Sport Pilot Talk

MrMorden wrote:Jeez, I really hate these "delete..." edits. It's very annoying to be reading a topic and have a bunch of posts that you can't read, it totally disrupts the flow of the conversation. It feels like a phone that keeps cutting out during part of a call. And now it's being done with the first post in a topic, including the subject line. GAAAAAAH!!!

I respectfully request that folks leave their posts in place. If you don't want something to be read later, don't post it.

Many forums set time limits, after which a post cannot be edited nor deleted. I wish the ownership of this forum would consider doing this as well.

Especially true of the thread topic.

Just kinda rude.

Most sites I frequent do impose a time limit on deletions and edits - from a few hours to a day or two*.

Never understood the reason. I do now.


*Post composed before merlinspop responded with the same thought.

Delete...

I think this deserves its own thread!

Just because something is caveated as an "OPINION" does not make it immune from question. This is why "But Your Honor, he needed killin'" is not an adequate defense.

Back on point...

...IN MY OPINION* the ROTAX 912 has been designed with three modes of cooling - air, oil and water - which combined are perfectly adequate if properly installed and operated.

Mine is a little challenged on the ground, since the pusher configuration blows far less air into the engine when stationary. But even there its adequate with the aux cooling fans, and once in the air, cooling is rarely a problem. If water and/or oil temps start to creep into the yellow, slightly flattening the climb is all it takes to bring it back down, and this can be an issue with Continental and Lycoming engines as well, depending on how tightly cowled they are.


*Karen and I are getting caught up with past episodes of "The Good Wife". In it, there's a recurring character - a judge who insists that the attorneys before her always state "in my opinion" in their statements. It's out forth as absurd comic relief, since that should not usually be necessary.

In my opinion.

MrMorden wrote:I respectfully request that folks leave their posts in place. If you don't want something to be read later, don't post it.

One can easily fight our excessively rude friend's mischief by quoting the message to which you're replying in its entirety. But then you have to remember who's prone to this kind of abuse and not quote everyone, which is a pain in the posterior too.

Since the original poster compared the Rotax with the O-200 in the 162...

I flew the O-200 powered Skycatcher on a three-day trip on the hottest weekend of the summer.

I took it up into the Cascades with surface temps of 100-105F. Did a couple max-performance departures (Vx, baby!) out of strips with DAs of 8,000+. Wasn't that far from MGTW on a couple of 'em, too. What can I say, I'm fat.

The engine gave me not so much as a single complaint...all temps were planted firmly in the green the whole trip. The only temp that gave me any problem was the carb heat - if it gets too warm it'll display a nice big red X for 'temp out of range'. Ha.

I don't absolutely flog it but it's a rental so I don't tootle around at 2,000rpm, either.

FWIW, designrs reported a high temp issue to me in his Rotax powered SportCruiser last week. Richard, do you care to post to this thread?

The Rotax 912 will run into the yellow when air temps are around 60f and when climbing at higher density altitudes. It may see up to 235f or so. Though the indicator shows yellow it is normal for the engine and the slightly higher temps help evaporate water in the oil.

Max oil temp is 266f.

If running Mogas 70% or more you can use a full synthetic like Mobil 1 4T motorcycle racing oil. This oil will resist breakdown when running in the higher temp ranges better than the AeroShell oil. You can also extend the interval between oil changes to 50 hours instead of 25 required when using 100LL.

Useful engine links:
http://avsport.org/acft/Rotax/912uls_info.pdf
https://www.ussportaircraft.com/documen ... al_912.pdf