This airplane was modified by cessna in the 70's, no production aircraft were produced with this engine

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y43/SS3_Gotenks/Cessna177B1.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y43/SS3_Gotenks/Cessna177B2.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y43/SS3_Gotenks/Cessna177B3.jpg

Here is a normal Cessna 177 for comparison
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y43/SS3_Gotenks/Cessna177B4.jpg

I was stopped by an older gentleman in a Lowe's parking lot a few months ago. Said he is building one/has drawn up the plans to build one. Something like that. He's been in the aerospace buisness for years, and him and his wife have been rotaryheads forever. Long story short: sounded like a hell of a plan. All the benefits of having a rotary car apply to the plane; weight, rpm's, etc. He said there were some issues with oil injectors, though. He was planning on going with some type of pre-mix.

http://www.rotaryeng.net
http://www.flyrotary.com

There has been talk of a plane using a rotory engine in one of the Yahoo message groups.
The additional bump on the cowl of the plane is probably for an rpm reduction gear box. Airplane props are only designed to work at 2K rpms. Faster than that and the tips go supersonic and that isn't a good thing.

It will run out of gas faster then a normal engine...and the air will suck. :p

Atkins Rotary has its hand in aviation.
http://www.americanrotaryengine.com/id2.html

One of their engines was in a plane that many people saw flyover at 7stock last year. Of course officially no plane with a rotary came anywhere near mazda irvine because they dont like their engines used in planes. They are afraid some liability case will come back onthem when they havent done the tech work to get them approved for aviation use.

Atkins also does marine applications
http://www.atkinsrotarymarine.com/