Doug,
I visited Tracy?s Suwannee river airstrip/shop/home many years ago when the 8 was under construction. We had completed our 4?s in FL at the same time with vastly different test period results, his Mazda-4 being a true revolutionary?Experimental. He was perfecting his commercial reduction drive and fuel injection system at that time and the 8 progress was slow, but steady. Despite the completion date seemingly far away, when he crunched the thrust to weight numbers with the 3 rotor, we both smiled. I could already hear big the Mazda hum..
The garage build Everyman P-51 is a reality...
V/R
Smokey
PS: The 4 featured in the time to climb has several HR2 mods. One of many challenges in my HR2 was high cowling temps. With great power comes great temperature...hence the cowl-less flight.