…and they also had some positive things to say about rotary engines in their coverage of the Winter RV Fly-In in Lakeland.  I believe that’s Tracy’s RV-4 in the picture.

 

Rotary Powerplants On Display 

A Mazda rotary engine powers this proud RV.

Back in the tie-down area, cowls were being removed and heads were poking into cockpits for a closer look at what was what in the kit-building business.

One of the great attractions to an experimental fly-in remains the remarkable variety of modifications and unique personalized touches that the individual builders incorporate into their projects. Aside from the fact that RVs come in so many different varieties, the finished products often differ significantly in everything from color schemes, to instrument panels, to interior upholstery and even powerplants. The variety of options verges on mind-boggling.

Allan Watkins, a recent transplant from Pueblo, Colo., to central Florida, was poking around the handful of RVs with rotary engine installations for ideas and insight. Watkins, who is an A&P and aviation enthusiast, explained, "I'm shopping around for an aircraft to build." As an auto mechanic with 20 years experience in Mazda rotary engines, he is partial to the idea of installing one as his preferred powerplant when the time comes. At Linder he found more than one example of what he was interested in. He is leaning toward an RV-6, side-by-side two-seater. "It's got a nice wide cockpit," says Watkins. "Plenty of room."

Still, he was more than happy to spend an hour or more swapping stories and troubleshooting a coolant problem with the owner of a single-seat RV 3 who has been running a rotary in his machine with good results.

While the rotary engine has to be modified to some degree from the automobile version in order to facilitate a workable aircraft installation, Watkins claims the rotary has significant advantages to traditional air-cooled, horizontally-opposed engines. Since the engine is liquid-cooled, the danger and damage of inadvertently shock cooling the engine is minimized considerably. It also has a more desirable power and torque curve according to Watkins, and can run reliably at high power settings without the same risks of wear or damage that a more traditional reciprocating engine might suffer.

One of the pluses that believers report is the claim that the rotary is capable of producing significantly more horsepower with fairly minor modifications. Originally producing 105 horsepower when the engine was introduced by Mazda in 1979, a version that displaces only an additional 100 cc's was producing 246 horses by 1995.

Of the three forums that were offered at the Fly-In, one was dedicated to issues concerning flying with the rotary engine. Another was billed as "RV Go Fast Secrets" where the operational aspects of the rotary certainly would fit the topic.

 

 

 

Yes, this is a bit off the subject, but it inspired me, so I thought I would share it with the group. 

 

See http://www.avweb.com/news/skywrite/185650-1.html