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Ed, you may want to reread the article. They weighed all the planes, added
ballast to the light ones to equal things out, then all flew same speed,
altitude on long cross country. The reported fuel use differences were
real.
Only points they didn't consider was the fact that both rotaries were
burning 87 octane instead of 100LL. I don't know the difference in energy per
gallon, but there sure is a difference in $. So if they compared cost for the
trip, rotary would win.
It would have been nice if the author had compared the operating expense
difference, but in all fairness, pilots tend to think in terms of GPH.
Even the Aviation Sport article
supports that conclusion, even if they did dwell on the fuel burn (and
Noise {:>),being higher. Well of course, the fuel
consumption was higher - it was producing more power and beating the lycoming
power RV-8.
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