Originally Posted by 3top
There is no catastrophic failure mode - no valves to break, rods to throw, cranks to shear, pistons to burn..
3top,
This is not true of all rotaries. One of my buddies has a chunk of rotor on his desk from one of those UAV engines rotaries. Apparently a tooth on the gear on the rotor fatigued off. It eventually found itself somewhere bad, and steel is incompressable. Capow!!! It was pretty catastrophic, I can assure you. This is not to say the same failure mode hasn't been addressed in either that rotary or other makes. However, any machine can and will fail you, be it rotary, piston, or turbine.
-- IFMU