Leslie Huttunen wrote:

Mark,

Just a quick note to express my appreciation to you for putting this site
together.  I have been a lurker on Paul's truly excellent newsletter for
some time and plan to put a Mazda-Wankel engine on a BD-4 (currently powered
by an O-360) starting about a year from now, but I lack the expertise to
determine which components to use and why any particular set of components
would be (relatively) optimal.  I think the best practices web site is a
great boon in this regard.  It should help to  1) make good use of the
excellent knowledge coming from the rotary user group, and 2) thereby allow
safer and more rapid proliferation of rotary aircraft conversions.  This is
in the best interest of general aviation and pilots everywhere.

So thank you very much for your extension of Paul's efforts here.  My
gratitude to you for helping "put the knowledge to work."

Best regards,

Leslie Huttunen

P.S.  I believe another extremely useful project would be putting together a
fairly complete package of "How to do it" papers / videos on a couple of
configurations, maybe one for a normally aspirated 13B and one for a
turbocharged 13B with a variable pitch prop.  (My personal interest is
either a turbocharged 13B for the BD-4, or perhaps a 20BT for a an Express,
with turbocharging used to increase utility by enabling high altitude, "over
the weather" flight.)  I realize this has been discussed on the user group a
couple of times and the consensus was that there are to many possible
configurations.  However, I would like to suggest that a couple of sample
configurations would be an extremely useful "starting point configuration"
for the talented engineers on the user group, and (more likely) a good final
configuration for many people who 1) aren't engineers, 2) would like to put
the good traits and economics of the Wankel to use on their aircraft, but 3)
are hesitant to start for lack a complete picture of both a reliable
configuration and also a clear path, start to finish, on how they could
accomplish the whole job.

Frankly, I hesitate to offer the above suggestion because I can't do it
myself.  I don't have the time or the expertise.  But perhaps this is a job
that someone who is now putting together a rotary conversion may be willing
to shoulder.

 
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