Welcome to Bernie Kerr's Project page! Bernie is a good friend of ours
who lives at a beautiful flight
community on the east coast of Florida. He currently flies an
RV-6A (Lycoming powered). You may remember his trip to Alaska in 2002
which we chronicled on this web site. At Sun n Fun, 2002, I noticed that
Bernie was really hanging around the rotary group. Much to the surprise of
his wonderfully understanding wife Joanne, he'd decided to build an RV-9A and
install a rotary engine.
February 25, 2005 update: Bernie's plane has passed its
inspection and is ALMOST ready to fly! New photos of the progress in the
past few months have been added below.
Bernie is a fast, efficient and highly skilled builder. I predict that
he will be happily flying long before our RV-8 is complete!! Tracy is
seriously looking at what it would take to put together a 13B fire wall forward
package, and is using Bernie's project to learn what factors have to be
considered to develop the package - sort of an RWS "feasibility
study". Planning to produce and sell a product is a totally different
mind set from building a "one up" installation for your own use.
Bernie will be flying the RWS RD-1B gear drive and EC-2 EFI system as well as
Conversion Concepts engine mount and East Coast Rotary's (Bruce Turrentine's)
intake manifold. Additional photos of Bernie's project can be found at
Conversion Concept's web page http://www.conversionconcepts.com/index.html
| February 25, 2005:
Don't blame Bernie for the lack of web updates. He's been providing
the photos, but I have not had a minute to add them to the web. Here
are the latest |
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1.
Lower right hand engine shows coil mount for 4 corvette coils and
interference of oil port and bolt in engine mount. |
2.
Lower right hand engine shows rear mount, Odessey PC625 battery box on
firewall and remote oil filter. |
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| 3.
Battery
box and fuse holder. Decided to not use fuse for main engine buss. Use
redundant systems with fuse link for buss power supply. |
4.
Top left hand side shows fuel rails and intake "spigot".
Primary rail stock, secondary is longer than stock. |
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Rear top left hand side shows "sewer pipe intake for engine air
coming up from underneath snout to the T/B. |
6.Lower
left hand side shows the Crook Tracy/Barry exhaust with the A/F
sensor mounted. |
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| 7.
Right hand side with coils in mount with the 4 lead wires |
8.
Stock RX7 oil cooler mounted. |
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| 9.
Oil cooler in and out lines by firewall. |
10.Top
view of engine shows the burp lines, may eliminate the one to
the rear (
Tracy
's suggestion). |
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| 11.
Pressurized burp bottle is a Volvo car bottle with 21psia cap. Modified
thermostat housing to lower the height. Still had to add a slight rise in
stock cowling. |
12.
PSRU from RWS with oil return line. Had to modify the return inside
to get it above oil level. |
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| 13&14.
Panel wiring and I thought this was going to be a simple to wire panel
until 4 D plugs showed up with the EM2 with a gazillion wires. |
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| 15.
Fuel rails with return lines. Note transition from solid AN 6 tubing to
5/16 inch car injection lines. The end of the al tube is knurled with tube
cutter. It is on there solid! |
16.
Intake manifold Snake and top of radiator. If I was starting today, would
copy
Tracy
's straight in tubes and plenum. Probably hang the radiator under
the engine. If this system works though , it will be on there a long time! |
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| 17.
Oil cooler diffuser and radiator mounted. |
18,
19, &20 More of the wiring maze and panel shots. |
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| April 4, 2004:
A couple of new pictures, the first shows the octopus intake with the
final tubes being molded over the bike tube molds, the second is shot of
George Fritschle ( super fiberglasser) holding the middle portion of the
the sewer pipe size duct to get the air from the inlet under the oil pan
and up the back side to the throttle valve.
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| August
12, 2003:
The exhaust bolted on nicely. It is tight at two places. The front down
pipe has about 3/16 inch clearance from the engine mount tube and the
exhaust going under the firewall basically has zero clearance at the top
of pipe. see pics plus some yellow painting. We fiqure we have half the
surface area painted and will not do any more until the canopy is final
fit (90 % at this point and not 90 to go). Will not paint the cowling
until after it satisfactorily flying.
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| August
10, 2003: Am painting the 9A parts
before components are even put on the fuselage the first time. Hope it
works out, but sure has been a breeze painting the parts to date.
