Jarrett,

 

I am not certain either, but chose to err on the safe side.  I do know that his first engine was out of a wrecked RX-7 with lots of miles on it.  I believe that he changed it out at some point, I think it was at 900 hrs.  I know that he had around 1500 hrs, or more, when he installed the Renesis engine.  If anyone's interested, I can (probably should) ask him, just to set the record straingt.  I'll be talking with him tomorrow and will try to remember to ask for particulars.  I feel that the rotary needs no embellishment.  Maybe I've already done that... didn't mean to. 

 

One thing that did happen early on to Tracy's engine was related to the Ross gear drive that he had been running at the time.  Since the Ross drive didn't have its own thrust bearing (it used the engine's thrust bearing), it caused rapid wearing of the rotary's internal thrust bearing.  These are small, flat roller bearings.  The rotary's thrust bearing wasn't designed for constant high force being applied, only loaded while the clutch is depressed.  While he didn't have an in-flight failure, he discovered the excessively worn thrust bearings while doing some routine maintenance.  That's when he decided to build his own re-drive.  It worked so well that lots of others wanted one too.  As they say, the rest is history.  He now makes three different models of redrive.  

 

Mark S. 

 

 

On 6/9/07, Jarrett & Heidi Johnson <hjjohnson@sasktel.net> wrote:

Ahh.. just a note Mark has written below that Tracy had only 900hr's.My mistake, for some reason I was under the impression it was more than that.

 

My apologies for having unwittingly stretched the truth..

 

Jarrett

 

Tracy, owner of RotaryAviation.com,  had over 1500hrs on his 13B before he removed it and replaced it with the new version of the 13B [Renisis] which is used in the Rx8. The only reason he removed it was because, as an experimentor he wanted to see how this new engine design would preform on his a/c. He didn't need to change it as it was still running fine. There are reports of training Gryo's who have several thousand hours on their engines w/out a rebuild..

 

We are now seeing a new rotary powered a/c fly every month or two [on average] so the cross section of aircraft which are going this route is increasing rapidly. I think time will show us just how robust the Rotary engine really is!

 

Jarrett