IMHO all the space stuff is a huge waste of money.

Paul Lamar

Paul, I agree. This is a bit of a waste of money in my opinion. Too much
technology is too much. If we keep up at this pace we will be living on
a planet that looks like the death star not too long from now. LOL

At least the wings have the "cool" factor I guess.

End of unnecessary 2cents

jenn kimball


NASA/NACA had a good program going on the rotary as an aircraft engine
awhile back. That went by the wayside when they got  involved with all this space stuff.

The third temperature chart is of interest right now and is relevant to
the steel rotor housing air cooled one rotor. This is from an IAA paper back in 1984.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I found one of those NASA papers. Here it is. Quite comprehensive.

Paul Lamar

Paul, very interesting report. Surprised that the torsional coupler was after the gearset!
I quickly scanned the doc, need to take the time
to really read it over. Did the PowerSport, SuperLite fellows use any of this info?


Steve Carlisle


Take these  BSFC claims with a grain of salt. Later data shows they never got the BSFC
below .47 while this paper claims below .40. It is unclear to me if that is
with or with out turbo compounding.  Some say the direct injection equipment
used in these test was not up to the job vis a vi RPM. Vast improvements have been made
since 1984 in this equipment.  Stratified charge needs a second look with modern
diesel fuel injection equipment.

The Iannetti silicon nitride apex seals makes much of the apex seal work done
here irrelevant.  Measured wear rates on the SN seals indicate a life of 20,000 Hours.
Also the use of synthetic oil changes this picture.

The same goes for the torsional resonate frequencies.
We have not noticed any problems in the TTC engine what so ever and we have run it
at least a dozen times for as long as 26 minutes. All we have is a silicone
rubber coupler. This is with two different sizes of props. One three blade 68" in diameter that
turns 8300 engine RPM static RPM on the ground.

The other is 84 inches in diameter and we have had that up to 8000 engine RPM in the air at
altitude. Both with an ordinary planetary gear box of 3;1.
No detectable problems of any kind and we idle the engine at 2000 RPM.

In 1991 Mazda won the Le Mans race outright and the engine averaged 8500 RPM
for 24 hours.

There is no reason to pioneer a new reduction drive. Low cost mass product
planetary gears work fine.

Paul Lamar

What planetary gears are you referring to?  Looking in the 100 hp to 500hp, lol I have several projects in mind and after years of digging the Mazda rotary is still what I come back to. Just worried since they stopped making them is availability.

Bob Miller

Neil Unger is making Ford based gear boxes in OZ. Nothing is made in the states anymore.

Neil Unger2 <unger1948@bigpond.com>

Paul Lamar

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