Rotary or inline?

[Readie]

A quick straw poll.



If you were an aviator in WW1 would you prefer a rotary or inline engine to power your aeroplane?

I'm on the fence ( unusually ) with this one...

Cheers
John

[FLYBOYJ]

Inline. When I was in A&P school we had a rotary (Gnome le Rhone). An engineering marvel but when you saw it operate and saw the amount of oil it would throw it would make you shiver!

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Isn't a rotary different from a radial or am I mistaken? Aha, went looked. With a rotary engine, the engine case rotates around the crankshaft. With a radial engine the crankshaft is what rotates. So, I've answered my question.

[davebender]

Mercedes Engine History | The Vintage Aviator
I'll take a reliable Mercedes D.III inline six over a rotary engine if given a choice.

[nuuumannn]

I'll take your Mercedes D III and raise you a Rolls Royce Falcon.

[tyrodtom]

They also had V-8's, the Hispano-Suiza in various models, also other manufactors made V8's also, Wolseley, Sunbeam and others.
The Spads and SE-5 were both mostly powered by HS engines.
I'd prefer a SE-5a with the 200hp Wolseley V8.

The rotaries used castor oil as a lubricant, mixed with the gas, like a 2 cycle. With all the oil it sent out with the exhaust, it had to be a extra fire hazard, plus we all know what swallowing castor oil will do to a person. But rotaries made very good power for their weight.

[nuuumannn]

It's interesting to note that other than the Rolls engines, the British failed to produce an original in-line design that was really good. The Wolseley was essentially a Hisso built under licence but with better tolerances in manufacture, which made it more reliable. Among some of the duds were the Sunbeam Arab, again designed to substitute the Hisso V8, the Siddeley Deasy Puma, not producing anywhere near its rated horsepower, anything by Sunbeam, really - Mohawk - extensively used, but unreliable - Maori - unreliable and narrow usage. The Beardmore Galloway Atlantic - promising but overly technical and plenty of room for improvement, which led to the Siddeley Deasy Puma, hardly an improvement at all.

[Readie]

Rotary engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sopwith Camel and Spitfire flying in formation - YouTube

One of my favourite WW1 fighters is the Camel but, what a plane to learn to fly and control...jeeez.

John

[Readie]

plus we all know what swallowing castor oil will do to a person.

Seeing the Red Baron appear out of the clouds would have a similar effect

John

[davebender]

That's one engine I don't want. Reliability was horrible. Fighting the Red Baron is bad enough. Fighting the Red Baron with a defective engine would make me wonder why I volunteered for flight training to get out of the infantry.

[Readie]

The Camel turned rather slowly to the left, which resulted in a nose up attitude due to the torque of the rotary engine. But the engine torque also resulted in the ability to turn to the right in half the time of other fighters, although that resulted in more of a tendency towards a nose down attitude from the turn. Because of the faster turning capability to the right, to change heading 90° to the left, many pilots preferred to do it by turning 270° to the right.

Ummm...the line in is looking good to me. But, which one?
John

[tyrodtom]

Sort of amazing that they would build over 48,000 engines and power over half of the Allied figters with them if they were "unreliable"
Granted the geared version, the HS-8Bb, did have problems with the reduction gear, but the ungeared verisions of the Hispano served well enough.

Volunteering to fly was just a good way to get out of the cold and mud, everybody at the time realized that flying was just as likely, or maybe more likely, to kill them as the trenches, flying was just a more plesant way to die.

[davebender]

Sort of amazing that they would build over 48,000 engines and power over half of the Allied figters with them if they were "unreliable"

Chauchat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It's also sort of amazing France would built 262,000 of the awful Chauchat light machineguns. Five times as many as the Lewis LMG. But they did.

[nuuumannn]

Sort of amazing that they would build over 48,000 engines and power over half of the Allied figters with them if they were "unreliable"

Nah, they were pretty crap! Maybe that's an oversimplification. They were unreliable, but the fact behind their mass use was that they had a good power to weight ratio. I've read plenty of tales of cylinders coming off in flight, glow plug lines snapping, props being shed, fuel lines being blocked. poor maintenance in the conditions at those front line airfields suffered wouldn't have helped.

An interesting thing I once heard from a (current) Camel driver; he told me that part of the reason behind the high accident rate in training whilst flying the type was because of mismanagement of the fuel system.



Fuel pressure on the Camel was created by the little propeller driving a fuel pump; without this, the engine would stop. Failures of the mechanism were not unheard of either. He also said that he found the Camel not any more difficult to fly than other WW1 types he had flown (I can't really argue with him!). A lot of it was pure inexperience and a lack of a proper training syllabus. A bit like throwing a rookie driver who learned on a Suzuki Swift straight into an F1 car!

[Readie]

aero engines of World War One

I had forgotten the Liberty engine.

Blackadder - Lord Flashheart Training School - Private Plane - YouTube

Ummm..get shot in the trenches or get shot in the air?

John