I’ve seen these in museums and always wondered whose idea it was to have the entire motor swinging around a stationary crankshaft. Weird idea, but then airplanes were less than 10 years old at the time.
It was for cooling. These engines were so inefficient and weak that standard air cooling wouldn't work. So increase the amount of air movement over the engine you have the engine spin
Everything was a work in progress. I think it's quite amazing how fast the engine evolved for all vehicles. Tjis was just the best they could do with the knowledge, design needs and industry they had at the time, we cant expect the designers to know how to make the most efficient vehicle without experience or time to test it through years of use. Just like the jet, they had to make a ton of less efficient jets before the f22 raptor and judging by its design, they must have been on to something because the radial engine looks very similar with cylinders in a circle, so I'm assuming that shape, is what played apart in the design. Like why they used a circular engine like radial or rotary instead of a car style inline or V piston engine in airplane in the first place. Sure there's a good reason why and this was the best they came up with at first, until they could get enough pilot feedback and troubleshoot mechanical failures to know what to improve on or scrap. Like exhaust in the face lol.
The rotary engine was invent in 1891 from the french motorcycle builder Millet and put inside the rear wheel from hes bike.Later was the design improved from Gnome to fit on aircrafts because this design was the lightest and the best cooled awailable, only in 1917 came much better inline water cooled engines like the 260hp 12cyl Renault use on the Bréguet 14 …
No throttle, basically just turned the ignition on and off. Lubrication was with castor oil, which sprrayed back in copious amounts, ensuring pilots never had to worry about being constipated.
My dad was a motor mechanic at Carlstrom Field in Florida in the First World War. I have some photos of him running tests on le Rhones. The building in the background of the photo is covered in castor oil as were the mechanics! Really geat to see one running.
Randomly came across this doing the RUclips crawl through vintage plane stuff, as I watched I couldn't help but think that the voice of narration sounded like a fellow I knew by the name of Gene Soper, it brought a huge smile to my face when I read the description and realized it is indeed Gene who I was hearing!
No one has mentioned it yet, but metalurgy and weight. Early engines easily overheated and would seize, or worse yet, start detonating the 40-50 octane gasoline of that day. Which could cause the motor to explode. Compression had to be low and mixtures rich to keep an inline running. Parts were wear-prone and fatigue-prone. The more you had, the more that could fail. The rotoray radial had the advantage of great cooling which allowed comparitively leaner mixtures (not sure if they had higher compression) and more power to be made. It also didn't need a carburator, radiator, hoses, coolant, long heavy crankshaft, heavy cam, etc. It used an absolute minimum number of parts, which could be cast then shop-machined on any lathe of sufficient size. So it was easy to build. And it had a very high power-to-weight ratio. Simplicity and P:W made it a great choice until inline engines exceeded about 150 hp. A few two-row rotaries were built, but the basic rotary radial design limited the drgree to which the engine could be scaled up before the gyroscopic forces exceeded practicality. However, if you bolted the crankcase to the airframe and turned the crankshaft, you got many of the advantages of the rotary in a package that could be massively scaled. Couple that with duralumin-type alloys, leaded high-octane gasoline, a centrifugal supercharger, a massive turbocharger, and later...fuel injection, water injection, and exhaust-recovery turbines and you got a real winner.
There were some designs where both the prop and the crankcase were rotating, but in different directions. That (partly) compensated the gyroscopic forces, but complicated the construction. Also "detonating" doesn't really make the motor explode, at least not immidiately. It just ruines the bearings really quick (which then may lead to conrod failure followed by an unscheduled rapid disassembly, yes).
It worked but one of the big disadvantages was the gryroscopic effect of the spinning cylinders. Great if turning in direction of the spin not so good if turning against it
The 1,2,3 modes weren't anything to do with the throttle or fuel... that was controlling the ignition... I believe it controlled how many spark plugs fired.
Later model rotary engines like the big Bentley used in the latest Sopwith Camels did have marginal throttle control. It was hard to throttle one with a carburetor throttle because the airflow balance was affected by the whole engine and crankcase. Any change in inlet airflow required all kinds of mixture and ignition changes to be effective so these engines ran with little to no throttle control. The earliest had two power settings- off and full-blast.
