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Editorial: I Want to Believe

By Tracy Crook. Originally published in the Rotary Aviation News, Issue 4,1998

With a production version of the EC1 engine controller installed and 660 hours on the Hobbs, I departed for Oshkosh on Monday the 27^th. I was busy for the first hour or two optimizing the mixture map but after that, the trip was uneventful up to my fuel stop. High headwinds had me at minimum fuel by the time I approached Hancock airport where the Peterson fuel guide promised they had Mogas. In retrospect, it was a mistake to go on with so little fuel reserve. I could not raise Hancock on unicom so I announced to traffic that I was making a straight-in approach due to critical fuel level.

It was on short final that I saw the big yellow X’s on the runway. Wonderful. I decided that running out of fuel was worse than the FAA’s wrath so I continued down. Then I noticed the tall chain-link fence across the runway at about the halfway point. Really Great. Time to put all that short field landing practice to use. It was a 5000 ft strip so getting stopped really wasn’t much of a problem.

I turned off at the FBO office and noticed that there were at least 5 black Chevy Blazers converging on me. By the time I shut down the engine, several uniformed men had surrounded my plane. My only thought was, “Thank god Laura isn’t here, I can just imagine what her version of this story would sound like”.

It turned out that the airport is owned by the aluminum foundry across the street and it was closed due to a strike. The FBO had been converted into a command post with remote surveillance cameras monitoring the strikers. After a few (dozen) questions and signing a liability release, I was given 10 gallons of gas and allowed to take off.

My arrival at Oshkosh was much less dramatic. There was a lull in the traffic and I was the only one in the pattern.

I want to believe that the best ideas in aviation will always find their way into real products in the marketplace. This year at Oshkosh it looked like the rotary engine was finally getting the recognition it deserved. There were at least four companies promoting rotary engines. In addition to Powersport (under new ownership) and Mid West Rotary, two newcomers had large commercial displays.

The first one I encountered was Dragon Aerospace and I had the opportunity to talk with company president Matt Tait. He seemed knowledgeable about rotary engines and his enthusiasm for them was limitless. I want very much to see the company succeed but at the same time I could not escape the feeling that their goals were unrealistically high. You can find more details on their website, WWW.terf.com .

The rotary engines they offer (on paper) all appear to be based on the Mazda 20B three rotor engine. Three models of what they call the “Millennium Engine” are planned at 200, 400 and 500 continuous rated horsepower priced at $15,000, $16,000 and $16,500 respectively. Another interesting point is that these ratings are achieved at only 2900 rpm. Apparently the engines are intended for direct drive applications as no gear reduction drives are shown in their literature.

The 200 HP figure is credible given the fact that they plan to turbocharge the engines but the others are a bit ambitious. All the people I know who actually fly the rotary seem to agree that the Mazda engine is good for about 100 HP maximum per rotor in aircraft service. More is possible but the expense (modifications) and fuel burn goes up rapidly above this level.

The Millennium engine TBO was listed as 3500 hrs and weight as 250 lbs wet. No one can really say whether the TBO is realistic but since the bare block weight of the 20B is 250 lbs, that weight goal will be hard to do.

These engines are said to be the key to another Dragon Aero product, the DragonFire aircraft. Here’s a few specifications from their brochure; seats: 4, top speed: 406 mph, Rate of climb: 3100 fpm, range: 1500 s.m. And best of all, the price of this ready to fly, fully certified aircraft is under $100,000. I walked on to my next Oshkosh point of interest feeling inexplicably tired.

Next I came to Wankel Rotary Gmbh’s (Germany) impressive array of engines. They had models from 35 to 235 HP. Many of you have seen their literature so I’ll give you just a few impressions of what I saw. All of them were based on the same basic dimensions of rotor radius, eccentricity and width with each rotor having a displacement of 407 cc. (Compare this to the Mazda 13B with 654 cc per rotor) Power was determined by number of rotors (1 to 4) and induction system. See their website (www.wankel-rotary.com) for more details.

The top end of the line 4 rotor engine was turbocharged and burned Jet-A fuel. This engine appeared to be a non-functional mock-up but all the others were obviously real production hardware. This was a totally different picture than at the Dragon Aero display where only a few sad looking (junk) Mazda engine parts were displayed.

