I already thought about the oil issue, but figure that the stock- in-car
engine won't have a problem.  We'll drain it before pulling the  thing
out of the car so it will have fresh oil for the demo.

However, even if the thing only runs an hour without water  (which has
been done in at least one car that I know of), that's about 59  minutes
longer than any other water-cooled engine will do.

Essentially, I'm not promoting the idea of an engine which  doesn't need
water so much as an engine which won't seize and kill you if you  lose
the water inflight.  While I expect that it will stay running,  this IS a
test-to-failure demo.  That's one reason for the big clock -- if  the
engine fails, we stop the clock then challenge any other engine  to match
the runtime.

Of course, we'll run a fan through the oil cooler and over the  engine,
to simulate inflight airflow, and that should help a little.

Keith

Keith,

Just playing devils advocate here....

How is running a water cooled rotary without coolant until failure
going to show the masses that it is superior to an air cooled  reciprosaur?
The air cooled recprosaur does not have coolant to loose....

One thing both engines have in common is a pressurized oil system,
however, if either engine looses oil pressure, they will both seize.

I guess I am just not sure what the demo will accomplish.

Heath Holbrook

A lot of people are installing auto conversions.  Except for the  VW and
Corvair, all of these are water-cooled, and loss of coolant has  caused a
number of downed planes.
The main thing, though, is to grab attention.  Nobody's ever heard  of a
water-cooled engine running without coolant -- "it can't be  done!"  They
will come out of curiosity, even if it's morbid curiosity, and get  close
enough to see the pile of broken reciprosaur parts and other  displays.
We won't be just one more engine idea buried in the show somewhere.
Keith
I don't think this is going to work Keith. You will destroy
an engine to impress two dozen people. There used to be a display
in the flea market area of a piston engine running with out
oil as I recall.
Pilots are not all that concerned with the liquid
cooling per se. They want a simple reliable engine. That means one
cooling radiator and one oil cooler with simple, straight
forward, short plumbing. A carb or simple mechanical fuel
injection. Preferable a couple of mags. Something they understand
and are familiar with. They are also impressed by HP and
performance. Rate of climb and top speed. The ability to
burn cheap auto gas is a big plus for the rotary.
Lots of new aircraft piston engines if not most
require expensive 100LL.

> Paul Lamar

It will impress more than two dozen people.  That no-oil engine was a
demo for a cylinder treatment.  It ran a few minutes at a time.  You
remember it now, even though you're not in the market for a piston
engine, because it's something that everyone "knows" an engine  can't do.

Everyone "knows" that the Wankel was a technological dead end,
expensive, unreliable and fragile.  So we show them a cheap engine
yanked out of a wrecking yard, with NO modifications, doing something
that everyone "knows" an engine can't do, and they'll remember it, and
TALK about it.

What we're talking about is getting people to believe in a whole
different TECHNOLOGY.  You should see some of the comments that I got
when I announced in a WAR Replicas forum that I plan to put a  rotary on
my 1/2 scale F4U.

There is no market for the 12A engines.  Heck, I have a whole RX-7  with
the 12A that I can't get $100 for, and that's what I paid for the  thing!
 So that's the engine series to use, while pointing out that it's two
generations back (which is why we can afford to history the thing).

One thing that I always tell skeptics when I do a presentation, speech
or demo is to prove me wrong!  If they do their research, they will  find
out that I was right in the first place, and they will change sides.

The whole thing with the engine is just to get their attention anyhow.
Can you name 10 of the things exhibitors showed you last Oshkosh?
Probably not.  Show them something amazing and they'll remember it.
When they drive home, they'll be thinking about how the engine in  their
car won't run a minute after losing all of its water, but ". . .that
old, ratty Wankel they pulled out of a wrecking yard kept running!"

They'll talk about it.  The next time the subject comes up, they're
remember and maybe we'll have another rotary flyer.

But once they're looking at the "impossible," they will be more
accepting when they see the other things we want to show them.

Keith

Keith,  I think this is a bad idea period.  I cannot support it.  Our
issue is to build an airworthy engine installation that is clearly
superior to all others.  Destroying a junk engine is meaningless. 

Jerry

What's your better idea to get attention and make people think about
Wankels in aviation?

Lessee, we've had flying Wankels for years.  I don't see a stampede of
builders rushing to buy up all the used 13As.

We've had Peter Garrison, editor of FLYING Magazine, give the lecture
twice in the pages of the world's most important aviation magazine, even
saying "In my opinion, however, the most promising engine for aviation
use is the Mazda rotary."  We've also has Garrison detailing the
destruction of the first Melmoth (and almost himself!)by a plane with a
failed piston engine.

. . .still, I don't hear the distinctive sound of the rotary engine
winding up for takeoff at my local airport . . .I HAVE heard half of the
guys I know out there telling me how the Mazda engines "burn up" and
"break up inside" and how they aren't strong enough for aviation.  One
guy said "It's a good thing your plane is a single-seater, because
nobody else would fly in it with that engine!"  This, from a guy who was
nearly KILLED a year and a half ago when his Lycoming hand-grenaded on
him during a glider tow!

People are spending thousands of dollars putting Corvair engines on
their planes -- an engine which went out of production over three
decades ago -- or converting engines out of Fords, Chevys, Subarus,
Geos, Toyotas . . .

If, as you seem to feel, we're getting the message out by building "an
airworthy engine installation that is clearly superior to all others"
then where are the thousands of rotorheads that we should see?

The problem is that we can't get through to people without doing
something amazing.  They are AFRAID of the Wankel and convinced that it
is too fragile.

Show them an engine doing something that no other engine can do --
something which would get them to an airport instead of the nearest
hopefully-flat clearing -- and they won't be able to make that claim any
more.

When Winchester was faced with a shooting community which was absolutely
certain that it's semi-automatic rifle was fragile, unreliable and
inaccurate, and would foul and jam with the slightest excuse.  They were
selling like coldcakes, despite all of the wonderful things being said
by the trade press, despite all of the advertising, despite the
testimony of the relative handful of owners.

A man named Ad Topperwein had an answer for the skeptics.  He took two
of the new rifles, and as fast as they could be reloaded and fired (but
not cleaned), he shot at 50,000 2" wooden blocks, thrown across his line
of fire.  He missed 4 of them.  I have a photo of Topperwein sitting on
top of the pile, which was over 8 feet high and some thirty feet across.
Then he had his helpers dig through the stack and bring out all which
hadn't been split in two, and by the end of the week he had fired 72,500
rounds -- missing 9 times -- without a failure to function.

This was something that nobody had ever seen before, and nobody ever
again could say that the semi-auto wasn't up to the job.

It doesn't matter what we or anyone else says about the Wankel, if we
say it the same way and try to blend in with the reciprosaur crowd.  We
have to do something which nobody else can do, and we have to do it in
front of the crowd of skeptics.

Remember, one definition of "insanity" is "doing the same thing, the
same way, but expecting different results."

So, I'm sorry, Jerry, but I just can't support the way you've been
promoting the Wankel for aviation use.  It's been over 30 years since
the first Mazda engine was put in a homebuilt, and still, all that most
people know about the Wankel are things that ARE NOT TRUE.

Keith



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