There is a replica Sopwith Camel with a Le Rhone engine flying in New Zealand. I've seen it at air shows and it can be disconcerting, seeing it flying around, running on full power, then suddenly spluttering and popping, while knowing that this is the way it operates normally. Here it is, flying at Tauranga: ruclips.net/video/Hq78ZocOAkY/видео.html
@FuLLeFFekT1 Actually it IS rotary. In an radial engine the cylinders don't move and the crankshaft rotates. However back in WWI airplane engines still had cooling problems so somebody solved that by having the crankshafted fixed in one position and have the cylinders themselves rotate. The propeller rotated as fast as the cylinders around the fixed crank. The Wankel engine used in some cars is popularily referenced as a "Rotary" by people in general. Anyway, this is not a radial engine.
Seems crazy now. A German inventer used the same principal to put an engine inside a motorbike front wheel. Now that was crazy. The few that were made are now very valuable. It's called a Magola.
These old motors had a mixing chamber instead of a carburetor, iirc, which I guess is why they had a button on the yoke to cut the mag to control engine speed at landing and taxi. The oiling system is hilarious to me. Just blowing that mess out the end. I guess that's why the pilots wore the rag over their face. This old stuff makes me wonder what the hell those people were thinking. Their grasp of physics was a little loose I guess
In an emergency, the RAF of WW2 could have the first aircraft moving down the runway within a minute. In slightly more recent times, I've seen a squadron of 6 English Electric Lightnings (which were high speed interceptors from the 1950's) scramble and be through the clouds in less than a minute, but the engines were running, ready for the scramble signal. From leaving the runway up to cloud base at 1100 feet (330 metres) took them no more than 9 seconds.
Very cool. These engines were the latest technology 100 yrs ago. They had superior power-to-weight ratio to inline engines of that time and were called ROTARY because the entire crankcase-cylinder assembly rotated around a stationary crank. I've noticed nearly everyone who posts a video of one of these engines has to have (and win) a debate with a commentor insisting: "this isn't rotary...it has pistons...it's a radial...Wankel is rotary...blah,blah." Must get tiresome at some point.
What gets tiresome is people who don't know the difference between radial and rotary engines. Stationary radials were more popular than rotating radials because they could rev higher - if you rev a rotating radial too fast the cylinders come off. Both rotating and stationary radials were popular in the early days, stationary radials are still made. If you call this engine a rotary, then you are simply displaying your ignorance. I have known these engines for over 50 years and they weren't called rotaries then, either.
50 years takes you back to.. 1967?? You need to go back 100 years. What did they call them back in 1917? Everything I've read says they were called "rotary engines" back when they were in use. The MAIN reason they quit using them was that you had enormous gyroscopic precession when rotating large masses of metal like this. Not too bad when the engines were of around 100hp, but by the time you got to the Sopwith Camel (engines of up to 150hp) you had major handling issues. Planes were getting bigger and faster, and you needed more and more horsepower and bigger and heavier engines. Eventually they reached a size where the gyroscopic effects were just too big to be usable and other types of engine could provide the power without these effects.
Bruce Roger Morgan: 50 years ago there were no rotary engines being made, (there are now though), so you are showing complete ignorance on this subject, this is a ROTARY engine, 100 years ago, when these were made, there were no ,what you now know as radials being made, just check on your facts and learn.
Correct, they were called Rotary Le Rhones from day one, simply because they rotated around the stationary crankshaft. Pilots hated them because of prop & engine induced swing on takeoff as previously mentioned, requiring precise rudder control.
I've often wondered about these rotary engines - the gyroscopic effect from all that metal whirling round must have made the plane very reluctant to turn. How difficult were they to fly?
avada The pistons are not reciprocating, and the cylinder aren't either. Pistons and cylindres are rotating about different centres. But neither pistons nor cylindres reciprocate. I had to think it over several times before I was sure. And I am a mechanic and used to all sorts of engines!
“Starts on the first pull every time, it’s never failed” famous last words 🤣. Also, after staring it (on the first pull of course) how do you remove the wheel chalks?
When the whole engine spins it's a rotary engine (rotary engine literally means "spinning/rotating" engine). A radial doesn't spin. Radial is a cylinder arrangement, rotary is a type of engine operation. A rotary has a "radial" cylinder arrangement but they OPERATE by rotating. In other words a radial runs just like any other internal combustion engine with a flywheel except the cylinders are in a circle. A rotary HAS to spin in order to RUN and for it to be balanced FOR that spinning the cylinders need to be arranged in a circle. A rotary has no flywheel the engine itself acts as one. Cooling and power to weight ratio are why they were used.
it's like boarding a flight today: "before we start the official starting process, we'd like to pre-crank our VIP cylinders, props and components operating with small parts" :D
kubanskiloewe The Oberuersel was a license-built Le Rhône engine. After war broke out production continued even though the license was revoked. The Germans were never happy with the Oberuersel and would replace them with captured Le Rhônes whenever possible.
