My MT weighs 42#’s. The hub is heavy, blades are light weigh. Gear lashing appears to have increased a little over the first 500 hours. End play is about 5 thousandths with original snubber.
Bobby Sent from my iPad Sam, I am working with some originators of Powersport. The weight of your build makes a big difference on the use of a constant speed. Also in the case of the rotary the quality of your muffler! Sound levels really effect your comfort on longer flights. Mufflers for rotaries are tough, I already have 1 failed design to my (bad) credit. The original Powersport designs used the light weight and flexibility of a wood prop to their advantage. Those engines were tuned for max power at 6500 RPM. The reductions were about 1.85 to 2.2:1. suitable for the lower power peak. Torsional vibration issues also favored a wood prop. How heavy is the electric Airmaster? MOST engines including the rotary are helped by a variable pitch prop. Whether the combination is safe depends on the reduction drive, ratio, and weight of the prop on the output shaft. Powersport's owners noted significant torsional vibration problems with every planetary gear set, (even their own custom made straight cut planetary). Their later stiff model internal ring gear reduction gearbox put the resonances out of the normal range for the rotary. Prior to that the only problem free build with a planetary was when they built a pendulous damper system (like a big radial engine uses) which worked great but was so expensive they figured they would never sell an engine. So if you are running a planetary reduction you need to keep the weight down as much as you can. Find out what the Airmaster weighs. The amount that it exceeds your wood or carbon fixed blade prop is your risk factor. The advantage is to use a low cruise rpm that takes advantage of the props flexibility. As a thrust producing device it is better, there is no doubt. If it is very heavy though it may cause problems that aren't obvious as to origin. Torsional problems may take hundreds of hours to develop, or something may break the first week. Just be wary. Always keep track of things like changes in output shaft end play and backlash. You can make the change, and see excellent results but go in with your eyes open. Lots of people will tell you this is nervous nelly stuff, but the guys at P.S. probably had more hours running and testing rotaries AT HIGH OUTPUT levels than anyone other than Mazda. Bill Jepson Lately I have been considering an Airmaster electric constant speed prop to help achieve the rotaries true potential. I am asking for insight to help me make this decision. I'm not sure if the benefits of a constant speed out weight the cost, please help.
Sam RV-7A Renesis
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