I was going to send a private email to
Bill Eslick, but in the name of safety, decided to post it in hopes that maybe someone
can answer my question. I attended the Mid-Winter Rotary fly-in and got a
good, long look at Jason’s beautiful 13B installation. I don’t
know if Jason is on this list, but I noticed that he had a combination of
radiator hose bends which were clamped to straight pieces of aluminum tubing
for coolant lines. Can anyone tell me if he put beads on the ends of
those aluminum tubes? If not, they could slip off under pressure. I
mentioned the use of common hose clamps vs. constant torque clamps and he
replied that he was planning on swapping those out before first flight. Its
just an observation, no intent to berate his beautiful installation on this
forum. I would just hate for him to have a cooling system failure (blown
hose), knowing that I didn’t say anything beforehand.
Is this “tip” on the
Wikki?
Mark S.
From: Rotary motors in aircraft
[mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On
Behalf Of Al Gietzen
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006
1:50 PM
To: Rotary
motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Another
rotary failure
On the subject of failures
in general, am I the only one who thinks there have just been way too many of
these in the last couple years?
Of course you are not the only one.
High on my priorities for selecting an engine was RELIABILITY. It
seemed to me a rotary installation could be made more reliable than a Lycoming.
I would hate to be proven wrong. We had a lengthy discussion some
months ago about peer review, inspections, etc.; but nothing came of it.
Apparently the majority feels the record is OK.
Al G