This has absolutely nothing to do with rotary engines, but I thought I'd show you what has been distracting me from my airplane construction as of late.

For those of you that don't already know, my other hobby is drag racing an electric motorcycle. (It takes a team of people to do this, not just me.) We recently managed to get sponsorship from A123 Systems. These batteries are like "Mr. Fusion" in the movie "Back to the Future." Enormous power and a bottomless pit of energy. The more I work with these batteries, the more impressed I become.

   Here is a clip of the bike doing a burn-out:

http://www.killacycle.com/Burnout.wmv

   Here is a clip of the bike turning parts of  the rear motor into molten copper as it goes down the strip:

http://www.killacycle.com/Second%20Run.wmv

    We can do six burn-outs and six runs without recharging if we cared to. Maybe seven.

   The 170 battery pack puts out over 350 HP. The battery pack is 376 volts, 1350 amps, and has 18.4 A-hrs. We charge up in about 15 minutes after every run.

   I plan to start building airplane batteries with them soon, by the way. It will be late Winter, probably. A123 Systems batteries are ideal for aircraft. They are lightweight, powerful, robust, long cycle life, and very, very safe. I'm pretty sure I can build a battery that will crank 500 amps, but will weigh less than 3 lbs.

   I guess it had something to do with airplanes.... :-)

Bill Dube'