Rotary research

> 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

> 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

> 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.

> 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

> 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

> 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
>
>

Doug,
It won't happen. I have tried sporadically to get Paul and the admins
of two other email lists that I am on to switch over to a list like you
say, http://www.wingsforum.com/ is one of them and it's free. I would
pay in the future.

The sad thing is the rotary list is limited to rotary interested people,
expand it's visibility and who knows who will come into the fold,
engineers and the likes. What are we missing.

The last excuse that I got from an email list admin was that the guys
using "their" list would have to learn how to use a web based forum and
that basically the users were incapable of that. I'm with you though.
Kevin

We would be missing focus. I started in the old days before the internet
with BBS's. If you let it get out of hand people start talking about
everything and it becomes very very difficult to glean real information
out of tons of mindless chatter and pissing matches.

Paul Lamar

It would be nice to have a keyword search on Paul's website, however. Rick
Maddy, www.maddyhome.com/cozy/home , has created a search engine for a
couple other lists ....... I only know his name from being on the list, but
he seems nice enough to let you use the code.

Phil S

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