No,no,no----it's a ROTARY engine--The crankshaft is bolted to the engine mounts and the Prop is bolted to the engine crankcase. The ENGINE rotates around the STATIONARY CRANKSHAFT taking the prop along with it. This engine pre-dated the RADIAL although the principle & firing order are similar.
These times (1913-20), rotary engine had best weight/power ratio, compared to other engine types. This was critically important for planes. The disadvantage of this engine type is impossibility of further power increase.
The power to weight ratio advantage was; because the engine spun, the cylinders were self cooling. No water or radiator was needed to cool the engine, therefore the engine was kept light and didn't overheat while producing enough horsepower for flight.
Dead stick is an engine out landing....this looks pretty normal to me😏 Doing a pre flight with the engine running and no one in the cockpit.....not a great idea.
NCF8710 Huh? They have the same parts as the vast majority of engines in cars. Only functional difference is the crank is fixed and the prop is mounted to the case and both spin together. Smooth because well balanced. This is not a wankel rotary.
Of course, this is certainly not a Wankel rotary engine. Unlike the piston engines found in cars and other machinery, the pistons in a rotary engine are fixed to a common point offset from the center of rotation of the cylinder block. The pistons move in a circular motion along with the cylinder block. They do not move back and forth like they do in a conventional piston engine. The offset between the piston center of rotation and the cylinder block center of rotation determines the 'stroke' displacement of the engine and therefore the compression ratio. The absence of piston reciprocation is responsible for the inherent smoothness of these engines. Research these engines and you should find an animation that will illustrate this clearly.
NCF8710 Let me help you out a bit. Dad piloted a Neptune for 25 years, 2 radials in the early years. Uncle taught avaition mechanics at a private college, dad-in-law had 4 super wasps to keep running on his plane, buddy's ag-cat had a radial. Now, all of these were conventional radials, granted. But I can assure you, I've known about the WWI tech since the 60's. Now, you can pretend to have some knowledge 'cause you saw a great animation. All Otto-cycle engines, which this is, and all engines using a piston that moves from top of the bore to bottom of the bore, back and forth...hmmm, whats another word for that. That the case spins, rather than the crank makes no difference, the piston still reciprocates in the bore. It is a radial engine. It is a rotary radial engine. it is a reciprocating, Otto-cycle, rotary radial engine. It is the nature of radials of all types to be smooth, fixed case, or fixed crank...it is a balanced design.
If anyone is pretending to have knowledge of these engines, it is you. I do not need any help from someone who is obviously unqualified to do so. The pistons in the WW1 rotary aircraft engines (LeRhone) DO NOT move linearly as they do in conventional radial engines (P&W Wasp). They ARE NOT reciprocating parts as they remain at a fixed distance from their point of rotation within the engine. They only exhibit rotary motion. They have zero linear momentum and generate zero vibration from this source. Do some research before you make a fool of yourself.
NCF8710 You see the 9 cylinders, right? Inside are 9 pistons. each has a wrist pin, and connecting rod. The 8 rods connect to the 9th, which connects to a crankshaft. The ONLY difference here, is the crankshaft is the part that is fixed to the aircraft via the engine mount. The crank does not move relative to the plane. And, again for the thich, and I"ll type slowly, ..All Otto-cycle engines are reciprocating. This is not a rotary engine, it is a radial who's case rotates. Reciprocating always has referred to the piston's movement relative to the cylinder. But you are more than welcome to show ...nevermind.
@FuLLeFFekT1 The cylinders rotate (as in move) in the rotary engine. Very clear for anybody to see. In a radial the cylinders don't rotate (or move in any direction). You know what Bertrand Russell once said:"Whoever proclaims another one a complete idiot often makes an idiot of himself." And aside from that you're flagged too.
j267699 my great uncle Harold was a machinist and RFC air mechanic during WW1 so the rotary aircraft engine has always been well known and understood in our family!
@FuLLeFFekT1 You're thinking Wankle. Wankle engines have rotors, and rotary engine has pistons. The engine in this video was called a rotary engine long before peole started calling the Wankle a rotary.
*Wankel. And you're right; the Wankel engine is not a rotary engine. It has no rotating cylinders. It doesn't even have cylinders or pistons. It is an epicycloidal engine, essentially with only one moving part.
