http://www.epi-eng.com/index.html
>Paul have you seen these guys?
They make some cool stuff.
Tony
That is not up to date. Orenda went bankrupt several years ago.
Nobody wanted a Chevy big block V8 engine that weigh 1000 pounds
firewall forward, had a TBO of 1200 hours and cost $100,000
The development period was twenty or thirty years with $50,000,000 spent.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
http://www.rotaryeng.net/books10.txt
* Smithsonian Air & Space magazine article "Power Struggle" by Don
Sherman, January 1997, page 72. Excellent ten page article (with
many pictures) about auto engines in airplanes. A brief history of
all auto engines in airplanes and a more detailed history of the
twenty year, twenty million dollar development of the Chevy V8
based, all aluminum Orenda liquid cooled aircraft engine. At this
time (Jan 1997) and well after the article was written the engine
failed its FAA 150 hour full power certification test due to a
crankshaft problem after 20 years of very expensive development.
It was finally certified in 1998 by Transport Canada.
Extensive changes have been made to the basic Chevy big block engine
including a parallel cooling system with dual coolant pumps as
opposed to the serial cooling system with single pump as typically
found in automotive engines. Parallel cooling systems were
considered to be essential in the 1920's on liquid cooled aircraft
engines.
Engine length is almost everything to a car designer. Engine cooling
compromises are made by simezing the cylinder walls in automotive
engines. Crankshaft life at high continuous power is compromised by
shortening the length, leaving too little room for adequate size
journal fillet radii. In my opinion this engine will not be
successful until it is re-designed from a clean sheet of paper to be
a real aircraft engine. If that happens they might as well go to a
horizontal opposed configuration for lighter weight.
Orenda is now in the process of moving the project to Nova Scotia
and injecting another 32 million dollars of mostly Canadian
government money. They are also attempting to market the engine to
the homebuilt market. I don't expect many takers at over $100K per engine.
Recently Lancair gave up after spending a lot of money installing
the engine in a special airplane called the Lancair Tigress.
The engine and the Tigress were donated to the EAA museum as
a tax write off.
The Orenda company is now bankrupt.
"Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
--
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
Paul- I think if you look around, you will find more v8s flying and building
time
than Wankels. In properly built conversions with realistic power goals
whether
V8 or Wankel, the core engine is almost never a problem it is always the
ancillaries. The V8 conversions have made the Sea Bee a real airplane.
We had one at our last Camarillo show (no Wankels flying)
Vance
-----------------------------------
I thought I would hear from you on this subject Vance:)
How are you feeling?
Where we don't see them is on the auto engine flight lines
at major air shows. OSH and Sun & Fun. There are usually a few new companies
each year with a V8 or two in a booth. Hope springs eternal.
In fact we rarely see a V8 powered airplane anywhere on the flight line.
Did you have a Sea Bee or the V8 P51 replica from SZP at the
Camarillo air show?
On the other hand we had seven rotary powered airplane from all four
corners of the United States at OSH last year. Typically five or
six rotary powered airplane show up at Sun & Fun. At least one from
as far away as Arizona. Chuck Dunlap.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
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