Bernie Kerr and his Mazda Rotary Powered RV-9A.

January 2, 2006: The Treasure Coast Airpark is an aviation residential community located near Port Saint Lucie, Florida.  This area is about 45 miles north of the West Palm Beach airport.  You can get details about it on AIRNAV.COM under the airport designator FL37.   Bernie is retired from a nearby Pratt & Whitney engine plant.

Since an automotive engine powers his airplane, Bernie put in extra long-range tanks to carry auto fuel for a round trip to South Carolina.  Not many airports sell auto fuel (MOGAS), so Bernie makes sure he has the range to get to those airports that have it.

Here are a few pictures of his engine installation.  Water-cooled engines require large radiators and you see one of them is shrouded on this side of the Sensenich wooden prop and gear reduction drive.

Here is a look inside the other shroud at the radiator on the right side of the engine.  The propeller rotates the opposite direction from standard US aircraft engines.

The right side view of the radiator reveals its true size.

The custom-built air induction to the 3-rotor Wankel engine is very unusual compared to Lycoming and Continental aircraft engines.  The alternator is belt-driven from the rear of the engine, which normally is the front when this engine is mounted in a Mazda automobile.

This view topside from the right shows the alternator mounting, oil filler cap, and the oil dip stick.  Look carefully to the right of the oil dip stick on the engine block above the word "MAZDA" and you will see this is their 13B engine.

Everything after the firewall is pretty much a standard Van's Aircraft RV-9A tip-up canopy airplane.  The extra wing tanks you saw earlier are the only exception to Bernie's airplane.  You can see Bernie is using the Van's large wing shipping crate for parts storage instead of converting it into a wing storage cradle on wheels as I did.

Bernie has another RV in his hangar built by Gabriel Ferrer.  This RV-6 was one of the last RV-6 kits sold before the RV-7 was introduced.

Bernie gets visitors by air and by other local means of transportation as you can see.  This is one of his pilot neighbors who had just driven back from Montana, arriving earlier today.  This shot was taken late in the afternoon as Eddy and I were preparing for the short return flight to Lantana.