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


I have to agree with Dave.

Giff Marr

I have to agree completely. You never see the market giant Microsoft
explain at trade shows that their OS crashes less than - Humm, bad idea.
OK, you don't see at the North American International Auto Show anyone
bringing their crashed cars for display - people want to understand it is
safe but don't want to see destroyed $50K hulks of metal.

-dave

You've never seen the Cirrus displays, have you?  They make a BIG thing
about their plane having the BoRiS designed in, and you should have
heard them cheer when someone actually used one (after, IIRC, an engine
failure over bad terrain).  Someone did something with their plane that
they couldn't have done in a Bonanza.

For that matter, ever hear of the Caterpillar Club?

SURVIVABILITY SELLS.

Keith


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