I hitched a ride with Dave in his RX7 turbo II rotary powered RV6.

    Here we are at 12,600 feet over the Sierra pass at 162 Kts or 183
    MPH true airspeed.

    Just cruising at only 5480 RPM. Rather quiet and very smooth with
    head sets on. This is the same airplane that went 229 MPH
    around the pylons at Reno a couple of days ago.

    8 gallons an hour or 23 MPG.

    The cowl flaps closed gave 3 or 4 Kts
    at the expense of 5 or 6 degrees C higher oil temp.
    From about 69 C to 74 C. Excellent trade off.

    Don't know on the water temp change as that was not working properly.

    We stopped over night at Mammoth. Dave dropped me off in front
    of my hangar door at SZP. Thanks for the ride Dave.

    Paul Lamar

   Dave,

    What RPM were you running at the 229MPH speed? What is the ratio
 of the  borrowed PSRU? It looks like you may need a complete new
 gear box. If so  are  you thinking of running the 2.85 unit?

   Dale Davies

 Hi Dale,
 I was seeing max RPM of about 7000 to 7300 depending on g-load and location
 on the course, and up to 7500 briefly coming down the "chute."  That
 still puts my tips in the low 900 fps range which is about right for
 racing.  I still have the 1B gear box.  Cant change because I built-
 in an engine off-set.

 --
 David Leonard

 Turbo Rotary RV-6 N4VY
 http://N4VY.RotaryRoster.net
 http://RotaryRoster.net

Hi Dave,

 I was just curious. That darn thinking thing again. You've heard the song?
Any way, a p-port Renesis with turbo would add a bunch of power. Especially if
you could run the engine a little faster.

Dale Davies


We have a problem before we can do that. Dave has about 250 HP when he is
running about 45 inches of Hg. With a p-port my guess that would go
to about 300 HP. Dave has done nothing on drag reduction so far.
I can get to 300 HP NA if I go up to a 3.17:1 and turn 8000 to 9000
RPM with a p-port. The red line on the RX8 engine is 9000 RPM.

Both Dave, I and others. RV tail flutter. We agree on this. To go faster
than 230 MPH we need to fix the tail first.

We spoke to an expert on this RV4 RV6 problem at Reno.

Consequently I am in the process of redesigning the vertical and rudder
in carbon fiber to make it stronger and stiffer without adding any weight.
I spoke to the people in Oxnard today that built the Kis and a
lot of other aircraft like early Lancairs. They have an oven and vac bag
facilities. They agreed to do it. For some strange reason you do not hear
about flutter on composite airplanes. At least I have no heard about it.

I also consulted with my carbon fiber expert Alex Kozlof this morning.
Alex and his son won the Little America cup race in a carbon cat Alex designed.
Alex is also a distributor of uni carbon and a pilot. More on this later.

Paul Lamar