REFLECTOR: Rotary

[David Staten]

Al Gietzen wrote:

>Another site for real Rotary experiences is John Slade
>(http://www.canardaviation.com/) he has a Cozy IV with a Rotary, his flight
>testing section is really interesting and shows exactly what can be involved
>with getting a Rotary working.
>
>Steve;
>I recently read over John's experience, and I would say it ranks somewhere
>on the extreme of a guy that had to do a lot of things over - not exactly
>typical; and not related to it being a rotary.
>  
>
No offense to John, who've I've emailed many times but only spoken to a 
few times, and not in person.. but his experience is not typical of what 
I have seen related on the rotary listserv.

John has affectionately drawn the distinction of being the "beta tester" 
for the group because he has proven that if it CAN go wrong, he is the 
one to discover it..

All kidding aside...

His engine rebuild had to be repeated.. because the local "experts" 
forgot to seal some unused injection ports on the rotary engine's rotor 
housings. This caused a loss of compression and weaker power than 
expected. Without condemning him, he recognized that engine building 
wasn't his forte and he tried to farm the rebuild out to someone better 
than he was in this field.. The hired help didn't get the job done.Can't 
fault him for this.. he tried to do the right thing.. and the results of 
the bad rebuild caused many headaches in initial flight testing

A wiring mistake caused the failure and replacement of not ONE engine 
controller but if I remember correctly, TWO. This is human error plain 
and simple. I am scared sh!tless I am going to make a similar mistake in 
the course of wiring the engine, the plane, the controller, the two nav 
coms, the GPS, the EFIS, the CDI's, the Glideslope indicators and the 
touchscreen laptop we will be installing. Let the smoke out of the box, 
you cant put it back, and the box just never recovers when you do that. 
Tracy has been more than gracious in dealing with end-user faults of 
this nature to date... but I dont expect it to last.

Without refreshing my memory on his page.. I want to say two or three 
turbo's have been smoked/destroyed.. and this was something we are all 
stumbling through if we choose to turbocharge, since there is some fuzzy 
math involved in comparing a rotary to a piston engine with regards to 
airflow for interpolating onto turbo compressor maps.. Lots of square 
peg/round hole issues that arise, and not all of us are mechanical 
engineers. Slade isnt the only one to cook a turbo thus far. NA may be 
the way to go here.

I seem to recall at least one flight with the speed brake down that 
resulted in some nasty high water temps, and either he, or another flier 
in that locale had a partial gear up landing (i.e. Nose Dragger Club 
induction).. These are more a matter of pilot training, and good 
checklist discipline. I had exposure to retracts early in my training, 
and had an instructor who did gump checks on every plane, every landing, 
every time - fixed gear or not. Doesn't make me bulletproof on the issue 
of gear up landings, but "primacy" is a recognized issue in training 
circles.. Learn to do it right the first time and you are less likely to 
err.. Same thing with checklist use. Every landing, Every Plane, Every 
Time. There's a reason why it's in the PTS

I consider Slade's pages a chronicle of learning experiences.. and in a 
few cases.. of "how not to do this".. and I am humbled that he has bared 
his experience, warts and all, for all of us to learn by.

Dave