Full Version: Radial engine
+1 Rear-engined. +1 Air-cooled! 
Thanks for posting. Very cool.
Cheers,Dion
Cheers,Dion
That is a lot of rotating mass.
If you can ever make it down to the San Diego Air & Space Museum they have a rotating radial A/C engine. My first thought was why? It could probably turn on a dime to the right but Heaven help you in left bank turns.
The radial engines are a way to pack a whole lot of displacement into a relatively small space.
The rotary engines, which are the ones where the crankshaft is held still and the whole engine turns, have more complex reasons.
Primarily, because engines of that time were crap. In most cases, they required a rather large and heavy flywheel to even keep running. Cooling was also a problem, most especially in engines that were going to be shot at.
The rotary engine was air-cooled, and didn't need sophisticated ducting the way the later and larger radials did. It also served as its own flywheel, meaning that the engine could actually be lighter than a non-rotating engine of similar output.
The torque steer they had was a monster, though. And there were other problems, as well. Most had very suboptimal valve opening timing, for one thing. For another, they didn't deal well with any kind of propeller gearing, because the prop was bolted straight to the crankcase, so that meant they had to run at the same (limited) RPM as the prop.
They also had total-loss oiling systems, where the oil came in from a tank, went into the engine, and fairly quickly was thrown out the exhaust. The oil was castor oil, which was also known as a cure for constipation. So the pilots evidently all had the raging shits, all the time.
--DD
The rotary engines, which are the ones where the crankshaft is held still and the whole engine turns, have more complex reasons.
Primarily, because engines of that time were crap. In most cases, they required a rather large and heavy flywheel to even keep running. Cooling was also a problem, most especially in engines that were going to be shot at.
The rotary engine was air-cooled, and didn't need sophisticated ducting the way the later and larger radials did. It also served as its own flywheel, meaning that the engine could actually be lighter than a non-rotating engine of similar output.
The torque steer they had was a monster, though. And there were other problems, as well. Most had very suboptimal valve opening timing, for one thing. For another, they didn't deal well with any kind of propeller gearing, because the prop was bolted straight to the crankcase, so that meant they had to run at the same (limited) RPM as the prop.
They also had total-loss oiling systems, where the oil came in from a tank, went into the engine, and fairly quickly was thrown out the exhaust. The oil was castor oil, which was also known as a cure for constipation. So the pilots evidently all had the raging shits, all the time.
--DD
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