Gerry Hess wrote:

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      Advanced Ultralight Aircraft
      And Aviaiton News WebMagzine
       Ultralights at Sun N Fun 99

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 Four stroke Wankel aircraft engine to be built in Canada!
 There is a rumour circulating in the industry, that Rotax may
 in the near future stop supplying engines to the ultralight
 industry. While this is just a rumour, it is good to see that
 several other ultralight engine manufacturers are either
 entering the market or improving their products.

 Over 35 years ago, there was a four stroke engine used in
 snowmobiles called the Wankel. While the engine had great
 potential, it also had numerous problems one of these being
 heat. But technology has advanced a great deal in the past 35
 years, and it appears with this advance the problems
 associated with the Wankel engine had been eliminated.

 This year at Sun N Fun, at Canadian company Rotor Power
 Corporation Inc, had at display featuring the Wankel engine
 from Germany. According to George Payne the Canadian
 distributor Wankel engines will soon be produced from a
 facility at the Oshawa airport. According to George, Wankel
 originally licensed Mazda, to produce the Mazda rotary
 engine. While the Mazda rotary engine, uses the same
 principles as the Wankel engine it is a totally different
 design.

 For those not familiar and with the rotary engine I will try
 to give you a very simple explanation. The piston engine has
 a crankshaft connected to pistons that move up and down in
 cylinders, at the top of each stroke the piston is forced by
 an explosion back down the cylinder. Since the piston and
 crankshaft have to stop at the top and bottom of each stroke
 at great deal of vibration is created. A Wankel engine has a
 disk,shaped like a triangle, that rotates in a circle, thus
 there is no top and bottom of the stroke, which practically
 eliminates vibration. In fact the demonstration model run at
 the show had no rubber mounts to dampen the vibration at all.
 Yet looking at the engine you could see no vibration, and
 when reached out and touch the engine I could not feel any
 vibration.

 The Wankel is a four stroke engine, and it is liquid cooled,
 the aircraft Wankel engines are unique in that they use both
 a charged oil lubrication system and that charged water
 cooled system. These two cooling systems, plus the use of
 nickosil coating have eliminated the heating problem which
 plagued the early Wankel design.

 During the interview with the factory representative from
 Germany for Wankel the theme, reliability durability, and
 dependability were stressed. These have apparently been
 reached by the use of modern materials, a purpose built
 aircraft engine, which has had its rpm range limited to 6000
 rpm. This vs. the 7500 to 12,000 rpm is the engine is capable
 of producing in other applications.

 The Wankel engine comes to the customer with dual ignition,
 fuel injection, exhaust system, electric start, alternator
 with several cooling systems available depending on aircraft
 make and model. The reduction drive system is a belt drive
 available in two ratios a 2 to 1 reduction and a 3 to 1
 ratio. Currently there are five distributors and service
 centers available for the engine. The factory recommended TBO
 is 2000 hours or three years. When asked how many of the
 current aircraft Wankel engines have reached 2000 hours the
 factor representative indicated that the factory aircraft has
 just over 1600 hours on it, with two other aircraft with over
 1000 hours on them. He also reported that these engines have
 had no problems to date. Another example the factory
 representative gave was that there are several go cart racing
 teams in Europe using the Wankel engine who have over 400
 hours of racing time on them, with the engines having never
 been taken apart. This compared to the piston engines that
 they formerly used where they had to be disassembled every 5
 to 10 hours.

 Well now for the tough question. How much money? After all
 there are only seven moving parts in Wankel engine! Well you
 had better sit down. The 35 hp single rotary engine which
 weighs 79 pounds was quoted at $6300 American! The 75 hp twin
 rotor Wankel engine which weighs in at 109 pounds was priced
 at $8850 U.S. dollars.

 It was pointed out that while the single rotor engine was
 quite a bit more expensive than say a 2 stroke 447, the
 investment was in a four stroke engine, with a longer life
 cycle, better fuel economy and reliability.

 It should also be noted that the 75 hp version was comparable
 in price to a 912 Rotax with fewer moving parts, fuel
 injection, and a lighter weight.

 For more information contact
 George Payne
 Rotor Power Corporation
 Oshawa Airport

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