Since last fall, EPS Diesel has made significant progress in certifying their "clean sheet" Graflight Flat 8 engine. They expect to complete the process later this year. Certification activity has kept the company busy in the past year as it continues to expand its staff and facilities.

Last fall, they subjected the engine to over 70 hours of climb, cruise and restart scenarios in a revived Air Force chamber which simulated altitudes up to 30,000 feet. The tests were conducted to affirm the mechanical design configuration of the Graflight Flat 8 engine along with the advanced capabilities through the use of EPS' proprietary Electronic Engine Control Unit (EECU) and their state of the art fuel system. "The engine responded in normal parameters at all altitudes up to 30K feet," said EPS CEO Michael Fuchs.

Last summer, EPS began working on a new facility intended for engine testing, inspection, assembly and STC work. The inside space of the building is for EPS' quality management team and for installing dyno technology, welding, fabrication space, and an engine tear down and inspection room. Once the new dyno testing facility is completed in April 2018, EPS will have the capacity to work on three engines at a time. Outside the building is an area being developed to accommodate specialized test stands that will allow for propeller tests, engine durability tests and any other climate/environmental testing as a part of certification and manufacturing.

"There are a considerable number of innovations in the Graflight Flat 8 engine," said Fuchs, "and some of the new installations have stretched the known rules and methods for certification, especially in software, but progress has been steady and we are satisfied with our current timeline. We should be able to ship certified engines by the end of the year."