REFLECTOR: Rotary

[David Staten]

His point was that compared to a conventional aircraft engine, the "off 
the shelf, firewall forward/aft solution" doesn't exist in the Rotary 
engine.. You can buy, and bolt on a complete air cooled package with 
minimal engineering and follow in the footsteps of thousands of others...

Doing so in the rotary means you are likely following in the footsteps 
of one or two others, depending on your installation.. or even blazing 
your own trail. You WILL have issues that need to be worked through... 
with time and patience. The return on the investment is the potential 
for much cheaper initial and ongoing operating costs. If you aren't 
mechanically inclined enough to deal with these sorts of issues as they 
arise, then Tracy is saying.. "dont go there".

Just my two cents...

Dave
(building on a rotary powered Velocity with Chris Barber)

David Ullman wrote:

>I am far from making an engine decision on my project.  However a rotary
>seems modern, like the plane.  So I bought Tray Crook's book on rotary
>conversions http://www.rotaryaviation.com/book.html and went to hear him
>speak at Sun-n-fun.  The first words out his mouth were (I paraphrase here)
>"If you don't want the engine to be part of your hobby, don't do a rotary"
>In other word, if you want a turn-key (every time) powerplant, stick with
>something more conventional.  This certainly dampened my enthusiasm.
>
>Dr. David G. Ullman
>Robust Decisions Inc
>1655 NW Hillcrest Drive
>Corvallis, Oregon, 97330 USA
>Phone 541-758-5088
>Direct Phone: 541-754-3609
>FAX 866-898-1007
>ullman at robustdecisions.com
>  
>