I live in a wooded area, and the land owner said no gas engines on airplanes. Can I converet a DA 85 or a CRRC 50 to Ethenol?, if so, what do I need to do? I am new to Gas aircraft engines, so I thought I would ask. Thanks.

As I understand it, older Walbro carbs had a problem with ethanol, but newer carbs have gaskets made of suitable material. I believe that rebuild kits come with the new material. The engine should run, but may be difficult to get tuned, and will of course use more fuel. I ran ethanol in my 20 year old lawnmower and it did OK, with a very slight loss of power, and was harder to start.

RS

Some of the Walbro carbs will pass enough fuel to work with ethanol, others need to be modded for more fuel passage area. The other concern is finding a proper oil as oils typically used with Gasoline will not work. The oils used in Standard methanol based glow fuel will work as will some others. One popular brand is Klotz and they make a couple of different oils that are compatible. Some of the major glow fuel manufacturers also sell their proprietary oils seperately. As far as the engine itself, it will run just fine on ethanol with no mods needed.

Perhaps he meant, No engines designed to run on any type of fuel because of fire danger.

This would be unfortunate, but reasonable.

That would put you into the electrics.
At least altitude would not be a problem.

I'm curious why gasoline is not allowed and where you would get ethanol without gasoline in it. The oil is a problem. I've run Klotz Original Techniplate in E85 and it has done well, in converted four stroke glow engines.

Greg

I see the OP is from Oregon, so the land owner is probably an environmentalist who won't allow fossil fuels. Maybe biofuels are OK.
Sorry, that's a poor stereotype, but may be true.
I was also thinking of E85, not sure if pure ethanol is even available and how it would perform. And what could be used as an oil? Even synthetic oil is petroleum based. Would castor work?

RS

You can sure convert it to run on methanol. Its cheap enough @ about $6/gal, and Klotz mixes with it. Ive got several converted weedies both 2 and 4 stroke that run well on the conversion. Heck it basis is wood, should be "green", right?

the environmentalists are mostly in Portland, Eugene and Corvallis, LaPine is a long drive from those areas... not saying there aren't any over there... I don't think there's anywhere to get E85 over there as it's barely anywhere around here.

that being said, the only thing I can think of is sound limits, which the sound on methanol would be the same as on gas...

Maybe you should ask him why no gas? It could be an easy problem to deal with (noise, fire hazzard, ect. )

As far as a fire hazard, I've witnessed a number of planes crash and the LiPo's catch fire. In one incident a grass fire started that was very difficult for the fire department to put out. It was actually the first fire I'd ever seen started by an RC plane crashing.

I posted this question a few days permature. The land we are using is owned by a timber company, and the origional report the members received was no gas engines because of the fire danger. So here I set with 4 gas engines and can't use them at this field.
After I brought this matter up at our last club meeting, I found out after posting , that we can use gas engines on aircraft, if you have a fire extinguisher (common sense), a shovel and an ax with you when at the field, this applies at all times, electrics, fuel or gas . The information we just received was that the landowner meant no gas operated chain saws because of the fire danger, sparks from the chain etc. The flying of jets is prohibited at all times.
I thank you for your input on my question, and apologize for posting before I had accurate information.
Regards and have fun flying!