The EAA refused to publish it until we get the record :-)
At that point I would charge them $10,000 to publish it :-)
The editor is a woman probably knowing nothing about aircraft
engines. One has to know something about something before one can
edit, publish or write about it. Our educational system is obviously
broken.
Kitplanes wanted to publish it as a side bar on an article about
record setting in general.
THIS IS NOT AN ORDINARY RECORD!!!.
IT IS THE ABSOLUTE TIME TO CLIMB RECORD ONCE IN A LIFE TIME RECORD
AND USING A NEW TYPE OF AIRCRAFT ENGINE.
This proves the turbo charged Wankel is a new viable type of
aircraft engine along with the turbojet and turboprop aircraft
engines.
---------------------------------------------------------------
ABSOLUTE TIME TO CLIMB RECORD ATTEMPT POWERED WITH A WANKEL ROTARY
ENGINE AND SOME WANKEL AIRCRAFT ENGINE HISTORY. PART 1
By Paul Lamar
Back in 1965 NSU introduced the Wankel rotary engine in small cars.
As a physicist I was mightily impressed with the ingenious engine
mechanism and it's exceptional power to weight ratio. I ordered a NSU
Wankel Spider to be delivered in Europe. My wife and I would drive it
around in Europe on our vacation and bring it back as a used car with
tax advantages. That was the plan. Before we could do that I was
offered a wonderful dream job at Chaparral Cars in Midland Texas as a
race car engineer. Naturally we canceled the car order and the
vacation trip and moved to Midland Texas.
In 1969 Mazda introduced Wankel powered cars to the US. In 1973 I got
around to buying my first of seven Mazda Wankel powered cars. It was
a 2000 pound 120 HP 12A powered RX2 four passenger coupe. Not long
after that news spread like wild fire that the seals were failing.
Those somewhat familiar with the engine assumed it was the apex
seals. The piston engine infrastructure structure heaved a sigh of
relief and piled on what they thought was the apex seal problem and
the demise of the Wankel.
Forty years later I am still asked the question "What about the apex
seals? Well it was not the apex seals. It was the neoprene O-rings
that were supposed to seal the water jacket. If you over heated the
engine the neoprene would melt at 200 F. Mazda's had already sold
about 200,000 rotary cars and it began to look like the automobile
manufactures had to tool up at a cost of billions to manufacture
rotary engines. Many took out Wankel licenses to do so.
The anti rotary stuff was not over yet. In the late 1970's and 1980's
Mazda rotaries denominated endurance road racing. Mazda won more 24
hour road races than any other brand. The engine was exceptionally
robust and durable. The US racing organization beholding to the car
manufactures forced anyone that wanted to race a rotary to carry up
to 600 pounds ballast. In 1991 Mazda won the famous Le Mans 24 hour
race outright on a limited amount of fuel beating the who's who of
European sports car manufactures. So much for the Mazda rotary
reputation of high fuel burn. The Le Mans organizers promptly and
excessively handicapped rotary engines. The Sports Car Club of
America has banned outright in all racing classes P-ported Mazda
rotary engines. The so called p-port made the engine too powerful for
anything near it's displacement.
The first person to fly it in an airplane as far as I know was a
fellow by the name of Lou Ross. He designed and made his own Ford
auto transmission based planetary gear box and installed it in a
Mooney and proceeded to sell the the required gear boxes to others.
The rotary makes HP with RPM and not displacement. All powerful
aircraft engines use gear boxes. The monster P&W 4360 corncob radial
has a planetary gear box built in. Ross went on to manufacture
hundreds of gear boxes for Mazda Rotary engines in aircraft for
about. 30 years.
Also around 1973 a Pan AM pilot by the name of Dave Garber designed a
push me pull me Reno racer called the DG1. Dave was far ahead of his
time for recognizing the potential of the Wankel. It had two 12A
Mazda Wankel engines turbo charged to 350 HP each built by Racing
Beat in southern California. These engine used a modified Bell 47
helicopter final drive planetary gear box. Dave flew the DG1 but
never solved the liquid cooling problems. Despite the water cooled
aircraft successfully used in WW II heat exchanger theory was still
in it's infancy. Around about 2004 he contacted me to work on the
cooling system as I just published a book called How to Cool Your
Wankel. I borrowed the airplane and towed it to Sun & Fun and ran it
up in the engine workshop area where I was a volunteer at the time.
Around 1998 Everette Hatch hatch and Steve Beckham of Power Sport
built some all aluminum versions of the Mazda rotary. It had a fully
assembled weight of 185 pounds, rated at 200 h.p. including
alternator, scavenge and pressure dry sump pumps, water pump,
ignition complete--everything--with 390 Reynolds aluminum front and
rear end housings.
They also installed a modified stock cast iron normally aspirated
13B in an RV4 and entered it in the Sun 100 air race and went about
235 MPH as I recall. They also competed in the time to climb to 3000
feet competition. They achieved 3000 thousand feet in 58 seconds
which if not the record for that altitude was very close to the
record.
