Mike KSEE, the light aircraft powerplants from "back in the day" were interesting, many of them completely hand-made or else they used parts from other types of engines to make aero conversions, and the builders were innovators and skilled in doing things themselves. One interesting character from that era was Les Long from up here in Oregon. His "Longster" series of lightplanes are of special interest to me and so is the horizontally-opposed, air-cooled, 2-cylinder engine that he made for the high-wing version of his Longster. He called that engine the Harlequin and it used parts from Harley motorcycle engines along with some parts from auto engines, all mounted into a crankcase that Long cast and machined. It developed 30HP at 2650 RPM, just about like a 1/2VW or an Ultravair but slower turning, and is a beautiful little engine that weighs about 90 lbs. It's obviously not got enough power for a KR since even a dual-port 1600 Beetle engine, which weighs about 160 lbs, can put out about 55HP for takeoff and 50HP continuous. Another version of the Longster used an inline air-cooled 4-cylinder engine from the Henderson motorcycle... rated 30HP at 3000 RPM, weight about 110 lbs. As you can see, these engines all weigh about 3 lb per HP, whereas a current Revmaster 2100D can put out about 75HP and weighs 170 lbs with 25% less weight at only 2.3 lbs per HP. The aero conversion 2700cc Corvair is rated 100HP and weighs about 230 lbs, so it's right there in the same 2.3 lb/HP range.
Oscar Zuniga Medford, OR
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