The 'run the dry engine til it dies' side show should have a little more
thought. A private pilot ticket today is an 8 to 10 THOUSAND dollar
deal. People with this much disposable income are the people wandering
Oskosh. Most did not get there by being dullards and will resent the
insult to their intellengence presented by someone mindlessly destroying
an engine regardless of what you try to tell them the reason for the
destruction is. When was the last time you saw Lyc., Cont., P& W., GE.,
or Rolls Royce promote their engine longevity by publicly flogging it
to death. All this type of display will do is reinforce the idea that
there is something kinky in the mind of a rotary enthusiast and drive
open minds to the Lyc tent to see the pristine, new piston engine. Sell
the rotary idea at Osk., but sell it on its merit not on cheap tricks.
Go with an engine clean enough to eat off of. Have it tuned to
perfection and run it with a wine glass on top filled with champagne!
Display a cutaway with electrically driven rotor and have a presenter
explain WHY and HOW the rotary does its work better than a recip. The
presenter needs to understand these facets COMPLETELY--(many on this
list still do not grasp the technical marvel of this machine but that's
OK, too) Pair this display or parallel it with Mistral whose 'airshow
engine' appearance will do more to advance the rotary than 10 junk
engines self-destructing in a cloud of smoke. Treat the rotary engine
with the utmost of respect and other pilots will begin to give it that
same respect. FWIW Dave
Well, I've been flying since 1965, so please forgive me for thinking
that I know a little about pilots.
The pilots I know would not resent the destruction of a cheap engine
that they hadn't considered worth anything in the first place, but they
WILL find it interesting -- which means they will think about it and
remember that it DID run, when no other engine will run more than a
couple of minutes after loosing its coolant.
The WHOLE POINT is to show them something that nobody else does! If I
could, I'd fly this demo! I'd take off, climb to altitude, then dump
the coolant and do a few slow rolls while giving a running commentary on
temps, only coming down because my show time is up.
I want the skeptics in the front row when I dump the water! I want them
to know that this hasn't been rehearsed, we'll all find out what happens
at the same time (that's why we'll video the removal from the car, and
seal the box up until the show). Suspense holds the attention.
We'll give away a T-shirt to whoever guesses closest to the running time
before failure. I want people to go away knowing that even the
wrecking-yard-special engine is safer than what they were planning to
buy. I want to give away mouth harps to a couple of hundred kids, whose
parents are going to think about an engine that doesn't seize up.
Lycoming, TCM, et al don't do this because they CAN'T do it (do they
even have water-cooled engines?). The other auto-conversion guys can't
do it. WE CAN do it, we can GET TO AN AIRPORT following an incident
which would send anyone else to the ground. It doesn't matter how many
times we explain it, SHOWING it is the only thing that will make an
impression. I'm going to have a pile of broken reciprosaur parts that
aren't even in the Wankel, so they can't fail. The whole issue is to
show reliability even when the day turns to worms, the safety of doing
away with the parts which fail -- but it isn't enough to get rid of
those parts, we have to show that the engine is safer without them.
"Keep feeding it clean air, fuel, spark and oil, and it will keep going."
Once it does fail, we'll let it cool, put in water and see if it will
start again. If it won't, then we'll pull it apart to let people see
that NOTHING BREAKS. No fatal-point-of-instant-failure components.
I will also have printouts of the thousands of NTSB engine-failure
reports from the time that the first rotary conversions were done (1975)
and the 8 reports from the same time frame which mention the word
"Mazda."
This isn't intended at the ONLY demonstration. I want a good running
engine there also -- I had planned to use a magnetic alignment gauge,
but the glass of fizzy is a better idea -- but that won't get people to
gather and watch. I'd love to have an electric cutaway, if someone can
provide one. I'm already trying to get examples of other Wankel engines
to show that this is a big family.
Any pilot who would feel that his intelligence is being insulted by this
bit of showbiz would also have a hissy fit when an aerobatic act
includes a long-distance phone call. I can't recall seeing anyone
stomping out in the middle of Sean Tucker's act, can you?
Keith
I think you would get more PR if you did well in the
Kitty Hawk to Dayton... Dayton to OSH race. Then use
some of this money to send out press releases to all
aviation magazines.
Also there is still $500 prize money in the Everette Hatch
Memorial Fund for the first rotary powered airplane that averages
over 220 MPH in a sanctioned cross country air race. Could be
a turbo 3 rotor or a turbo 2 rotor or any rotary configuration.
Tracy Crook came close to winning it in the last Sun n Fun
100 race at 216 MPH.
People are also impressed by clean installations. Too many
rotary installations look like they got everything out of a junk
yard. You need lots of engine glitter and AN hose.
Paul Lamar
Optimally, I would have a pavilion with the test engine running at one
end and a beautiful, clean, vibration-free engine running in someone's
plane at the other end, and displays of the whole Wankel family between
them.
I think that the people most likely to join our brave little band are
the ones who feel faint when they look at the prices of even a used
Lyconental or Rotax 914. They are the ones SEARCHING for an
alternative, and they're already thinking about wrecking-yard
conversions. I want to show them an El Cheapo plant that will
outperform their buddy's O-320 in the same weight range for less than
the buddy paid for an overhaul.
If we get a couple of dozen converts at Oshkosh this year, in three
years we'll see a whole squadron of Wankel-powered planes there, and a
hundred people deciding that this is what they've been looking for. In
20 years the Wankel will be the first thought anyone has when
considering an auto conversion. One-rotor e-shafts will be off the shelf
items at 3 or 4 vendors, and there will be so many small racers behind
20As that Reno will be forced to open a Rotary class, which some bright,
lightweight young lady will win because the rules didn't say she
couldn't fly a 4-rotor.
I'd love to go race, but if I could afford that, I wouldn't need the
prize money! ;)
Keith
---------------------------------------------------------------
The prize money off sets the cost. If you are flying to OSH anyway
the cost is not that much more. It does take an auxiliary tank
to make Dayton to OSH flat out due to high fuel burn. Same
for piston engine racers.
A booth at OSH is not cheap :)
--
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
How about someplace in the south, cheaper, better hot and sandy than cold
and rainy, more flyable rotaries there,etc.
bmb
That is a good point. They are not going to let you run the
engine at OSH in the display area anyway. Particularly with a prop
load. Without the load the test is meaningless. Call and check by all
means.
They do let you run engines at Sun n Fun in the engine workshop area.
Here is a picture of me running up Dave Garber's turbocharged
12A engine in April 2002. Also a few more pictures of Dave Garber's
airplane.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
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