Rotax engines- LSA's hope, or curse?

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 09:59:52 -0400, "Morgans"
wrote:
There will be no compromise, when it is my but in the seat, thank you.

EVERYTHING is a compromise. Single engine simplicity vs. the
redundancy of two engines, or four, the light weight of a 2-stroke vs.
a 4 stroke's longer TBO, the cost of a Rotax vs. a Continental (how
many people can afford a 0 SMOH Continental these days?) My
compromise these days is I fly single cylinder 2-stroke ultralights
and I don't fly over anything I can't land on... but when I owned a
Taylorcraft with a certified Continental engine I once had an engine
failure on takeoff (engine failure, not my fault)... no matter what
you fly, if you fly long enough, sooner or later the engine's gonna
stop turning.

-Dana
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Jesus! a BAZILLION! that's more than Matt's BILLIONS & TRILLIONS. Come on,
how old are you two guys? Eight? Does you parents know that your playing on
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.........

Owww. Thats gonna leave a mark...... G

Ben [ duckin] Haas.

Rotax is what turned me away from this category. The brand new (200 some
hrs) CT that I flew in vibrated so badly it was unnerving. The pilot
mentioned that it might be the gearbox, but those engines are just
screaming. Cruise is like 5000 rpm, or close to it. Take off was 5400
limited to a few minutes if I remember right.
I walked away from my demo ride convinced that this part of the industry
will need another 5-7 yrs of product development. I thought the Jibaru
looked promising by design since it's not a geared down engine/prop combo,
but those planes weren't available for demo rides.
I might have bought into that category if not for the fact that most are
Rotax powered. It looks good at first since you can buy a brand new plane
for the price of an older GA plane.
I ended up with a tried and true 172. Give the sport aircraft a few more
years.
Alex
"Morgans" wrote in message
...
I see that two LSA aircrafts that had already been certified, crashed on
their way to SnF, when their engines failed on takeoff. Pilots are badly
injured, but alive, thank goodness. At least the slow speed, low energy
philosophy of the LSA seems to be allowing people to survive bad incidents.

Am I the only one who thinks that Rotax still leaves a lot to be desired,
even their 4 strokes?

I still will not set foot inside an aircraft that is powered by one.
Until an alternate engine is available, LSA is dead on arrival, IMHO.

Jubaru? I don't know. There are more than a few bad reports on them,
too. O-200's are still a choice, as are C-85's, I suppose, but weight and
price makes them somewhat questionable.

I hate to be the pessimist, and I am not a troll, for those who know me
here, but what is a person to do? I had to get it off my chest.
--
Jim in NC

On 2006-05-09, #1ACGuy wrote:
Rotax is what turned me away from this category. The brand new (200 some
hrs) CT that I flew in vibrated so badly it was unnerving. The pilot
mentioned that it might be the gearbox, but those engines are just
screaming. Cruise is like 5000 rpm, or close to it. Take off was 5400
limited to a few minutes if I remember right.

Or the propellor. I have a friend who has a Rotax 914S powered Europa.
It does feel "different" from a traditional GA plane because the engine
noise is significantly different to the high displacement, low revving
direct drive engines most of us are used to - but his Europa is probably
the smoothest running 4-cylinder plane I've flown.

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