Standing there looking at the engines, specifications & prices I had the feeling that something was wrong but couldn’t figure out what it was. It was similar to the impression I got when looking at the Renault diesel aircraft engine display. Here too there were real production quality engines on which many millions of dollars had been invested in development and production tooling. They are well on their way to getting the engines certified as well. But then I look at the prices and market realities and have to wonder what’s going on. The Renault engines are more than double the price of equivalent power Lycomings and they face the difficult problems of small market size and no existing infrastructure for parts & service. To their credit, Renault targeted the best possible market segment in their choice of engine size and configuration. Their engines are designed to be almost bolt on replacements for Lycoming & Continentals which is a reasonable strategy.

This was not the case at Wankel Gmbh. The small size of their engines mean they are competing mainly with Rotax and a host of others now entering the small engine market. Unless I am missing something, the high price insures that the engine will never take off in the market place. A 35 HP single rotor was priced at $7680.00. The only model suitable for most readers of this publication was the 150 HP “Twinpak” (reviewed in a past issue) priced at over $23,000.00.

The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that aviation is seen as a possible spin-off from their main objective (whatever that is). I walked on in search of other engine developments, still wanting desperately to believe.

Hope From the folks at NASA

NASA occupied an entire building with their display of cooperative efforts with business partners. These included the high profile projects with Continental (Aero Diesel engine) and Williams International (low cost turbo jet engine project). The EAA has given a lot of attention to these endeavors and the end results are to be presented at the year 2000 Oshkosh fly-in.

I talked at length with some of the people here and while I didn’t get any warm fuzzies about the future results, at least I began to understand the game. Never mind the claims of cutting the price and weight of current engines in half, vastly improved fuel consumption, affordable jets for the average general aviation pilot, etc. All of that is just the B.S. it smells like. In NASA speak, they call them merely “project goals”. Getting these people to define exactly what it is they are contractually required to deliver for $46,000,000 of our money was not easy. What it boils down to is this: Fly two engines (one of each type) at Oshkosh (Now called AirVenture by EAA) 2000. There really are no requirements for performance, price, weight, etc., and of course, no requirement to ever market a single thing. Sweet deal.

Then it dawned on me. There was probably some aviation nut with a French accent looking at the Teledyne Continental Aero Diesel display at the Paris airshow thinking, “Who the hell are these people trying to fool?”. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the governments of other countries fund the same kind of projects that we do.

EAA to the rescue?

After a day of disappointments, I was looking forward to a special EAA sponsored forum on auto engines. In the past I have felt like the EAA has never really embraced the idea of auto conversions which is a polite way of saying that they regard them as bastard step-children.

The EAA is in a unique position to provide some badly needed leadership if only they were willing. I thought that at last this day had arrived when I received an invitation from Ben Owen (EAA Executive Director of information services) to attend this forum. The exact nature and format of the meeting was not stated but the goal was to improve networking on the subject of auto conversions. My faith in EAA was restored.

The subject was obviously of great interest because the large tent was filled to capacity by starting time. The only problem was that neither of the two speakers named in the forum schedule were there. One of the speakers showed up 10 minutes later but announced that he had nothing to say. He had been invited to speak but not told what the subject was. The other speaker did not show up at all nor did any EAA representative. I really do want to believe but my faith was once again being tried.

The truth of the old saying “The helping hand you are looking for can be found at the end of your arm” once again proved true. Someone from the audience stood up and suggested that all the people who flew in with auto conversions give a talk on their experiences. This idea was met with universal applause. A good time was had by all but the EAA is still missing the boat.

Oshkosh Worth While?

So, is there any reason for the alternative engine enthusiast to attend Oshkosh? If you are hoping for a revolutionary break-through in technology or product announcements, the answer is probably no. But the best thing about Oshkosh are the grass roots people you meet there and that has not changed. There are still individuals out there doing marvelous things and achieving remarkable performance on shoestring budgets. They are not necessarily the ones you read about in the magazines but it is these people I go to Oshkosh and other fly-ins to meet and they make it all worth while. You will hear about them in these pages.