Ukrainian company Scopa Industries has completed the ground phase of testing its new pulsed jet engine «Shepit» for drones and is moving on to the flight testing phase. The engine is assembled entirely from Ukrainian components and is designed for installation on various types of UAVs.
Ukrainian company Scopa Industries has completed the ground phase of testing its new pulsed jet engine «Shepit» for drones and is moving on to the flight testing phase. The engine is assembled entirely from Ukrainian components and is designed for installation on various types of UAVs.
According to the specialized publication «Military», «Shepit» belongs to the pulsating jet engines and was created as a purely Ukrainian model: from the design to the components. First, the team conducted a series of bench launches to check the basic characteristics and stability of operation. On the ground, the engine can operate stably for about five minutes, after which the structure begins to overheat and collapse.
Engineers explain that in static conditions the engine does not receive sufficient cooling, so overheating was the key challenge at this stage. In flight, this disadvantage should be significantly reduced: the oncoming air flow will cool the housing, which will significantly increase the operating time and bring testing closer to real combat scenarios.
According to preliminary calculations, the «Shepit» is capable of providing a flight speed of about 700 km/h, but the exact figure will depend on the aerodynamics of the airframe on which the power plant will be installed. The engine design provides for scalable thrust, so it can be adapted for both light reconnaissance drones and medium-class strike platforms.
The current version of the «Shepot» has a thrust of 18 kg with an own weight of 6.5 kg. The engine runs on regular A-95 gasoline with a consumption of about 1.5 liters per minute, which simplifies fuel logistics in field conditions. The length of the unit is approximately 1.3 meters, the diameter of the combustion chamber is 25 cm, the tail section is 16 cm, which allows it to be integrated into compact gliders without a radical change in the fuselage design.
Scopa Industries emphasizes that simplicity of design and maintenance is one of the main advantages of the «Shepot». Pulse engines have fewer moving parts, are quickly manufactured and are suitable for mass production in wartime. For Ukraine, which is increasing its own component base for missiles and drones, this is critically important: the company is already known for developing a jet engine for missiles with a range of up to 250 km with the support of Brave1 grant programs, so «Shepot» logically continues this line.
Flight tests of the new engine should show whether it will be possible to combine a simple and cheap to manufacture design with the reliability required on the front. If the «Shepit» confirms the declared characteristics, Ukrainian UAV manufacturers will receive another proprietary tool for creating high-speed strike and interception drones without critical dependence on imported engines.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how the Ukrainian «Independent Design Bureau» created the «Grim-17» pulse jet engine for various types of UAVs, which costs only $800.
