From all this talk about about the Bell planetary and other
planetary designs one might get the false impression there
is something wrong with the Ford planetary used in Tracy Crooks
PSRU. Nothing could be further from the truth. It has been used
for the past 30 years as the core of several PSRU's. The most famous
being the Ross. Unfortunately towards the end of the Ross company
they shipped a few that were improperly machined.

The latest Ford's (actually manufactured by Toyota) have been
ungraded with 6 pinions and  are now used in the F250 Power Stroke
diesel pickup truck with 650 foot pounds of torque. That pales into
insignificance the puny 160 foot pounds from the Mazda 13B rotary.
The three rotor is only about 240 foot pounds.

Dozens of airplanes with Ford planetary have been flying for
years, some decades, with no trouble. One I know about had
over 2400 hours in a two place rotary powered gyro copter
used for training.

As far as I know no one has worn one out yet when properly
installed. The best part is the gear set cost less than a $100.

Paul Lamar

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