It is with great sadness that I am informing you of the death of John
Shuttleworth at Matamata air field today, 10/18/2016.
John was as far as I know the first to use a rotary engine in an aircraft in
NZ .
He built and flew a 2/3 scale P51 Mustang.
At this stage we have no information as to what may have happened .
The CAA will investigate and hopefully we may know more in due course.
Andrew Campbell.
I am very sorry to hear that.
Any info at all on what happened Andrew.
Paul Lamar
Hi Paul,
Apparently John's T51 Mustang had a power failure on takeoff and hit
his head on the instrument panel during the ensuing forced landing. John had
a lot of problems with this aircraft in the past (too many to itemise)
unfortunately, being unskilled in these matters he had a couple of "aircraft
engineers" do the work for him. These guys were ripping John off in a big
way and very obviously had no idea how to install a rotary. I have seen this
aircraft in the past, it was not a good installation, very heavy too.
I remember him complaining to me once when his flywheel came apart on
takeoff.
They were telling him that a new flywheel was several thousand dollars for a
new one ! we told him no it was only several hundred dollars ! I don't know
these guys but I WILL meet them and find out more. My big worry here is that
these guys, in order to save face (and their crappy reputations)will slag
the rotary and its suitability for aircraft use. I knew John, he was a good
guy, such a shame.
Chris Hoskins.
Was it a Tracy Crook gear box?
The "flywheel" has the sounds of the same thing that happened to Dave
Leonards flex plate. This would happen if a person did a lot of high G turns
or aerobatics.
The manual transmission flywheel wheel weighs about 30 or 40 pounds. I
can't imagine anybody would try to fly with that.
Too bad John was not on here.
Paul Lamar
Chris is correct with his statements about the installation and John being
Ripped off.
He showed me the damaged flex plate, there were no cracks in it like
Tracey's but the ring gear had split apart from the flex plate causing a
fair amount of damage.
Apparently this is not uncommon and the fix seem to be to drill and tap the
ring gear and use triangular brackets bolted to the plate and not to stitch
weld the ring gear.
Without knowing what the ring gear is made from welding may cause
embrittlement in the metal, or if incorrect welding rods and techniques are
used Hydrogen embrittlement may occur.
Andrew Campbell.
First I have heard of that in 18 years. What kind of attachment was
John using to the clutch plate to drive the gear box? I am thinking
there was some sort of abnormal stress applied to the steel flex
plate that caused it to separate from the relatively stiff ring gear.
The one I have here in my hand is welded in four places about an
inch long each weld. I am sure this is done with some sort of automatic
machine. Perhaps it is subcontracted by Mazda.
We have built several coupling designs that do not rely on the flex plate to
transfer torque to the gear box. Tracy's design did. The TTC coupling is
the latest.
Maybe it is advisable to replace the flex plate with a light
weight flywheel like Dave Leonard did. The ring gear is machined
from the billet.
Here are some examples. The first and the TTC are all aluminum.
On second thought there must be a reason these flywheels are available
on the Mazda parts after market.
Paul Lamar
The Rotary Engine free News Letter. Powered by Linux. If you want off the
list PLEASE let me know and I will remove you. ACRE NL web site.
http://www.rotaryeng.net You Tube
http://tinyurl.com/beqqxas Copyright
1998-2016 All world wide rights reserved.
