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Originally Posted by Jim Bruton
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I love this little engine, it’s so beautiful, that I called the folks who make it and went round and round with them trying to get them to change things such that it could be used for my Sands DR1. The guys there: Paul Chernikeeff and Jim Chernikeeff to date were truly the nicest and most responsive people I’ve ever spoken to in this industry.
But alas, to no avail. The RPM of this engine, even with the geared down box, matches or exceeds modern opposed engines. If you look at the specs you will find that it produces about 110 hp at 3700 RPM. This means that due to tip speed limitations you’ll be putting a prop on that thing no bigger than a Cessna 150. You’ll need a monster of a propeller for the Dr1: 90” – 109” compared to that.
For one thing, it will look pretty funny with that tiny prop up front, on the other hand you really fly a propeller on the front of an airplane not an engine. If you look back on the captured engine trade outs performed on German Triplanes you’ll notice they also used the correct French propellers when they did it.
I only wish they would gear that thing way down, up the torque and lower the RPM. It would be the lightest weight alternative I’ve seen, but then I guess we’d all be throwing lead shot up front to get those tail feathers off the ground.