Maybe there's room to tweak Keith's engine test proposal instead of throwing
it out completely.  Maybe destroying a rotary isn't necessary.  What if we
stopped short, yet still showed rotary superiority?

One of the sales training books I have talks about an early safety glass
salesman getting his productivity award at the annual banquet.  The company
asked how he did it.  He said he walked into the potential customer's
office, placed a square of glass on the desk, pulled out a ball-peen hammer,
and asked the customer if he wanted to see a piece of glass that wouldn't
break.  The prospect said he didn't believe it.  The salesman whacks the
glass with the hammer, the prospect rushes to cover his eyes.  The prospect
is shocked; the salesman writes the order.

The point is made quickly by overcoming the prospect's ingrained belief that
glass + hammer = shards of glass.

How could we demonstrated the superiority of the rotary over other
water-cooled auto engines without running the rotary to destruction?  How
can we format the demo to hit at least most of the prospective customer
base's beliefs about what a rotary isn't capable of?

How can it be done differently than the other vendors?

And there's the noise complaints, insurance, etc. of bringing the test stand
to the trade show/air show.

Would it be possible to create a test that is believable and somehow applies
to the actual flying environment, where a rotary and some other conversions
could be run side by side, and where the rotary would continue to run as the
others failed?  Look Ma!  The strange engine is the last man standing!

What can we break? Engine, redrives, mounts, systems?  Drop test to show bad
mounts?  Leverage (literally!) the ACRE engine mount expertise?

Videotape the evaluation, and show an edited loop in the booth.  Make
full-length video available, plus a write-up of the test protocol.

Parts from the other engines could be on display, showing the broken parts,
scored bearings, etc.  Maybe the still-running rotary can be in the booth,
and maybe an engine run can be done as icing on the cake.  "Sorry, folks -
can't run the other engines - as you can see, they broke."

Maybe have one table of broken parts, and another table or two covered in
things like the LAEV, Tracy's controller and reduction unit, some of Paul's
3D work, the Shertz beam, home-made peripheral port, and all of the other
almost-firewall-forward/aft developments.  Some aircraft in progress with
systems installed would be a bonus.

Thoughts? Rocks? Rotten tomatoes?  :-)

Andy Hecker



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