The Rotax 185 is a , single cylinder,

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes of the piston, one up and one down, in one revolution of the crankshaft in contrast to a four-stroke engine which re ...

, direct drive, industrial engine, built by

Rotax Rotax is the brand name for a range of internal combustion engines developed and manufactured by the Austrian company BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG (until 2016 BRP-Powertrain GmbH & Co. KG), in turn owned by the Canadian Bombardier Recreational Prod ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

for use in fire fighting water pumps that has also been adapted as an aircraft engine for use in

ultralight aircraft Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and Aircraft flight control system, conventional three-a ...

Development

The Rotax 185 was designed as a fire-fighting pump, but the rights to the design were sold by Rotax to the Wildfire Group who use the engine in their Mark 3 High Pressure Centrifugal Fire Pump. Due to its design purpose as a water pump engine it proved reliable enough for use on ultralight aircraft,Hunt, Adam & Ruth Merkis-Hunt: ''Skeletal Remains'', pages 64-70. Kitplanes Magazine, September 2000.Cliche, Andre: ''Ultralight Aircraft Shopper's Guide'' 8th Edition, page E-21. Cybair Limited Publishing, 2001. and was adopted as an engine for the twin-engine

Ultraflight Lazair The UltraFlight Lazair is a family of Canada, Canadian designed and built twin-engine Ultralight aircraft (Canada), ultralight aircraft that were sold in kit form between 1979 and 1984. It was one of the first twin-engined ultralights ...

- as a replacement for the Pioneer chainsaw engines used on the early Series I. The 185 provides enough power to allow the Lazair to be flown on floats. In the Lazair application the 185 was used to drive two propellers stacked together in

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

configuration. This was not done for aerodynamic reasons but rather because the Lazair manufacturer had ample quantities of the nylon propellers on hand for its earlier engines and stacking them was more cost efficient than scrapping them and buying new propellers.

Applications

* Lazair * Wildfire Mark-3 High Pressure Centrifugal Fire Pump

Specifications (185)

References

External links

{{Rotax aeroengines Air-cooled aircraft piston engines Rotax engines Two-stroke aircraft piston engines