Nordberg Radial Engine

[Thad]

Probably one of the weirdest radials was the Gnome of WWI fighter plane fame. Thinking was that an immense flywheel was need to spin the prop. Soooo the engine was mounted with the crank attached to the fire wall and the engine block/ cylinders, et al rotated with the prop.
IIRC French design. :roll:

 

[woodbutcher]

Hi Thad.Thats called a ROTARY engine.Brutal torque monsters.The way that RPM was controlled on those engines was a "blip switch".Basically,it was an ignition cut out switch mounted in the joy stick.The LeRhone was also a rotary engine.Google up "LeRhone" and check out those engines.Pretty interesting.Knew a man that flew them in WW1.
Leo

 

[Anonymous]

You can build your own! The last and most advanced aircraft rotary (yes, this is confusing, but the term, "rotary engine" pre-dates Wankels by many decades) was the Bentley RR-something, and you can find a set of plans for a scale model in older issues of Home Shop Machinist magazine. Also, there was a motorcycle, a mind-blowing contraption called the Megola that had a rotary engine mounted in the front wheel. http://www.kunis.nl/bikesuk/ and then hit Megola racer.

What happened to the FSP post-er who was building a Fokker D-VII with a 300-six?

(shortly thereafter) I just did the search. It was "Von Writter," and it was a 250-six. I just PMed him to ask if he would update us on the project.

 

[wallaka]

Probably one of the weirdest radials was the Gnome of WWI fighter plane fame. Thinking was that an immense flywheel was need to spin the prop. Soooo the engine was mounted with the crank attached to the fire wall and the engine block/ cylinders, et al rotated with the prop.
IIRC French design. :roll:

Most all hi-po airplane engines in the WW1 era were rotaries. It was an American design, copied by everybody else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engine

 

[Alvor315]

I saw there were a few people having some trouble with this, so I made a model of what was going on here, with Lego Mindstorms pieces. My model eventually locks up because I couldn't get the right gear ratio from the finite set of Lego gears, but I think you can pretty much get the idea of why the gears don't "transfer power" it's just a system to keep the rods oriented in the correct direction evenly. I can guarantee that mine won't last up to 400 rpm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jL22S1AwRg

Hope this helps.

Allan

 

[Anonymous]

My sluggish and befogged brain had finally wrapped itself around the problem, but thanks, Al, that's clever.

WHO invented the rotary?? Besides that Bentley, all the rotarys that come to mind are French: Gnome, LeRhone, and Clerget. The Boschies had some, incl. in the Red Baron's triplane, but I forget who made them, Mer-Benz, probably.

 

[StrangeRanger]

From Wikipedia

As Hemer noted, the Dr.I was considerably slower than contemporary Allied fighters in level flight and in a dive. Due to the low-compression Oberursel Ur. II, a clone of the Le Rhône 9J rotary engine, performance fell off dramatically at high altitudes. As the war continued, the lack of castor oil made rotary operation more difficult. The poor quality of German ersatz lubricant, known as "Voltol," resulted in many engine failures, particularly during the summer of 1918

 

[Anonymous]

Germany had a similar problem in ww2. Because their military av-gas was similar in octane to our 80/87 as used in general aviation from Piper Cubs on up, they had to build bigger and heavier engines to make the same power as the higher compression Brit and U.S. engines burning 100/130, and later 115/145. Both sides had some use of water-methanol A.D.I. (anti-detonation injection) systems which often cut in automatically at high manifold pressures, but I think only the Germans had nitrous oxide injection for "war-emergency" power settings.

I don't remember reading about what the Germans were using for aero-lubricants in WW2. In WW1, a lot of the aero-engiines used castor oil, a wonderful lubricant with a lot of less than wonderful side-effects. Those rotary engines with their whirling cylinders always slung a fair amount of castor oil into the slipstream, some of it entering the cockpit and being ingested by the aircrew, resulting in chronically tender bowels!!

 

[addo]

Yep, that's why there was always an outhouse on the airstrip. As a friend commented "Regularity was never a problem". :roll:

 

[woodbutcher]

The castor oil was the main reason that these old engines were so wonderfully preserved,when they were located many years after the war.
When the castor oil hardened,it was a better preservative than anypetroleum product.Including cosmoline.
Leo

 

[gassed250]

i love these Napier Deltic engines

http://www.wis.co.uk/justin/deltic-engine.html

 

[lyonsy]

you could fit a radial in the tragedy ya know

 

[woodbutcher]

Unless I`m mistaken,Napier also made aircraft engines before and during WW2.
Leo

 

[Thad]

One of the Brit "Bluebird" LSR vehicle was Napier powered.

The Deltic configuration is among many weird layout the Brits tried.
Opposing pistons were used in steam, diesel and petrol engines.

 

[gassed250]

you could fit a radial in the tragedy ya know

The van has 4 radials

 

[Anonymous]

WOW, what a mind-blower!!!! Never saw it before . . . and what a feat of programming the animation (far beyond my ken even after the explanation). Maybe we should alert JW; he HAS to see this one!!

Napier also built the Sabre, a twin crank "H-24", which is essentially two flat opposed twelves above and below in a common crankcase. Maybe that is what was used in the LSR cars, but the main application was in the Hawker Typhoon, a great brute of a fighter plane, 450mph in level flight even with a rather thick wing. Among other things, they were used to knock down buzz-bombs as they crossed the Channel.

I once had a look at a very rare W-24 Allison 3420 (cubic inch) in an unlimited hydroplane. GM/Allison made a few of these which were basically two 1710 V-12s (thousands of these were used in P-38s, P-39s, P-40s, and others), on a common crankcase. The W-24 was intended for one of the experimental aircraft that never got very far (he boat was a slug, through no fault of the engine).

I have a small quibble with the website's section on "other engines," in which they indicate that an inline five is inherently balanced as is an inline six. Audi figures the balance is good enough, but Mer-Benz thought it necessary to incorporate a balancer-shaft.

 

[fb71]

the advantage to an I5 is the fact that the resonant frequency is roving, same idea as an odd-fire v6. It can still benefit from a balance shaft, as its not self-balancing like an I6.

 

[ludwig]

Check that October HOT ROD mag with LaGrasta and Jett. There is a picture of a motorcycle built around a radial engine. Really wild.

 

[rmt]

... but Mer-Benz thought it necessary to incorporate a balancer-shaft.

Tell me about this "balancer-shaft". I recently rebuilt the 5 cylinder in my 300D, there was no such thing. I've never heard anyone anywhere mention it either, nor do the factory service manuals. Except for MB robustness there is nothing out of the ordinary about the engine.

 

[Anonymous]

Really? I was mulling over the eventual re-engining of my '71 280 SEL 2.8L gasoline six with the diesel five, and did some reading last year, which included that information about the balance-shaft. Could there have been more than one model of that engine? If nobody here gives us an answer, I'll see what I can find out.