Rotec Radial engine failures ...

[womenfly2]

... worth thinking about.

[Drorso]

Very sad story. Were there any damages to Russ' Camel and Petr's Strutter?
My friend from Israel - Arie Levkovich - put a Rorec 2800 on his Murphy Renegade Spirit. The engine traveled to Australia after failures, but i think it was his fault, as he put a shut-off valve on the oil system and forgot to open it once.
However, at some point he replaced the original bing carb with Rotec fuel injection system, and since then troubles never stopped.

Anyway, he is not flying anymore so i guess he is safe...

[sator]

Sounds like you made the right choice by changing the brand of motors. Glad to see you came out all right.

[Askania]

Rotec is obviously not an reliable engine. Seem to be poor craftmanship when you read statements and ask around what people have to say.

The Verner engine is perhaps a better option, now when they also have a 9 cylinder variant.

http://www.vernermotor.com/7H.html

http://scalebirds.com/verner-pricing/


Askania

[HoHun]

Hi,

Originally Posted by womenfly2

... worth thinking about.

Quite an interesting report!

However, regarding the Morane emergency landing briefly mentioned at the end of the video: A poster here on this forum pointed out that the aircraft had run out of fuel.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/sh...28&postcount=7

Not sure if that's accurate, but if it is, this particular case probably wouldn't be counted as an engine failure.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Askania]

This does not really belong in the replica aircraft threads, but i wanted to share the news.

The beautiful Ju-52 (HB-HOT) crashed yesterday in the Swiss Alps, all 20 people onboard killed. My thoughts and prays goes to the familys of those who died in this tragic accident.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y__EQ8XTsWQ

Askania

[RAF56_Ball]

Originally Posted by Askania

Rotec is obviously not an reliable engine. Seem to be poor craftmanship when you read statements and ask around what people have to say.

The Verner engine is perhaps a better option, now when they also have a 9 cylinder variant.

http://www.vernermotor.com/7H.html

http://scalebirds.com/verner-pricing/


Askania

Just some clarification here, and to be proper about a published statement (coming from the medical field, we have to indicate if we have a bias or receive royalties from a medical company, so using the same here) I make the following disclaimer:

I fly behind a Rotec R-2800.
Never had a manufacturing issue.
All of these issues have been discussed in other threads, so if you really care, do some reading, and not settle on blanket unsupported statements of a potentially disgruntled user.

So far as I know the only significant problems have been with the R-3600. The 2800 issues in large part go back to the owners, so you cannot lump the reliability of the two together. That said, there were a few problems with a run of Chinese produced cylinder heads.

Neither defending Rotec and Paul, nor attacking Verner. That said, the Verner engine, in either the 7 or 9 cylinder, cannot be claimed to be reliable, as it has not been on a significant number of planes or flown for a significant number of hours. It may be, but until there are at least 4-500 hours on at least 100 engines, I would take any reliability claims as conjecture.
I frankly hope Verner is a strongly reliable engine, as it is a direct drive and can use a larger prop (looks better) but at this point, that is all that can be substantiated.

[Askania]

Originally Posted by RAF56_Ball

I fly behind a Rotec R-2800.
Never had a manufacturing issue.
All of these issues have been discussed in other threads, so if you really care, do some reading, and not settle on blanket unsupported statements of a potentially disgruntled user.
.

Chris

Im glad that you never have had a manufacturing issue.

I have done some reading and there seem to be a number of problems with Rotec engines. Whether it is, in some cases, the owners fault or if it is construction flaws is up to debate in each individual case it seems. Buyer arguing very often with manufacturer about problems.

Didn´t your Rotec engine in your Sopwith Pup replica also stop when you had to make an emergency landing in Lake Wausau in 2012?

May I ask what caused that specific incidence?

Greetings

Askania

[stearmoth]

Originally Posted by Drorso

Very sad story. Were there any damages to Russ' Camel and Petr's Strutter?
My friend from Israel - Arie Levkovich - put a Rorec 2800 on his Murphy Renegade Spirit. The engine traveled to Australia after failures, but i think it was his fault, as he put a shut-off valve on the oil system and forgot to open it once.
However, at some point he replaced the original bing carb with Rotec fuel injection system, and since then troubles never stopped.

Anyway, he is not flying anymore so i guess he is safe...

Hi, I'm Hans from the Hans & Sam Vintage Hatz Swiss team. We are are confident with our R-3600 engine and have now about 140 h flight time. The engine performs very well. However, we have to admit, that we might have the smallest prop of all 2 blade powered 9-cyl Rotecs. We met Petr with his Sopwith strutter in 2008. Now I read this. What happend to him and his plane? I would appreciate any input on this. Did he have an engine failure?
Kind regards Hans

[RAF56_Ball]

Originally Posted by Askania

Chris

Im glad that you never have had a manufacturing issue.

I have done some reading and there seem to be a number of problems with Rotec engines. Whether it is, in some cases, the owners fault or if it is construction flaws is up to debate in each individual case it seems. Buyer arguing very often with manufacturer about problems.

Didn´t your Rotec engine in your Sopwith Pup replica also stop when you had to make an emergency landing in Lake Wausau in 2012?

May I ask what caused that specific incidence?

Greetings

Askania

You may certainly ask, and I will freely answer.
The complete story is in one of my Airdrome Airplanes Pup Threads, Flying the Pup, IIRC, from 2011, I think.
The Pup should have had a single tank. Since it came with a 10 gallon tank, (initially planned for a VW like power plant with lower fuel consumption) and I wanted more, I came up with a plan (no I did not ask anyone to "hold my beer and watch this", although I might as well have). Robert Baslee told me to just send it back and he would send me a larger one. Instead, I added a second one that held 15 gallons (for a total of 25) and designed a fuel transfer system that could feed by pump, or gravity. The idea was I could keep the rear tank full or empty (old school on fuel - less chance of water contamination if you had the tanks either full or empty) so it seemed a good idea at the time. There were some growing pains with managing the fuel system and had a few hiccups, which I thought I had worked out. While testing to get ready for a cross country, the rear tank did not feed properly. I was distracted in a suddenly busy traffic pattern, did not notice the no-feed, so I ran out of gas in the main tank. One can hardly blame the engine for me having an overly complex fuel system design, heheheh .
I fished the plane out of the water, changed the tanks to a single 27 gallon one (it fit in the same space as the pair) and haven't had a fuel glitch since.