DLE (DL Engines) made a name for themselves
by introducing a low price 50cc two-stroke petrol engine onto the market that, in a way, helped bring
large-scale aeromodelling to the masses at an affordable price. The engines have proven themselves
both reliable and powerful and I would bet that almost every flying field in Australia has seen at least
one DL petrol engine in its time. I have owned several over the years and have found them to be dependable engines in both my aerobatic and warbird
aircraft. DLE’s latest offering is an 85cc single twostroke gas engine that will be the subject of this article. I am however not the expert that Brian Winch
is and this review will not be about the internal workings as such but more about what I received from
the importer, how it ran and what I thought overall
as a regular modeller like yourselves.
Most folk know that Scott Pittick of DL Engines
Australia is the importer of DLE and Scott has done
a tremendous job of marketing and backing DLE
here in Australia. Austars Model are now also an
Australian importer for DL Engines and have taken
on DLE to be able to offer their customers the option
of combining a DL Engine with their extensive airframe line-up for an all inclusive package as a sort
of one stop shop. Austars Model supplied the new
DLE-85 for this review and I thank them for the opportunity to run it and bring you the findings.
Like all DL Engines, the 85 is well packaged ensuring it survives the Australia Post journey. Included
with the engine is a muffler with a Teflon exhaust extension, ignition, isolation mount and standoffs,
spark plug, manual and some stickers. The most interesting of these items is the isolation mount so
we’ll open the batting with a discussion on that.
54
Airborne
Whichever way you look at it, large displacement single cylinder engines will produce vibration.
How much vibration is produced depends on a
number of factors like engine balancing, engine design in terms of piston diameter to stroke relationships etc. How well your airframes cope with such
vibrations are also quite variable depending upon
aircraft size, construction and airframe mass etc.
DLE have supplied the vibration isolation mount as
standard equipment where as some manufactures
and after market companies produce isolation
mounts f ܈[