Paul,
Perhaps I should shut up. No offense to anyone but the reality of the
situation is that each and everyone of us building an airplane or
airplane
rotary engine is a researcher. How cheaply we do it depends on how
much
knowledge we acquire. None of us wants to compromise safety in the
quest for
promoting rotary engines in aircraft but as soon as our choice is
based
solely on cost that is what we are doing.
Price comes down as knowledge and experience goes up. True for
manufacturing
of any product. All of us owe a debt to the guys actually flying with
rotaries. Sure their installations may not be optimal, pretty, or
some
cases cheap but they are already in the prototype test phase. My hat is
off
to them. Our cost are less because we gained knowledge from their
endeavors.
That is why this discussion group and idea sharing is important. Proof
of
concepts however are more important. That goes for Tracy and Mistral
who
both by the way have spent a great deal of time and money to do the
research
and then some. Copying other peoples ideas does not guarantee you
gain the
full knowledge of what the engineers went through to design it or what
safety factors they designed into it.
Obviously through trial and error testing we know the Ford gear set
works
in a PSRU destined to fly with a rotary. What are the upper hp
limits?
Don't know. Based on what we do know, about 220hp with a wood prop.
Durability has been measured under flight conditions AVERAGEING three
hour
flights at rpms of 2500 with short excursions to 2700 rpms.
Occasionally
full out racing. What is maximum total accumulative flying time of
any
rotary PSRU unit out there before major maintenance? 650 hours? More?
This
is not criticizing you anyone. Quite the opposite. It is what it is.
This
is our knowledge base.
For 300 hp engines and C/S props at this point we have only Mistral's
research. Their units are pricey. But not really if you think about
it. If
we each had to pay for the testing and engineering that went into
Mistral's
unit $100,000 plus would be a fairer price. Can we extrapolate a PSRU
or
turbine designed and tested for aircraft? Sure. How about the Bell
helicopter reduction drive on used on the Reno racer. Bell's unit
obviously
has the most testing done on it but used in helicopters running at
lower
rpms if I am not mistaken.
To get it right and reliable, R&D ain't cheap. But it can be cheaper if
the
group share its knowledge, time and research costs. In a way we are
doing it
now by information sharing and some members are now actually working
together on different parts of the whole. It seems we have more than
enough
brains, and resources in this group. We have use of dynos on the West
and
East coast of USA, soon in Japan, and possibly at least one in
Australia.
IMHO Just the thermodynamics of the engine alone are a major item that
needs
more testing on the ground.
Paul at the center of what has become a valuable information clearing
house
and R&D group you are the point man. With all due respect that is good
and
bad. Good because you have access to a lot of info and can pass it on,
but
bad for you because the obligation has become a 24 hour job. Bad for
us
because at times you have to shut down the information flow and/or we
find
ourselves spending many hours reading and sorting emails each week. By
this
I mean more hours than necessary. In other words information processing
for
us is not so efficient. For you as well.
In the interest of saving everyone time why don't we go to a members
only,
password entry website base discussion group with say 20 to 30
categories
with professionals monitors heading up each group? You appoint the
monitors. Topics can range from Air ducts to Turbocharging with Misc.
thrown
in as well. The monitors could delete any off topic info. and refer
questions to previously answered questions. You could still take on
some of
the monitor roles if you wished. We would still have a General
Discussion
for announcements or new topic suggestions. A benefit for everyone is
that,
reports can be downloaded easier when desired and new information is
posted
only once. New members tend to ask old questions that you have
answered
tens of times. I am guilty of asking the same question sometimes twice.
Not
an efficient for anyone.
Someone suggested making a list of all the automobile parts that would
work
with the Mazda engine. That project along with lists of suppliers are
projects in themselves. One person can't do it all ....well. Info
overload
will only increase as new machines are finished and more data is coming
in.
Graphics and designs can be in files in your database on the net or as
Mark
Supinski suggests on another free hosting site. Placed in folders we
can
easily see the evolution of designs. If your service provider can't do
this
hosting, we need to find another one. Hey! you got many members
willing to
support you in this effort.
Membership dues costs? $5.00/year? Not enough? How much? I'd
gladly
donate ten times that much for the value your information has given me.
I
don't even want to think about the costs in time I've spent getting
this
data into concise reports though. If this was a company project I would
have
fired me:)
For example, not counting the first read and filing, it has taken me
about
30 hours just to edit the turbo-compound notes into a readable and
concise
report. "Water cooling systems" is next up and then 25 more topics
after
that. Split up among members the work wouldn't be so bad.
And Oh yea... the rotary story text has been translated and typed up.
The CD
is copy protected so I can't dub the voice over. I did it on a audio
tape
with cues so as to explain where the dialog is to be placed. There are
four
people speaking and one is a lady. I'm no good at falsetto so I'll see
if
Michiwa can do that part. To get into a usable format for interested
parties
is this a Bob White project?
Sorry for the extensive verbiage. This is the last time I'll say it. I
am
talking about how to create a better research organization here,
bringing it
to the next level. My interest is to get you out from behind the
computer
and back into the machine shop where you can start making things
again,
travel around, and walk the dog more.
Doug in Japan
On the other hand: I like the free flowing information found on
AREN that sometimes takes surprising turns that would be impossible
to anticipate or direct to the proper category. This comes from the
participation of a very diverse group of people who come at things
from vastly different backgrounds. I appreciate Paul's benevolent
(most of the time) dictatorship. It is good for me to filter my half
baked ideas through a good engineer with a deep background. AREN is
the most educational "classroom" I have attended thus far in my short
life. I vote for not changing a thing. Jerry
I agree with you Jerry, this is tremendous resource that Paul provides here,
we can't thank him enough. My one selfish thought though Paul, is what
happens when there is no more Paul (hopefully a long way off yet) ? There
are some very clever people on this list and I would hope there is some
mechanism to keep the group together. I don't know if there is anyone who
could take on such a big commitment.
Thanks Paul
John
I have been grooming my successor for several years now. Very very bright
guy. Genius really. Not a relative in case you are wondering.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
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