H-6 with FP prop EARLY numbers

[Rotary10-RV]

Originally Posted by RVbySDI

What if a few variables that currently convince you that "N-E-V-E-R" will ever happen changes? What if metal to make the core dropped to, say, 1/100th the current price? Better yet, what if there was a discovery that used an entirely new material that was as plentiful as dirt and cost virtually nothing to produce and that material could be used to produce engines? What if labor costs plummetted while quality control increased at the same time? What if a new design changed the way we extract motion out of chemicals, or heat, or reciprocation? What if reciprocation was replaced with some totally different design? What if humans quit being so garsh darned greedy and quit expecting an inflated CEO salary for every new thing they brought to the market? What if instead of 400,000 aircraft in the country there were 100,000,000 out there flying? What if the airplane replaced the automobile as the main means of transportation because of some unforseen change in the way things work and everyone had 2.3 airplanes per household instead of 2.3 automobiles?

These are all hypothetical "What If's" but any one or multiples of them could happen to create a totally new pardigm shift that could change your concept of reality. Would you still say N-E-V-E-R? I was taught that I should never say NEVER or ALWAYS unless I wanted to continually be proven wrong everytime I said them!

Experimental aviation brings two bipolar types together, the engineer and the dreamer. The engineer wants to deal with the world in tangible and concrete terms that are well defined so "reality" is what rules the world. The dreamer wants to deal with the world in theories and abstracts that are not defined at all so "reality" is simply a state of mind that can and should be changed in order to realize the dream. Without either of these what would our world be like? So which type of aviator are you?

RVBYSDI
Steve

Steve,
I understand and would love to see the cost of engines come down. I am not convinced that there aren't possibillities for profit for less than current prices. You would have to be VERY well organized and use the most modern production techniques available. I fear for the success of a start up due to liability costs as well. Small production runs will always have outragous prices. (Ship please note I said outragous. not unjustified)
Steve, as a little production primmer you should know that the average $30.000.00 car contains less than $2,000.00 worth of raw materials and that may be an overestimate of the materials. So if the manufacturer could get ALL the raw materials for FREE and passed along ALL the savings to the customer the car would still cost $28,000.00! I'd bet you that the typical 4 cylinder Lycoming contains LESS than $1000.00 in raw materials. That number even takes into account that the materials must be purchased in small quantities. (which does cost more) In all technical items it is production, labor. or even uniqueness that costs. A top-of-the-line microprocessor for a desktop PC costs around $800-$1,000 AND IT IS MADE OF SAND which is only slightly more expensive than dirt. The manufacturing process is incredibly complex which is what costs. Mazda is the only manufacturer that found a reasonably economical way to grind the unusual shape of the Wankel rotor housing. They will not allow cameras into the production area, and you must be well connected just to be allowed in! Both of these examples show that IT CAN BE DONE. The hardest part for us is to get someone to make parts for our small market. I would love to do it myself, but I wouldn't get much flying time in the next few years.
Rotary10-RV
Bill Jepson

[RVbySDI]

Originally Posted by Rotary10-RV

In all technical items it is production, labor. or even uniqueness that costs. A top-of-the-line microprocessor for a desktop PC costs around $800-$1,000 AND IT IS MADE OF SAND which is only slightly more expensive than dirt. The manufacturing process is incredibly complex which is what costs. Mazda is the only manufacturer that found a reasonably economical way to grind the unusual shape of the Wankel rotor housing. They will not allow cameras into the production area, and you must be well connected just to be allowed in! Both of these examples show that IT CAN BE DONE.

Yes I agree that it can be done. That is why I believe the way I do. I believe the high costs are in the labor not in the materials. Which is why I eluded to the idea of: "What if humans quit being so garsh darned greedy and quit expecting an inflated CEO salary for every new thing they brought to the market?" This includes the lawyers, the insurance companies, the factory workers, everyone down the line of production. Not just the guy at the top. Our world has evolved into a world where it doesn't matter whether we are flipping burgers or building a nuclear power plant we all think it is our right to have immediate returns of wealth doing it. Why does a manufacturer have to return all of its investment on R&D within the first years of the production? Why could it not be spread out over the life of the product. If you truly believe in the viability of your product this should not be a concern. Of course, that requires quite a bit of faith and belief in what you are doing to achieve I suppose.

