X-Virus-Scanned: clean according to Sophos on Logan.com X-PolluStop-Diagnostic: (direct reply)\eX-PolluStop-Score: 0.00\eX-PolluStop: Scanned with Niversoft PolluStop 2.1 RC1, http://www.niversoft.com/pollustop Return-Path: Received: from relay04.roc.ny.frontiernet.net ([66.133.182.167] verified) by logan.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 4.3c4) with ESMTP id 867163 for flyrotary@lancaironline.net; Wed, 13 Apr 2005 00:03:56 -0400 Received-SPF: pass receiver=logan.com; client-ip=66.133.182.167; envelope-from=canarder@frontiernet.net Received: from filter10.roc.ny.frontiernet.net (filter10.roc.ny.frontiernet.net [66.133.183.77]) by relay04.roc.ny.frontiernet.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9407235815B for ; Wed, 13 Apr 2005 04:03:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: from relay04.roc.ny.frontiernet.net ([66.133.182.167]) by filter10.roc.ny.frontiernet.net (filter10.roc.ny.frontiernet.net [66.133.183.77]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 08600-04-17 for ; Wed, 13 Apr 2005 04:03:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (67-137-85-235.dsl2.cok.tn.frontiernet.net [67.137.85.235]) by relay04.roc.ny.frontiernet.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD6C435812A for ; Wed, 13 Apr 2005 04:03:10 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: <425C99F4.7010900@frontiernet.net> Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 23:03:00 -0500 From: Jim Sower User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040514 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Rotary motors in aircraft Subject: Re: [FlyRotary] Re: Air Cleaners-Screens References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 0515-1, 04/12/2005), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20040701 (2.0) at filter10.roc.ny.frontiernet.net <... I can only find out by putting the plane in a wind tunnel and releasing a swarm of bees ...>

Or talk to someone who ran the Air Venture race from NC to Dayton to OSH in '93. Some of the plastic planes accumulated so many bugs in a swarm near Dayton that it affected the flying surfaces and a couple of guys had to land at > 100 kias because the wings wouldn't fly any slower.
Like they were in ice ... Jim S.

Al Gietzen wrote:

One situation that I can think of, that is very likely to occur would be flying into a swarm of bugs. Even a coarse screen such as Al has installed could easily become clogged with dead bugs choking off all intake air and causing the engine to stop running.

Hard to imagine where I could run into such a density of bugs; however, if I have a theory that they would not get in the intake. The scoop is located behind the maximum diameter of the fuselage. The bugs (that didn’t get smashed) would be accelerated outward away from the fuselage as the plane passed by, and because of their greater momentum (than the air), would not come back toward the surface sufficiently to enter the scoop as the fuselage converges.

OK; at least that’s the theory. I can only find out by putting the plane in a wind tunnel and releasing a swarm of bees J.

Oh; BTW Jerry, the air here in coastal CA where the prevailing breeze is off the ocean has very little dust. And the Velocity will never (I hope) take off from a dirt strip.

Al