How do you make an engine light enough to carry on a pilots back yet twice the power of an average paramotor, and it’s got to do all this while flying at 30,000ft?

"The first answer was not to use a conventional piston engine at all, after looking around the market for small, powerful piston engines, it became clear that there was nothing that could produce the power we needed and do so reliably. As I was already developing the world's first wankel rotary engined paramotor, it seemed only natural that I should want to prove this technology by putting the engine through the hardest test of all. My partner in the Parajet rotary engine project Paul Woelfle from Aixro in Germany had already designed a larger Rotary engine for kart racing and this seemed like the perfect choice. It weighed 17kg and produced 48 horsepower. By the time I had finished taking every extra component off it such as the clutch, carburetor, fuel pump, engine mounts, gear drive, and machined the weight out from every conceivable other component, including the main drive rotor, balancing shaft, side plates, exhaust and manifolds, I had a 254cc engine that weighed only 11kg, produced 48 hp at 9000rpm and was only 130mm wide, front to back. It is an incredible and tiny engine which produces zero vibration so it’s ideally suited to the light weight airframe of a paramotor.

Now it was time to make it produce almost double the power ............."

Click Here to read Giles Cardozo's complete story of the development of the Everest engines. (PDF format - Will open in a New Window)

The End Result:
"After 7 months intensive research and development the engine flew to 20,890ft in 42 minutes over Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. The climb rate was over 800ft per minute at this altitude and the engine was only running on two thirds throttle. Further testing using a hypobaric inlet pressure moderator showed that the engine could continue to produce sufficient power up to 33,000ft. This was even better than expected."

Click on these links to see the Mark 1 Engine Progress Photos , Mark 2 Engine Progress Photos and the Altitude Preparation photos . (The Mark 1 Photos will show initially, click on the links here to change the display)