Powered human flight doesn’t require a monster turbofan jet engine and an aircraft the size of a small Midwestern town. Twelve horsepower was all the Wright Brothers needed in order to get the Flyer to soar over Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Sopwith Camels, the World War 1 aircraft, had about 150 horsepower. It wasn’t until World War II that you started seeing piston engines with superchargers, nitrous oxide, intercoolers, and thousands of horsepower. In fact, the Cessna 172 Skymaster that I flew during my aborted pilot’s training cranked out only 180 horsepower from a Lycoming boxer-four that puts out 180 horsepower. You don’t need much power to fly, but you do need stable and reliable power to fly…nobody wants their engine to crap out on them while they’re enjoying the wild blue yonder.
Now, one thing to think about from a pilot’s perspective: fuel. AvGas and 100LL aren’t cheap…you’re looking at about $5.00/gallon for either one right now. Sticking with the Cessna example, that’s fifty-three gallons of the good stuff for a full useable load of fuel. That’s a pretty hefty cost. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to run a more useable fuel, like what you would buy straight from the pump, on a light plane? Some people do, using a reduction gear box for the propellor drive to keep from having to rev the holy hell out of the block. We’ve found a couple of examples, a Cessna with the TDI diesel from a Volkswagen and a Supermarine Aircraft MK26B, a slightly scaled-down replica of the Supermarine Spitfire, that is sporting a GM LS2 V8. Can you think of any other engines that you’d love to see in an aircraft? Honestly, picturing an older Hemi with a blower behind the prop of the Cessna is actually kind of funny, now that we think about it…
Corvair, and if you’ve seen my posts here you know I hate all things GM. However, gear drives to slow the prop speed down in relation to the engine RPMs are a problem. Direct drive is the only way to go. Having said that, if I HAD to choose a car engine for a light aircraft, the BMW V12 would do nicely…
I’d cast all caution to the winds and slot in a Top Fuel motor and then try to break the piston-engined speed record!
Hell yeah!
Honda CBX motor , air cooled DOHC 6 with 100+ HP , light and stone reliable
The LS2 or LS3 is kind of a natural for this – you want a good torque to weight ratio plus reliability, and a pushrod motor with an aluminum block is the obvious way to achieve this.
But for a non-obvious choice… how about an air cooled Porsche 911 mill? Sure, it’s expensive, but since when have experimental aircraft been a cheap hobby?
Good call on the Porsche engine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_PFM_3200
I’ve always wondered why folks didn’t run a Wankel like a 13b. We use little ones in the tail of the Shadow UAVs. I’ve also thought that a snowmobile engine would be perfect because they are super light.
20b rotary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zsy-cgWvj4