In 2011 retired Navy Commander and anesthesiologist Dave Leonard
entered his turbo 13B Mazda powered RV6 and went 229 MPH in the Reno
qualifying races. That was the year of the fatal and tragic P51
crash, the races were canceled and Dave did not get a chance to run
in an actually race.
Several years ago an American rotor head by the name of Russ
McFarland living New Castle Australia decided to build a Mazda rotary
powered world record attempt time to climb aircraft. He decided to
use a 650 HP turbo charged Mazda 13B all aluminum engine built by the
same Racing Beat company that built Dave Garber's DG1 turbo 12A
engines. Russ was a long time subscriber to the Rotary Engine News
Letter.
He was counting on the high power to weight ratio of the Wankel and
it's exceptionable robust nature. This 13B TC engine weighed less
than 200 pounds with the turbo. The absolute time to climb records is
90 seconds from a dead stop on the runway to 3000 meters I believe is
held by a Grumman Bearcat. This is not a weight class record. This is
an absolute record. If this works the turbo wankel will go down in
history as another type of viable aircraft engine. Joining piston
engines, turbo props and pure Jets.
Russ contacted the same gentlemen that built Dave Garber's engines
back in 1973. Namely Jim Mederer owner of Racing Beat in Southern CA.
BTW Jim holds the stock car body land speed record at Bonneville at
268 MPH in an Mazda RX7. Stock body means you cannot improve the
aerodynamics of the car bought off the show room floor.
This time Jim was able to extract 650 HP running on alcohol. Jim also
developed aluminum end housings that dropped the engine weight from
about 300 pounds to 200 pounds. The Mazda 13B block is a sandwich of
5 castings. It is held to together with 17 long bolts. The front,
middle and rear are cast iron in the production engine. Jim designed
and had cast aluminum housing to replace the three cast iron
housings.
Lots of other engine changes were made. A dry sump oil system was
needed so the oil pan was done away with and replaced with AN pluming
that extracted oil directly from the center and front end housings
and send it to the oil cooler. A new larger capacity water pump was
needed. A p-ported was chosen in instead of the stock side ports.
A Motec after market EFI system was chosen to supply fuel to the
engine. That came with an EFIS. The rotors are modified stock rotors
as is the eccentric shaft.
The Mazda 13B rotary engine has been around since 1973 in the RX4
and last sold in 2014 in the RX8. Over 2.5 million have been sold.
During that time no increase in displacement or weight has occurred
but the street HP has increased from 120 to 280. The projected life
of ceramic apex seals is now 20,000 hours. Not 2000 Hours. 20,000
hours! Mazda is rumored to be working a turbo compound hybrid engine
with 350 HP that will achieve 35 MPG around town. This is the same
turbo compound hybrid system use in current Formula One racing
engines
When Felix Wankel invented this engine back in the 1950's he had no
idea it would ever generate 650 HP and weigh less than 200 pounds.
This is a monumental achievement.
Historically this development is on a par with the jet engine and
the turbo prop engine on a power to weight basis. The Wankel rotary
is almost a continuous combustion engine like the jet engine. The
intake and exhaust valves never sleep. They are always open to one or
more of the three chambers of a single rotor as it orbits around the
eccentric shaft.
Actually Felix Wankel did not specifically design the engine with
robust structure in mind. It just happened that a reasonable
geometry Wankel is an extremely robust mechanism capable of
extremely high manifold pressures.
Ask any piston engine engineer/designer about the importance of
structural strength. The end is not insight for the Wankel power and
efficiency. Just wait until Mazda or some one else builds a turbo
compound version. Not only will it best a turbo prop on power to
weight ratio but it will burn half the fuel.
Now for the chosen aircraft to accept this engine. A flying Harmon
Rocket was purchased and the Lycoming engine and instruments were
removed. Russ choose the same gear box that Dave Garber used. In fact
he obtained one of Dave's gear boxes from his widow.
Russ choose Dan Gray from Santa Paula to help complete the
installation.
The liquid cooling system was a real challenge so two large Dodge
truck radiators were TIG welded back to back in what is known as a
cross counter flow configuration. Cold water will be sprayed on this
radiator as needed in the evaporation cooling mode.
The pilot was moved to the back seat and the fuel, water and oil
tanks were installed in front of and behind the stock instrument
panel.
A new carbon fiber instrument panel with altimeter, air speed and
EFIS screen was made.
The power to weight ratio of the Bearcat was approximately 2 pounds
per HP. The power to weight ratio of this aircraft is only 1.5 pound
per HP. Any aeronautical engineer worth the title knows that power
to weight ratio is 90% of the time to climb performance.
We estimate the Harmon Rocket will climb vertically at 175 MPH based
on the exceptional power to weight ratio. This should easily break
the 91 second record.
------------------------------------------------------
Even if the record is not achieved, the engineering in this product has
considerable educational value.
Is the EAA no longer into education as a priority?
Chris Smale
The Rotary Engine News Letter. Powered by Linux. If you want off the
list PLEASE let me know and I will remove you. ACRE NL web site.
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