Mermaid M6 amphibious light sport aircraft, Mermaid M6 amphibious experimental light sport aircraft, Light Sport Aircraft Pilot News newsmagazine.

We refined this installation over the next two years with probably no less than 6 different configurations using the Rotax. After essentially complete redesign of the prototype number one here in the U.S. we continued with this power plant for the next one and half years of performing flight and water testing with good results. We were able to achieve good cooling although we utilized secondary cooling for low speed in taxiing. Even though adequate in horsepower we thought performance should be better on hot and heavily loaded days, we also realized we had propeller inefficiencies from some of the after body aerodynamic interference.

During one of our demo flights a customer  from Australia suggested we might have better performance if we work to utilize the Jabiru 125 HP power plant.  So we promptly switched gears to try this higher horsepower alternative, even though it was clear we would pay a small weight penalty. During initial flight tests this power plant proved to perform slightly better than the Rotax. But the installation was still lacking its full potential until we repositioned the power plant higher above the after body structure.  Much to our amazement this one modification substantially increased the performance of the M6. That should have been the end of the story with choosing power plants, however the Jabiru was a tough engine to cool in the pusher configuration. To date no one has successfully produced a production aircraft that can cool well, especially on a flying boat. Unfortunately we spent almost a year perfecting this engine installation until we were capable of running on step taxi without limitations.

But then came the next chapter of this decision-making process when one of my customers insisted on the Rotax installation.  Although reluctant at first this customer was politely persistent enough to get me thinking that we never really finished the Rotax 100HP installation. We approached this installation with a different mindset by utilizing more advanced CAD design applications and CNC processes. We also had a considerable amount of help from some very experienced aeronautical and aircraft engineers. This installation slowly materialized into one of the most sophisticated engine installations I?ve ever participated with. This design is cleaner and more efficient than any of its predecessors including some extremely sophisticated cooling techniques for the pusher configuration.  I?m not going into detail on this mechanism but it?s enough to say that we can run the power plant at 3000 RPM almost indefinitely with no forward motion. This is difficult to do on even a standard aircraft let alone the pusher configuration on a flying boat.  Also contributing factors which led to improvement over the initial Rotax installation was the fact that the power plant was raised almost 12 inches. We also hit the sweet spot as far as the center of thrust intersecting on the tail surfaces, it?s hard to believe but we use virtually no trim from full power setting to idle on the elevator. And the last big advantage is that we are able to swing a huge 70? hollow carbon fiber Sensenich prop. Below is a photo of the prototype production cowl that will be used.

Mermaid M6 amphibious light sport aircraft - experimental lightsport aircraft

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