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



Beats me. Looked like a great idea. Would be a good APU. More fuel efficient
than the turbines.

Dale Davies