The color is VW double yellow.
Visited the
Crooks Saturday flying in Gabe Ferrer's RV-6A. Gabe is building cross
country time after flying off his 25 hours. Stayed the night due to
weather. Picked up the exhaust system designed by Barry and Tracy
and fabricated by Barry. Move photos shortly.
Charlie Kuss has gotten involved in helping me get rigged out here and
is a
great asset. Look at the following web sites for connectors to the LS1
coils
and mazda injector connectors. He has a shop in pompano area that if
cleaning the injectors and flowing them.
He has a machinist who is going to look at making "spigots" at
the intakes
engine side that would have a rubber hose connecting to my fiberglass
runners.
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| March 2, 2003: Well
we have good news and bad news. The good news is that it seems that I can
work with proseal without breaking out in my typical two-part rash. The
bad news is ,for those who do not know, that when Tracy and Barry came
down to get the PVC exhaust mockup, that
Tracy
and my ladder to the loft had a mixup. Tracy
ended up falling on his back from about 7 feet up and proved how hard
headed he his :>). Did not break his coconut, but really did a job on
his right elbow. The socket ended up with about a 1/3 remaining in place
on the bone, a 1/3 floating around fasten to his tricep and the rest a
mess. They operated within an 2 hours after getting him to the local
hospital. Amazing it has come around so good. The otter (airplane) was
stored in a neighbor's hangar because none of us can fly that thing with
all those unmarked switches etc. In about a month he said come get me, I'm
ready to get my airplane. Man I was amazed that he was ready. I flew up
and got him, and he flew it home.
Barry is working on the
exhaust, it is going to join into a single pipe coming out the normal
exit. I am going to make a single pipe extension and cut holes like Ed
Anderson
. Hopefully this will be quiet enough that the
muffler will not be necessary.
Have made good progress on
airframe the last 6 weeks. Two ailerons, one flap, and one wing including
the tanks are finished. The other wing is drilled and ready to deburr and
dimple. Hope to finish it in the next two weeks. Once the wings are done
will get back to engine and canopy. Still hoping for
Oshkosh
this year, going to be close.
Bob Ownby, who has built UL's
and a Capella is considering a 9. He spent the week with us last week and
we drove a lot of rivets plus doing the flap. Any other takers out there
want some OJT? |
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January 17, 2003: Not much has happened on the engine
installation since last update. Have been working wings and tanks.
Additional tankage to bring total capacity up to 60 gals is being
accomplished by sealing the 3 outboard LE bays. The BOM tanks will
remain unchanged except for a #8 union on the bottom outboard
section. This will have a valve mounted so that the outboard section can
be unused when desired by isolating it from the outboard bays. When this
valve is open, the fuel in the outboard will drain into the BOM tanks
via the #8 line. A separate vent will be added on the wing tip. The new
tankage will have 2 stiffeners on the bottom compared to one on the BOM
tanks. This is because the skin is thinner and ribs further apart. An
additional filler cap is added to the outboard section. All 4 tank
sections are ready to rivet and proseal. I am delaying this as long as
possible hoping that George (Gabe's hired gun) can do this for me on the
fear that the proseal will attack my immune system again similar to
epoxy.
The prepunch kit continues to blow me away. In approximately 4 manhours,
I mounted a spar which had been previously prepped, added the ribs,
added the top skins, and drilled the holes. Oh man are these new kits
the berries. Tomorrow will fly IFR instructor in the AM and then start
the exciting job of deburring and dimpling all those rivet holes :>(
Maybe Van will come up with a system to eliminate this in the future.
Hope the Crook brothers show soon to start working on the exhaust system
(hint-hint). Have not touched base with Bruce T. to see if he is
progressing on the intake system. The prop is promised in 3 weeks,
Sensenich dropped the ball on getting it started when they promised. It
is not holding me up since I mounted the spinner rear plate to fit the
cowling.
Hope to see some serious progress in the next 4-5 weeks.
