After a six month engine swap involving 256 newly made and installed parts, developing a new geared reduction system, and making modifications to the frame and body to slip that new 3-cylinder engine into the engine bay, we heard the sweet song of success burbling out the exhaust pipe.
No exhaust muffler on this flight test vehicle, so the sound was louder than we will have in production, but it sounds great all the same. The engine started and ran perfectly with our new Motec engine computer and modified throttle assembly.

The engine was run at idle to check all systems, and then spun up to higher rpm to verify no issues with the fuel delivery and oiling systems for the geared reduction drive. We aren’t testing using the Skybrid (TM) electric hybrid drive system we announced recently, as that would delay flight testing for many more months and we need to move the program into flight testing as soon as we can to learn the last bit of aerodynamic tweaks we will need to do before entering production.