Corvair Airplane Engine: 5 Revolutionary Reasons It Transformed Aviation History

Welcome to this year’s engine week. It’s time to learn all about engines and aviation. Firewall for kits, sales, and support for the engines, overhauls, firewall forward components, radiators, cowlings, and engine mounts.

This is based on several hundred Corvair airplane engine-powered Xenos that have flown over the years. Thunderbolt is kind of its animal for Lycoming, now it’s Continental Titan, that’s what they came together, and you were looking for service and support dealers currently. And this is the UL 260, and this is the low compression version. All right, everybody, welcome back to engine week 2024. We do this about every two years to give you updates on what’s going on in the aviation Corvair Airplane Engine industry as far as engines.

1. Origins of the Corvair-Powered Zenith Demo Plane

William, we are here at your hangar in what’s the Green Cove Springs right, Green Cove Springs just south of Jacksonville, all right so one of the things I want to talk off just off the start here is this airplane because we talk airplanes right behind us, kind of a new addition to William’s hangar, you now have a new to you demo plane, so how did that come to came to be and what is the idea behind it, 20 years ago or now we’re getting older, 22 years ago.

I had the first Corvair powered Zenith, we bought a kit from the Heins family and finished the first Corvair powered Zenith, it was the first tail wheel XL and the first dual stick aircraft and we finished it in about 100 days and used it as a demo airplane for many years and took it to Oshkosh three or four times, showed it to a lot of people and that was the beginning of Corvair Airplane Engine in Zenith and it took off and was popular, followed up by several hundred people following that.

2. The Sale and Its Legacy

At a certain point we looked at it and somebody made a great offer on the airplane and we sold the Corvair Airplane Engine and funded the purchase of the house in the hangar here, not completely but there was a great down payment and so that’s how we came into the house, but that’s also how we lost our Zenith demo airplane.

3. Return of the Zenith Demo Aircraft

But for an awful lot of years, we had so many customers who had finished them and flew them to air shows, people were more interested in taking a look at what other craftsmen had built rather than just us, and one of the people who built one of those airplanes in the wake of ours was our friend who owned this airplane and finished it, and it was done about 15 years ago.

Time rolls on, all good things, you know, flow, and eventually our friend, who had built and finished and flown this airplane for a lot of years, got to a senior aviator status where he wasn’t going to fly anymore, and he called us up and said, you need another 601 to show people, come on out and pick up mine.

So we got his, and where was that, at Tulsa, had the road trip from hell bringing it back on a trailer because I wanted the airframe and all of the stuff, but what we wanted to show was a fresh, current engine installation on it. So he kept the engine for another project of his, and we just said we’re going to put a brand new, current-to-2025-status Corvair airplane engine and do a demo of how this all is installed, and it’s very much like it always was.

We have a book on Zenith installation of Corvair, it’s been very popular over the years, but I wanted to show people a couple of updates and some fresh stuff, and then bring the airplane out and fly it around and show it to people and sort of join the fun again.

4. Restoration and Simplicity in Design

But what better way to showcase than on a stand that looks pretty, on an actual soon-to-be flyable aircraft, and the airplane is just getting a couple of updates, like the Zenith puck nose gear system in place of the bungee, and a general cleanup. But the airplane is going back in action, it was flyable like 60 days ago when we went out and picked it up, and it’ll be flyable again by Christmas or so. There’s no big rush; we just want to have it out for the 2025 season, and it is not going to be a show airplane, it’s just going to be a really good example of it.

So this isn’t too dissimilar to the one you had; this is bare metal, and your other one was bare metal but polished, right? You’re talking about the one with the yellow-blue stripe on it, so it’s very similar to that one. I like to show people examples of—I think Zenith is a great platform—because you can paint it to the ultimate show plane, you can do very elaborate interiors, they have all sorts of stuff, people get deep into avionics and everything.

But I like to demonstrate to people how light, simple, and cheap Zenith can be, by just deciding what it is you’re not going to have. And you can always paint an airplane later. This makes it a great candidate for displaying the Corvair airplane engine in a real, functional aircraft setting.

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5. Benefits of Polished Finish and Fuel System Updates

But Zenith, being made out of 6061, you can polish them and they’ll stay polished for a long, long time. You can go as sparkling as you want to go, and the polish is amazingly light and inexpensive compared to paint. The advantage of polish is that it can be freezing out and you can polish in your hangar, or it can be sweltering or 100% humidity or anything, or somebody else can be doing something dusty in your hangar at the same time while you’re polishing. None of these things apply to painting. And also, you know, with painting, you have to be good in real time—polishing, you can learn as you go.

 Well, let’s—I’ll grab the camera—let’s kind of walk around. You can talk about the updates to this and the airframe. This gives a great opportunity to show how practical and efficient the Zenith airframe can be, especially when paired with a reliable Corvair airplane engine.

6. Classic Techniques, New Technology

Let’s dive into the engine. As I was saying before, we have a Zenith installation manual, and this is a copy of the installation manual. What I want to show people is how timeless some of this stuff is. There’s a page on fuel systems showing you how the fuel system is installed. I’d like you to go down, pan down there and have a look-see at that. Some things that were good ideas and were tested two decades ago, we still use.

So, a lot of the stuff is based on proven, simple ways of doing things. The updates that we have relate to some of the newer products that are on the engine, but the installation is the same as it always was, including the motor mounts, all of that stuff. So this is based on several hundred Corvair-powered Zeniths that have flown over the years. The Corvair airplane engine continues to prove its value as a reliable and timeless choice in experimental aviation.

7. Modern 2850 Engine and Affordable Performance

But here is a modern 2850 engine installation, the same classic airframe, the engine looks a lot alike but it has very small subtle details that make it a little bit different than it was years ago, we have lighter weight starters,

we have front thrust bearing, fifth bearing setup on there, little details of the gold oil systems that were done over the years and just subtle stuff and at the beginning, at the very beginning of all the engine builds, the engine I promote these days is a 2850 which is 2,850cc Corvair which is all the technology advancements in still trying to keep the idea of the engine being affordable on the affordable end of experimental aviation. 

The Corvair airplane engine continues to evolve while maintaining its reputation for reliability and value.

8. Carburetor and TBI Advancements

There are a lot of great options for stuff, if you’re made out of money, but if you’re made out of sweat equity, we have the option for you. So, you’re talking about fuel systems here that have stood the test of time. One thing I do see, and I think now has become kind of like a design lock for you, you’re using a different carburetor.

 Want to talk about that for a moment? The carburetor that you see on this is a Rotec TBI. Rotec is from Australia; they have been around for a long time. They are sort of an updated version, and an improved version, of an Ellison. 

We flew Ellison for years, but Ellison is no longer available. TBIs have been around for a long, long time, and they have a couple of subtle things that make them evolutionary improvements over them. The Corvair airplane engine continues to benefit from these small innovations that enhance performance.