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The Rotary Powered Arv Over Non Drought Affected Rural England. (Bob Grimstead)
The New Mid West Rotaries
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The New Mid-West Rotaries
There’s a quiet revolution coming in lightplane engines! British company Mid-West Aero Engines (MWAE) has developed and certificated the Wankel rotary into a pair of brilliant new powerplants that are lighter, smoother, quieter, more efficient and have less moving parts than conventional aero engines. I recently flew both the company’s 100hp (75kW) twin rotor AE100R and their smaller 50hp (37kW) single rotor AE50R and was extremely impressed by both. For years folks have known that the Wankel has held likely potential for future aero engine development but until now nobody has certified one for manned flight. The new simplified VLA certification will soon produce a host of lighter airframes without a suitable certificated powerplant because established engines are really too big, too expensive, too heavy and vibrate too much. Two-strokes have gained popularity among homebuilders in recent years, but most of these have poor fuel consumption, some can be unreliable and pilots dislike the messy business of mixing oil with their gas when refuelling. The 80hp (60kW), 1200cc Rotax 912 four-stroke has taken an increasing share of the market, but it is still quite bulky and has dozens of internal reciprocating components flailing around inside. The 100hp (75kW) twin rotor AE100R puts out twenty more horses (15 extra kW) than the 912, yet weighs five kilos less! In fact at 54kg this rotary is little more than half the weight of an O-200 for the same power output.
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