Orenda V8 Program Runs Out of Gas

Following years of setbacks in trying to complete STCs for the installation of its 600-hp turbocharged V8 piston engine in King Airs and other business airplanes, Orenda Recip has discontinued the program. The Canadian firm’s parent company, Magellan Aerospace, blamed the decision on the “significant downturn in the general aviation market and the general economic environment.” While Orenda was having some success in obtaining STCs for the V8 for utility aircraft, the same cannot be said for its troubled King Air retrofit program. Stevens Aviation of Greenville, S.C., in 1996 had ordered more than 140 of the engines and has flown a converted prototype, but Stevens said it backed out of the deal in 1999.
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