg (1919-1994), Ardel Herndon, Jim Gordon, Mike Meer, Scott LaFee, Tom Howat and many others who not only put up with my crazy ideas but some even helped with some of them.
Hey, if some ads are cool and useful --- then more are more better! Bring 'em on!
| Top 20 of 6441 Total Search Strings Jan 2007 that led to Pfranc.com | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| # | Hits | Search String | |
| 1 | 328 | 2.22% | homemade jet engine |
| 2 | 213 | 1.44% | jet engine |
| 3 | 192 | 1.30% | turbine engine |
| 4 | 178 | 1.20% | jet engines |
| 5 | 164 | 1.11% | gas turbine |
| 6 | 110 | 0.74% | turbine engines |
| 7 | 100 | 0.68% | pfranc |
| 8 | 89 | 0.60% | home made jet engine |
| 9 | 85 | 0.57% | garmin software |
| 10 | 85 | 0.57% | gas turbine engine |
| 11 | 83 | 0.56% | homemade jet engines |
| 12 | 82 | 0.55% | garmin |
| 13 | 82 | 0.55% | gps freeware |
| 14 | 78 | 0.53% | micro jet engine |
| 15 | 78 | 0.53% | rc jet engines |
| 16 | 75 | 0.51% | homemade gas turbine |
| 17 | 64 | 0.43% | garmin gps |
| 18 | 64 | 0.43% | homemade turbine |
| 19 | 62 | 0.42% | garmin cable |
| 20 | 62 | 0.42% | homemade jet |