Just so everyone knows, I do understand the fact that there are certain things that limit our wish list of ideas we would like to see changed. However, as I stated in my post in reply to Ship, I think there are some things that could change our way of thinking about things that would change the world enough so that how we do things now would no longer restrict us. So, in my mind, saying that things will "never" happen seems a little short sighted. Human history has continually proven that the status quo does not remain the status quo for very long. We are always changing, growing and coming up with new or better ways to do things. As evidenced by the fact that Jan Eggenfelner is placing those ghastly auto engines on beloved aviation machines and making them work. Who would've thunk it could be possible? I don't think anyone in the big bore aircooled Lycosaur engine world would've thunk it for sure! But someone did and look how it seems to be changing the status quo!

RVBYSDI
Steve
Yes I am a dreamer as I am still building my RV and therefore can only dream of the day I will be flying this wonderful machine.

[sn-rv10]

Originally Posted by Jconard

You will not have hours, the twin fuel pumps alone will draw close to 20 amps.

Hi everyone, my first post! Thought I would jump in here and say that battery technology is also advancing along as well. Valence has a unique battery that maybe suited for this application:
http://www.valence.com/ucharge.asp
Better weight, AHr and endurance. Don't know how they would fair with other params such as atmosphere and temp. Worth looking at though. Cheers!

Stephen

[David-aviator]

Originally Posted by sn-rv10

Hi everyone, my first post! Thought I would jump in here and say that battery technology is also advancing along as well. Valence has a unique battery that maybe suited for this application:
http://www.valence.com/ucharge.asp
Better weight, AHr and endurance. Don't know how they would fair with other params such as atmosphere and temp. Worth looking at though. Cheers!

Stephen

Stephen,

I looked at the Valence site and do not see the advantage over proven Odyssey batteries. Odyssey can be shipped non-hazardous, does not gas out, and they last. I changed batteries this year after almost 4 years of service with 2 engines, and sold the old ones to a friend who needs some test power while completeing his project. Both batteries were still working fine.

For some unknown reason, I missed this thread completely last May, must have been busy mowing the lawn or something that month.

I have a friend flying the RV-9A with the H6/MT. I gave him a check out in my -7A and helped get some issues squared away before first flight. The airplane has been flown out of phase one since then.

Performance is very good as the owner lives in the country on 1300' of grass. He flew the first flight out of his strip. But he could not do it with a FP prop. I am convinced of that.

Jan is interested in selling engines and he'd like to simplify things by having one engine for all airplanes. The obvious choice is the H6 but the situation is complicated because some customers want the original used 2.5 for its lower price and less weight. The 2.5 is a very good engine for the -9 as Gary Newsted and Nathan Green and Gus and others have proven. The H6 is over kill. To limit the engine to 150 HP with a FP prop is not realistic because no one will do it. It would ruin the basic performance capabilities of the airplane, plus incure a weight penalty. It doesn't make good sense.

I've done some FP testing with the 2.5 and the H6 and found the compromise in perfomance too much for me. With the 2.5 and Quinti, you can set any prop pitch you want and go fly in manual. There was not a pitch setting that was satisfactory. The airplane flew like a lumbering bomber or power had to reduced before climb speed to stay under rpm limits. With the H6, I had a wood prop built to Lycoming 0-360 specs (for lack of another base line) and it, too, got off the ground but not at all spectacularly and in flight was power limited due to rpm limits.

Perhaps some can accept these performance limitations to have a Subby with FP, but not me. The difference compared to CS is incredible, not at like comparing Lycoming with FP and CS.

As usual, just my 2 cents worth....


dd
RV-7A
H6

[rv6ejguy]

I'd second David's observations of Subies and fixed pitch props- not a good combination. Flying our turbocharged EJ22 and IVO prop (inflight adjustable) you can experiment in fixed pitch mode easily.

Lock the pitch at the cruise setting and the takeoff roll is almost tripled even with the much higher torque of the turbo engine at medium rpms. The climb rate is about half as well. Lock it at takeoff pitch and as soon as you lower the nose in cruise, rpms will rise over 6000 and you just waste fuel and increase noise level and actually go slower.

Take your pick, MT, Quinti or the dreaded IVO , you'll need one of these to extract maximum performance from the Subaru.