Russell Duffy wrote:

 Doug Mueller
RX-6 13BT
N900DM
Hey Doug,Best I can tell from a Google search, the RX-6 is a balloon.  Never heard of a rotary engine balloon before :-)   What is an RX-6 really?Cheers,Rusty (no single policy will insure the single rotor Slingshot... sigh) 

LOL, Hi Rusty,
Well funny you should ask. About 6 years ago, I had a long heart to heart with the Van's aircraft Guru himself. Dick and I talked at great length after I had ordered my finishing kit. The reason why was because I ordered the finish kit minus the engine mount and cowl. I had found out who the engine mount supplier was and I was going to have them build the mount keeping the integrity of the firewall mounting and the Landing gear geometry but not the dynafocal ring.

It turned out that the engine mount builder would not build me a mount. He was told that under the agreement with Van's he was not able to produce any mounts other then what was ordered directly for the Vans kit. Well After a couple weeks of B.S. I called up Vans again and told them that I wanted to order the mount after my finishing kit was shipped but I wanted to adapt the Rotary to it. Dick had got involved because of my special request for the partial mount. Dick had to okay the engine mount purchase because it was after the finishing kit and he had to call the engine mount people. Well he got back with me and told me that it was not possible to get it built that way. I said okay then send me a regular mount and I will use it as a template to make a jig for my own mount. Well he was worried that I was going into business of making engine mounts and that was quickly short circuited. I had to get nasty with them and told them that I ordered 1 kit for an RV6 and I expect a complete kit. Well it worked. I got the Lycosaurus mount.

Dick wasn't excited about the engine choice I made with his liable hat on. But off the record he told me that Tracy Crook was on to something and that he enjoyed flying a rotary powered motor glider. He just couldn't condone it with his agreement with the Lycosaurus people in his back pocket. I understood. He said that he didn't want to have my aircraft associated with his line of Kits. Well I told him that I wouldn't call it an RV-6.

I did a little research and found out that Mazdas RX-6 never left the drawing board so hence the RX-6 was born. In fact I have gone to even greater lengths and ground off all casting numbers and anything that says Mazda on it so no one could blame anyone but me if there was trouble in the future for my educational endeavor. As far as anyone has been concerned, I built a buggy that is raced up the Pikes Peek hill climbs if you know what I mean. It just so happens that it will get up there faster then a buggy. The story is even longer but my fingers are tired. I hope you found it as entertaining as I did when this part of my history panned out for me.
Respectfully,