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Dear Larry. Believe me I know the pain of flying in high mountainous areas. I was over Grand Canyon at sometime ago in September with a friend and could barely hold the to that date 8000 ft required. Two people and some baggage, not overloaded and we barely made 8000 ft. I crossed Mammoth Path several times alone and with passengers and I wondered every time how we finally made it over the ridge. Yes definitely there is a need of power. A normally aspirated Gasoline engine shows its weakness already from 2000 ft on, gradually reducing the available power with increasing altitude. An upgrade to a high horsepower engine would be one solution. With the 120 hp Franklin you start with 120 horses on the ground and would still have at least 72 horses in 10000 ft altitude. The payoff is more fuel consumption and a higher engine RPM. Franklin claims 6 -7 GPH on 75% cruise. But to climb the mountains you won't cruise. So it is 8 maybe 9 GPH to be realistic. With 24 gallon fuel that is 2,5 hours flying. And yet you climb the mountain with only 75 horses. Still not much to do the job. But on Sea level you will find that anything over 90 hp is too much for the Ercoupe airframe. ( I know, a new coupe could maybe cruise faster, maybe) It becomes too fast in cruise and to avoid that the FAA ordered all engine installations of 100 hp or more in a Coupe to be restricted by a smaller, low pitch propeller. I like the Franklin engine, and if you get an STC for it get it installed and some of your problems are solved . This is a solution, but with a tradeoff - like all O 200 conversions are. Better climb, less cruise, more gas. But when designing something new one should break traditional thinking and look for all solutions available. Why not address the problem by the roots and fix it there. At altitude any normal aspirated engine just does not get enough of that thin air, because it is built to develop it's highest power at sea level. ( Not very smart for an aircraft engine design, but that's how they are). All needed to develop the sea level power is air. That's where turbo normalizing comes in. This is not Turbo charging. We don't raise the intake pressure, we just keep it at sea level value. With Turbo normalizing you could enjoy fast cruising and good climbing, depending on your propeller preference. The original C-75, turbo normalized would give you more performance at 10000 ft than your brand new Franklin. By burning half the Gas. I have not heard of someone selling a turbo normalizer for small continentals, but for bigger engines - they are out there. But I would even go one step further. The Franklin engine is using 100/130 AVGas. This might be a hard to find, or very expensive fuel if lead gasoline becomes outlawed. It almost is already in Europe, where AC owner pay 4 times what we pay for Avgas. Because of this and because of economy, noise and simplicity reasons I would even go further and use a Two Stroke Diesel engine for our new Coupe. Diesel engines are using 60% of fuel to produce the same amount of energy as gasoline powered engines. Aircraft engine and fuel/oil tanks are always a unit for me. The combined weight is the propulsion unit. To fly a mission of 500 miles you need a certain amount of fuel with every engine. Some less some more. With a turbocharged two stroke diesel in front of our current Ercoupe one could sustain 85 hp (I prefer 90hp) up to 1200 ft but extend the current radius by almost half. Isn't that what we want ? Since I might not be very clear with my limited capabilities of the english language, please read this article if interested. You need to scroll down to the picts of the engines http://www.prime-mover.org/Engines/GArticles/article2.html But not only Continental is working on solutions. ( scroll to the graph to see the performance comparison.) http://www.thielert.com/en/aicraft_industry/tae_110/content.html I think the future engine for GA is at least a turbo normalized one, if not an turbocharged diesel. With that you will solve one big problem where we have too much power (for an ercoupe that is) on the ground and almost no power in the air. For everyone: This discussion is a discussion on how to built a new Two controlled Aircraft. It is of a fictive nature, nothing real happened yet, but I could see a variant of an Ercoupe to be a good addition to the new Sports Pilot Regulation. All I need is money to start with. A lot money. Hartmut Flying is an art of living - The New Ercoupe Larry Wilkins wrote: > I still think the 120 hp Franklin would be a dream come true. Larry > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Bill Baker > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 'Hartmut' ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; > [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2002 2:37 PM > Subject: RE: [COUPERS-TECH] A new Coupe > > > ----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]---- > > Hi: > > Just my two cents but has no one considered the Rotax 912 > line of engines.80 to 115 hp and a lot less weight.Between > 130 to 140 lbs ready to go. Iíve been flying behind one for > 700 to 800 hrs with not a hiccup. > > Bill > ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Sid.bAhN69 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
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