>> Pilots are a very conservative lot. They are all from Missouri.
>> It takes years and years of flying by hundreds of rotary powered
>> airplanes before the rotary will be widely excepted.
>>
>> This would be speeded up if only the air racing organizations would
>> relax their engine limitation rules. For example the Reno race organizer
>> have already limited the rotary to a 3 rotor turbo version while
>> recently allowing piston engines up to 800 or 900 cubic inches
>> as I recall. This is easy to confirm by calling the right people.
>> That is a handicap that will be difficult to over come
>> with a 3.9 liter or 238 cubic inch turbo charged three rotor.
>> A 317 cubic inch turbo charged four rotor will be required :)
>> The same thing has widely happened in auto racing. In other words
>> there are very powerful commercial interest in play that don't
>> want to see the rotary succeed.
>>
>> Way back in 1997 or there abouts, when Sun & Fun were running the time
>> to climb race Allan Tolle set the all time, time to climb from a dead
>> stop on the runway to 3000 feet race, time of less than a minute using
>> a p-port rotary powered RV4 I think. (It could have been an RV3 I
>> forgot exactly.) The next year the time to climb race was done away
>> with.  Allan also went 238 MPH in the Sun 100 Race in the same airplane.
>>
>> Tracy Crook went 217 MPH in his RV4 a few years back winning his class
>> and and beating half of the next class up in a side port normally
>> aspirated rotary. Now Sun & Fun has done away with the Sun 100 race
>> unfortunately. If the race had been held indefinitely rotaries would
>> have dominated eventually as they have dominated car racing world wide
>> until outlawed. Mazda won Lemans outright in 1991 and then the French
>> changed the rules to severely handicap rotaries. Imagine what would
>> have happened if the rotary was allowed to dominate Lemans year after
>> year on a strictly displacement  based rule system. People in Europe
>> would start to question why their cars did not have rotaries. Billions
>> if not trillions  of dollars of piston engine based manufacturing
>> infrastructure would have been needed to be scraped.
>>
>> All this has been extremely frustrating for me and a lot of rotor
>> heads around the world. I personally have owned seven Mazda rotary
>> powered
>> cars starting in 1973. Some of them used cars with over 100,000 miles
>> when I bought them. Adding the miles I put on them the cars had an
>> accumulated  driving miles of well over one million miles. I currently
>> own a 2004 RX8 with 30,000 trouble free miles that gets 25 MPG on the
>> freeway.
>>
>> The better mouse trap does not always rise to the top.
>>
>> Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
>
> Some pilots may be "from Missouri," but the good ones are spiritual (or
> literal) sons/daughters of West Virginia.
>
> What is needed is for all of the rotary gurus to get together and do
> some demonstrations at Oshkosh.  I don't mean flying -- people don't
> think about engines when they look at wings -- but a coordinated display
> of the capabilities and strengths of the rotary in relation to the
> reciprosaur.
>
> This will NOT be a "buy mine" show.  In fact, I propose that all of the
> rotary gurus form the Rotary Aviation Alliance for the purposes of
> promoting rotary power TOGETHER.  Show the BEST of rotary power, and
> point out that there are several vendors and a few gurus, that it's not
> a one-choice situation.  Provide catalogs or pamphlets from the various
> vendors, but be there to demonstrate the TECHNOLOGY ("There are a number
> of options, I think this one -- yes, this is the Atkins kit . . .").
>
> Set up a pavilion show, or create your own "pavilion" where the
> airplanes are, and gather as many rotary-powered birds as you can
> ("Oshkosh Rotary Roundup") with your demonstration on a raised stage.
>
> Yank an engine out of a wrecked-rear RX-7 (on video, with witnesses) and
> shove it into a sealed and signed case.  Take it out of the case at
> Oshkosh, stick it on an engine stand and add plumbing.  Start it and get
> it running smoothly, then DUMP THE COOLANT and cut off the water hoses
> but LET IT KEEP RUNNING (don't shut it down until it fails or until the
> show ends, if it goes that long)!  Have a big clock next to it counting
> off the time until it fails, temp sensors, the whole test-bay setup.
>
> With some reasonable publicity on, say, Saturday morning an hour after
> the gates open, you can have a good-sized crowd there to watch the crate
> being unsealed, engine mounted and started (this is only a 10-minute
> job, done by two guys while a third makes the pitch:  "This video shows
> up pulling the engine out of the car and putting it in the case . . .you
> see that we haven't done anything to it . . .")
>
> While the overheating engine is running, offer to let anyone stick a
> reciprosaur next to it (put up another clock, marked "YOUR CURRENT
> ENGINE" to make them think about what they're running now, and whether
> it would take the abuse you're giving the rotary.
>
> A couple of other displays would compare the two engine types, one being
> a pile of all the moving parts in a reciprosaur, the other showing the
> rotary innards.  This would be especially gripping if you find BROKEN
> parts.  Your pitchman can hold them up and talk about "all of this stuff
> that's not there to fail" in the rotary.
>
> Have a completely disassembled rotary there for people to check out
> ("These are all of the parts to build the WHOLE ENGINE . . !").
>
> Print out all of the thousands of NTSB aviation investigators' reports
> of reciprosaur engine failures between 1975 and now, and bind them into
> a book for visitors to read.  Do the same for all of the reports
> mentioning the word "Mazda" (all 8 of them).  Point out that none of the
> Mazda reports is of an engine flaw or a broken part (waving a busted
> crankshaft in the air, or maybe a cylinder with a piston seized in it).
>
> Meanwhile, you have that overheating RX engine running for all to see,
> with the clock show how long it's been going (or how long it ran before
> failing, if it has finally died).   Have a couple of heavy gloves for
> visitors to put on and feel the lack of vibration.
>
> THAT is how you get acceptance -- you make them worry about all those
> fragile parts in their reciprosaurs while showing them the Promised
> Land!  Show all of the costs to take an engine out of the car and get it
> flying.  Show the rebuild parts kit and what it costs.  Compare these
> costs to an O-320 purchase and rebuild.
>
> If you think that the engine will run longer than a day, move up the day
> that you start it.  Or maybe start one the first day at noon, and tear
> it down after it fails then run another one for the weekend crowd.  Or
> rebuild the first one in front of the crowd and give it another test!
>
> The main thing is that the only rotaries that people see are parked, or
> in a plane flying away.  Show it DOING ITS JOB where they can stand and
> stare and ponder why they every thought they were better off with the
> reciprosaur.
>
> With all of the above said, I hereby volunteer to be the RAA "Rotary
> Evangelist," if you and the other gurus want to set this up I can do the
> planning and be the pitchman (I've done this kind of thing before and
> know how to make it work).
>
> Keith

Good on ya Keith!
George ( down under)