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congratulations. These things tend to fire up real
easy. I had the same expirience.
It looks to me like the single rotor needs
some flywheel to run smooth at lower RPM. The flexplate is certainly not enough.
In addition, it might disintegrate after a little while running. I have seen
that on my SOOB.
Thanks for the comment Richard. I agree about the
flywheel, as you can see from the message I just sent. Of course
adding weight like that is clearly not ideal for an already overweight
engine.
The good news is that it would be relatively easy to
do with the Autoflight drive. There's already an aluminum adapter that's
about 1.5" thick, which connects the rubber damper to the flexplate.
This adapter could be made of steel, and it's diameter increased to give more
weight than you'd probably ever want to add. From the pics, it
looks like I could add a steel ring separate from this as well. Lot's of
options, but all with the same negative effect on
weight.
The way I see it now, the single rotor (using stock
housings) could make a nice substitute for an O-200, or maybe an
O-235 application. With a turbo, it could probably make a lightweight
option for O-320
applications.
With custom housings, a single rotor could compete with 912
and 912S applications, but with some bad habits like the low rpm
limitations.
What we really need is custom made 2 rotor engines in a
smaller size. It's certainly been done before, but so far, no one has had
any long term success at selling aircraft engines. You'd hope there would
be a big push on these now, since the LSA planes are a hot topic, but I just
don't see it. Rotatmax is talking a good game, but they aren't really
ready to prove it yet.
Cheers,
Rusty
PS- There's a 3/8" x 1/8" x 1/16" piece of
aluminum missing from the inside of the intake. I'll look in the
exhaust to see if I can see any evidence of it's journey through the rotor
housing :-(
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