That's it. We need a blond bimbo to build a rotary powered
airplane and show up at OSH.

Paul Lamar

you joke and perhaps mock me(geez, it was an analogy, not a suggestion)  all
advertising works thru either prestige or fear.  you buy the new f-150
because it's the highest rated truck 20 years in a row (or whatever...) or
you buy the jetta because two guys just got T-boned and walked away from the
accident.  my first reaction to seeing an airplane engine finally fail from
lack of coolant would be "why use a water cooled engine?"  let's face it,
needing a water pump is hardly a selling point.  when you break records
however, people remember.  what if the climb record was beat by an average
guy without lycoming or mattituck sponsorship and he did it with a rotary?
FAR more positive approach. kevin

Kevin:

I don't think it was mocking, I think that Paul was acknowledging the
truth of what you said, in an amusing way.

However, your comment about "why use a water cooled engine?" -- we've
been doing that since the beginning of homebuilding.  The first
hobby-homebuilt planes used auto conversion engines, and for a while
some guy whose name I forget made a good living modifying car radiators
with a hole for the propshaft to go through, when mounted on the front
of the plane.

If you look past the "real" airplane engines, you find that most of the
"alternate" engines being used are water-cooled.  Subarus, Geos, V-6 and
V-8 Ford and Chevy engines, and the more powerful Rotax engines . . .all
of these are water cooled.

So, the question is not "why use a water-cooled engine" but instead it's
"why use THIS water-cooled engine?"  The dry demo gives a pretty big
answer to that question, one which can't be explained away by expensive,
custom components or snake-oil chemical treatments.  You will get a
better end result when you start with a superior design, and that's what
people will be thinking about after seeing this.  NOBODY will go away
saying "I TOLD you those Wankels wouldn't hold up!"

Keith


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