On May 22, 12:27*pm, Bob Kuykendall wrote:

IGSO-540 = gear-upped Queen Air + eBay

I'm sorry, that _is_ a bit flippant. Please let me try again.

The short answer is, no, you can't conveniently put an IGSO-540 on the
nose of an RV-10. That's not to say that it can't be done, it can.
There are some with the resources and know-how and wherewithall and
the gumption to do it conveniently besides. And with some serious
invenstment in time and trouble, with a lot of hard lessons along the
way, you could do it, I know you could. But it's one of those things
where, if you have to ask then it's probably outside the realm of what
you'd call convenience.

The IGSO engines are big, serious machines of the sort that turbine
engines such as the PT6 made somewhat obsolete. The were mostly used
on executive transports such as Beech Queen Airs. They also appeared
on a lot of military aircraft such as trainers and transports that
were originally developed as executive transports. They tend to work
best when maintained and operated to rigorous specs.

The G tells you that its Geared, and that means that it is longer and
heavier than its direct drive couterparts. It will also use a
different prop that takes advantage of the lower output speed but is
less common and probably more expensive. The gears at the front will
be expensive specialty parts that make overhauls and prop strikes that
much more expensive. The gear case also moves the combined CG of the
engine and propeller forward, something you probably don't want on an
RV-10.

The S is for Supercharged, which means even more expensive gears and
bearings and whirly bits, except on the back of the engine instead of
the front. It's good if you want to cruise at high altitude, but not
so good if you expect to be moving the throttle briskly.

If what you wanted was a seriously go-fast high-altitude homebuilt
cruiser, you were of a mind to operate it carefully, and you had the
resources to develop the installation and feed its mighty thirst, then
the one of those big old geared supercharged engines might be just the
thing. But if you want to keep the learning curve down to a dull roar
and get into the air (relatively) quickly, I think your best bet is to
just use the engine that Van's recommends, and install it the way
everybody else does.

Your mileage has already varied. The revolution is not being
televised.

Thanks, Bob K.