I haven't seen any response on this list to the article that Paul Lamar
posted a couple days ago (below).  I'm very interested in objective
discussion of merits and flaws, and there hasn't been much on the Rotary
Engines list.   Has anyone read it?  Any opinions?

Thanks,  Michael

 

While there are some electrical engineers on this list, most of us have trouble charging a battery.

I can get a grip on how most of it works, but I have not enough understanding to even ask an intelligent

question. Then if you did understand it, there would be the skill involved to build it without incinerating anything with a soldering tip. Then you would be putting it in your airplane and testing it. No matter how long it ran on the ground, it is a test. Every flight is a test flight.

 

It would be much easier if electricity was a liquid that had to be plumbed about from one place to the next, and even better if it was red. This would alarm folks of a problem, like a cut finger. Perhaps a red stain would point out a potential problem, while a puddle the size of a dime would ground the plane until repairs were made.

 

There is a level of trust you can have when a new piece that has been well tested, comes out of the package with the new clean wires, and pages of directions that is just not available, when you come up out of the cellar with the still smoking controller you have just assembled. 

 

If you have trouble remembering your emergency plan with your wife screaming her lungs out, 8 inches from your ear, due to her unnatural fear of stationary propeller blades. Then you know that the surplus East German GPS you got for $10.00 is going to keep saying "Nearest what" when you poke the red button. 

 

The attraction is cost, and we all feel that pain. If you build one or better yet 6 of them, build also a test stand and cycle the dog poop out of them for a good 6 months. At Western Electric they did awful things to devices under power, and expected them to last 40 years. A good plan for aircraft stuff too. 

 

This is just my opinion. I could be completely wrong.

 

Tracy makes a nice controller.

 

Lynn E. Hanover