Heavy fuel means it burns diesel but it is not a true diesel.
   Power is down from burning gasoline so it makes no sense with the
   intrinsic increased cost of diesel fuel.

   http://www.austroengine.at/cms/front_content.php?idart=37

   BTW Do you have a tail dragger training FPO up there Rob?

 Hi Paul,

 Not near here (I'm in Porterville South Africa - it's near Cape Town).

 There are two centres which teach on tail draggers about an hour's
 drive away.

 I became very interested in rotary engines some years back, when I
 considered buying the Sinus from Pipistrel in Slovenia.
 Unfortunately, the factory will only fit ROTAX engines; and won't
 even consider any other option as a factory fit. I hoped at the time
 that the power plant from Wankel itself might persuade them to look
 at the idea, but I don't need to tell you what response I got...

 ...not helped at all by Wankel's neglecting (then and now) to answer
 any of my queries.

 Anyway, back to the drawing board. I don't really want to do a
 self-build-from-scratch, but it appears that I might have no option.

 "Heavy Fuel" apparently refers to Jet A1, which (probably) requires
 a spark - not, as I supposed, to diesel. I wonder whether diesel
 would ignite "normally"..?

 Thanks for the chat-list - I found it during my search for rotary answers.

 Very helpful, informative and entertaining.

 Rob

 What a coincidence. We have a Porterville here in SoCal.

 Send email to Poul Henrik Woelfle AIXRO <ph.woelfle@woelfle-engineering.com

 They are rumored to be working on a two rotor.
 Austro engines is also working a 75 HP one rotor for motor gliders.
 None diesel burning as it is difficult to get the required
 compression ratio with the current Wankel geometry.

 Paul Lamar


 There is mechanical compression ratio and effective compression ratio. With a
supercharged engine, the equivalent compression ratio is sort of calculated.
With boost you end up with the same pressure just before ignition as a
normally aspirated engine of some higher compression ratio.
 Chev took advantage of the high octane rating of natural gas on some 4.3 V6
engines that were turbocharged.
 Similar would be running on Jet fuel. It would be a beggar to start cold.
 I think Pat Power uses a ceramic glow plug to help ignite heavy fuel for
military applications. The glow plug and the injector are in a pre-cup, and
the flame comes roaring into the main combustion chamber. If you reduced the
depression in the rotor to get compression up, I think you could almost screw
a pre-cup in the spark plug hole. The problem then would be to cool the
pre-cup. With a turbo packing the boost to it.
 Paul, you said power is down running on heavy fuels. What about fuel burn?

Dale Davies

No advantage so far. Is Pat Power still in biz?

Paul Lamar