A link to the article follows:
http://www.sportaviationonline.org/sportaviation/201010#pg94
Potential viewers may need to be EAA members to view.
I would be interested in the Rotary community's assessment of the
article, particularly as it equates the weight of a rotary's firewall
forward to be approximately equal to that of an equivalently powerful
traditional setup.
Cheers, JLM


I thought it was a poorly done article. It is a reflection
of the knowledge and experience of the Director of Publications
& Editor who obviously does not know the difference between
a rotor and a piston. Would the Air Force send a liberal arts
major to test pilot school? Is this not the Experimental
Aircraft Association or is it a wanabe AOPA?

I submitted an article on aircraft turbo compounding years ago and
the EAA mag  rejected it. Anybody that knows what aircraft turbo
compounding is and has been in the past should have been interested
in that article. It played a significant role in post world war II
military aircraft. I am not the best writer in the world but that is
no excuse. It is the content of the article that counts and a good
editor can fix anything. The KitPlanes editor was knowledgeable enough
to published it and the World Motorsport  Symposium held in Oxford
England in 2008 invited me to give a talk on the subject.
http://www.rotaryeng.net/Oxford-Race-Tech-art-Dec-08.pdf

I have been advertising this newsletter in Sport Aviation mag
classified section for 12 years and they failed to mention this news
letter in the article. I tried to get my cooling book in the EAA book store
at OSH and the lady in charge refused to carry the book. Apparently
she thought the title  "How to Cool Your Wankel" had sexual connotations.
That says a lot  about how she thinks :)

The article  did not explain why the rotary is better than a piston
engine. The rotary is equal to the weight of a Lycoming O-360 firewall
forward but it can put out 250 HP instead of 180 HP. A 250 HP six cylinder
Lycoming would be at least 100 pounds heavier. If expensive aluminum end
housings are used the weight would be 100 pounds lighter than the
Lycoming O-360.

There is also weight to be saved in a better designed gear box and
the substitution of aluminum rotors for cast iron.


Paul Lamar