On Feb 24, 4:45 pm, Jay Maynard
wrote:

because of global warming (boy, have we had to shovel a lot of that out of
our driveway this winter!),

Neither advocating nor deprecating the idea of Global Warming, but
please, local and short term weather phenomena are not indicators of
long term global weather phenomena. It's like saying "they say there
are more cars on the roads, hogwash I didn't see much traffic today at
all!"

looking at a Rotax-powered aircraft, despite my lingering misgivings about
having an engine my local mechanic can't fix.

There ain't nothing very special about a Rotax, it works in just the
same way as any other engine.