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12/8/02 Update Here are some pics. The battery is now setting in
the firewall battery box. Opted to go with the 17 Amp-hour Odyssey. The
coil holder is now mounted to the engine (may have sent this pic
earlier), The fuselage is complete from the carry thru spar aft except
for wiring and the static system including paint. The cushion is from
the 6A :>)
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11/19/02 Update: Now have the radiator mounted to the engine at
the front, but still need to support it at the rear and build the duct
work for its air induction. Put the fuse on the rubber so that I can
roll it outside for George to lay up the glass stuff and hopefully I can
afford another bout with total skin rash!
Mounted the remote oil filter on the firewall. Decided to stay with the
HP1 Fram auto filter after cutting one apart and comparing it to the
aircraft filters that I cut apart when I change the oil on the 6A. There
is 40 plus percent more flow surface on the paper and there is a screen
on the bottom to catch debris. Rob Kermanj had a friend who was brought
down by an auto filter that came apart in his Eze and blocked the oil to
the engine.
Built a battery box on the firewall to house the 17 amphour Odyssey RG
battery.
Am building a mount for the 4 corvette LS1 engine type coils to mount on
the engine right by the spark plugs. Anyone know if they require some
shock isolation from the engine??
Working the roll bar and started working the wing ribs. My priority is
to work anything in front of the firewall if parts, etc are here, then
the fuselage, then the wing. Am getting dual IFR time in the 6A with Jan
Bussel and hope to get a solid month of work on the 9A before Christmas
holidays arrive.
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Battery and Remote |
Exhaust Mock Up |
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Despite admonitions from some people, that
it will not work ( i.e. all the air will try to come out the rear), the
air is coming out uniformly or actually a little more at the front. This
is a very low velocity test, but I am happy with the results. May try to
turn the fan power to the wind tunnel up some with the pulley ratios or
a larger hp motor.
The other thing that I flight tested was a
couple of static pressures in my inlet rings on the 6A. They were
located a couple of inches into the the ring, one at the top and one at
the bottom. Interesting how close to plenum pressure they both are. This
indicates to me that the velocity thru the ring is very low, ie all the
diffusing is taking place outside and infront of the ring. The other
thing was that the bottom static was higher than the top one indicating
that the prop is really swirling the air. I think you really should aim
one ring up and the other down to capture the best pressure and flow.
Brumwell really hammered me that the prop wash (swirl) is what caused
both Ed and Finn to have their large roll excursions taking off
behind another plane and that it was not wing vortices.
The pics are the tunnel flowing with yarn
tell-tells on the radiator at 3 locations along its length. (Written by
Bernie Kerr 11/1/02)
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Layed up the oil cooler diffuser today
(10/29/02). I am using the same cowl that I have on my 6A ; the
Sam James cowl. There is a lot of volume available inside the cowl, so I
am attempting to slow the flow sufficiently so that it will distribute
itself uniformly thru the stock oil cooler.
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Installation of Conversion Concepts engine mount 9/18/02 |
| A pic of the engine
if you missed it earlier. Built by Bruce Turrentine, East Coast
Rotary. |
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I picked up one of
the samuri alternators. It is 55 amps, I thought Gabe said his was 35 amps
from B&C. It weighs in at 6 pounds and 14 oz. with internal voltage
reg, so weighs same or less than B&C. |
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Tracy - When mounted, it currently
will not drop below 11.5 inches top clearance above the output shaft
centerline. I have about 12 inches vertical in the cowl at that
location. With some chopping of a bracket, you could drop down to 11
inches or so. I'm not chopping anything until I get the engine on and
cowl on to decide if I need more clearance. Will have to figure out how
to make the double pulley work. The cost was $102, but they add another
55 without a core. He said he would take any make complete core and
return my money. Do you have any saved from your Mazda salvage yard that
I could have? (email from Bernie Kerr)
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Here are a couple of right elevator shots I
made yesterday (May 19, 2002). The 9A kit continues to blow me away!
A friend is doing an old style 6 rudder in my hangar concurrently. I
knock off another part and he is still scratching his head and
measuring.
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Crowded hangar - Now
there is 4 sometimes when George is here. (Wonder what those RVs are doing
when the lights are out??) |
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Looking thru the firewall recess for
lycoming oil filter, not sure if I will cover flat or put in recess.
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Fuselage progress in August, 2002.
Getting there!. The wall are painted before
riveting. There is plastic where I did not want paint like in the
baggage compartment that is covered with a plate on the wall. The paint
color interior is really grey not white.
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