Rotax clone

Not sure if I want an engine assempled by 8 year old kids making 50 cents an hour.

Gene

Gene wrote:

Not sure if I want an engine assempled by 8 year old kids making 50 cents an hour.

Gene

WOW! Talk about racial typecasting.

This is the sort of language/opinion, that in my youth, many used about Japanese products.

It was so wrong then and such ill-informed opinions are equally wrong today.

I don't like doing business with China but I do think Rotax  is abusively expensive. From what I saw on the ytube site, the parts will be made in China and assembled here. Personally I would like to see more testing. Maybe test stand running for 2000 or more hours. 

JIM TERRY wrote:

I don't like doing business with China but I do think Rotax  is abusively expensive. From what I saw on the ytube site, the parts will be made in China and assembled here. Personally I would like to see more testing. Maybe test stand running for 2000 or more hours. 

FYI: The whole World is "doing business with China" . You may not like it but the reality is you will find it almost impossible to avoid.

For myself, I recognise the reality, that it is far too late (by about 50 years) to have any embargo (in part or whole) on Chinese goods. 

The Chinese have heavy, aerospace, computer, pharmaceutical, automotive, textile and many more industries, that supply the World with components & finished goods. 

Hypothetically - if Chinese ceased to supply or we (the West) put a 100% embargo on their goods, our economies would immediately collapse.

"Personally I would like to see more testing. Maybe test stand running for 2000 or more hours"

Agreed! This is no more or less than you or I would expect, of any aviation engine makers product. 

I don't have much to say on this subject however this is by no means a new engine.  This "clone" has been out for many years and they do have a turbo version also.  The issue we should be concerned with is it is a copy and not original.  That said they do not have the original testing or R&D to back this thing up.  I saw these sold in Latin America years ago and the owners indeed tried to buy spares from the regional Rotax dealers.  (Chile and Ecuador were the countries I heard from a number of years ago.  They have a dealer in Europe and Rotax is aware of them.  Given the Rotax design is from the 1980s there is no patent infringement argument if you were wondering.  The R&D is being done by, as you no doubt guessed, the experimental builders.   

Time will tell.  Lets see one at 2000 hours.  Currently they are experimental only.  

Cheers