Thomas -Morse Scout was old technology by 1917, the German aircraft were more advanced by then and could out fly it. So was the British aircraft by then and the French. The T-M Scout could only carry one Merlin machine gun vs two by all other aircraft. American was way to far behind in aircraft building to make any difference in the air war.
I always like the Thomas - Morse scout. Too bad it arrived too late for World War One to have any significance. But America never put much stock into developing fighters with our neutrality stance from 1914 onward.
I believe the tech behind the Thomas - Morse scout was a result of the British sharing their aviation expertise. Kind of like a World War One version of Lend - Lease, in reverse.
yes and Wankel engines are not rotary despite the common calling, but épicycloïdal rotor engines like they german name "kreiskolbenmotor" or "drehkolbenmotor"
That's not a rotary engine , it's a radial engine get it wright ! Radial 9 cylinder engines were made. Pratt and Whitney also had two row 3 row 4 row all bolted back to back in B 25 bombers.
Nope, thats rotary engine with entire engine rotating, radial refers to all engines with cylinders placed radially, all rotaries are radials. Not all radials are rotaries.
Robert, the rotary has a fixed crankshaft that the entire engine rotates around. The radial is a fixed crankcase with a rotating crank shaft. The confusion comes from the Wankel engine being called a rotary engine.
There is a company at Omaka Air Field in New Zealand making rotaries to order: cams.net.nz This is their test rig: ruclips.net/video/j16aTccXIbk/видео.html
I’ve seen these in museums and always wondered whose idea it was to have the entire motor swinging around a stationary crankshaft. Weird idea, but then airplanes were less than 10 years old at the time.
It was for cooling. These engines were so inefficient and weak that standard air cooling wouldn't work. So increase the amount of air movement over the engine you have the engine spin
Everything was a work in progress. I think it's quite amazing how fast the engine evolved for all vehicles. Tjis was just the best they could do with the knowledge, design needs and industry they had at the time, we cant expect the designers to know how to make the most efficient vehicle without experience or time to test it through years of use. Just like the jet, they had to make a ton of less efficient jets before the f22 raptor and judging by its design, they must have been on to something because the radial engine looks very similar with cylinders in a circle, so I'm assuming that shape, is what played apart in the design.
Like why they used a circular engine like radial or rotary instead of a car style inline or V piston engine in airplane in the first place.
Sure there's a good reason why and this was the best they came up with at first, until they could get enough pilot feedback and troubleshoot mechanical failures to know what to improve on or scrap. Like exhaust in the face lol.
It was state of the art at the time. Look at the first cell phones. They look hilarious to us today
The rotary engine was invent in 1891 from the french motorcycle builder Millet and put inside the rear wheel from hes bike.Later was the design improved from Gnome to fit on aircrafts because this design was the lightest and the best cooled awailable, only in 1917 came much better inline water cooled engines like the 260hp 12cyl Renault use on the Bréguet 14 …
No throttle, basically just turned the ignition on and off. Lubrication was with castor oil, which sprrayed back in copious amounts, ensuring pilots never had to worry about being constipated.
I'm very happy that she still goes, what a wonderful beast.
Didn’t they also have a Kaufman starter that used shotgun cartridges.
My dad was a motor mechanic at Carlstrom Field in Florida in the First World War. I have some photos of him running tests on le Rhones. The building in the background of the photo is covered in castor oil as were the mechanics! Really geat to see one running.
hey kdl, steve.
ken, remember our show and tell of old airplanes at page school 5th grade. you even brought in your dad's leather flying cap and goggles.
Randomly came across this doing the RUclips crawl through vintage plane stuff, as I watched I couldn't help but think that the voice of narration sounded like a fellow I knew by the name of Gene Soper, it brought a huge smile to my face when I read the description and realized it is indeed Gene who I was hearing!
tell him to stop bantering so much
Startup starts at 3:02
I totally fall in love with this plane and engine :-)
Thanks for uploading and thanks for _NOT_ dub it with music!
To think, they used to lubricate those engines with caster oil. Took on a whole new meaning of "needing to go".
I use castor oil in the total loss oil system of my Jawa 350 twin sport :)
Castrol
Castor oil is the only thing I use in 2 stroke engines unless it’s below 30 degrees Fahrenheit
At the old Rhinebeck Aerodrome they said that the pilot's flight time was limited by how often the pilot had to land and relive himself.
That’s why WWI pilot’s drank Brandy.
No one has mentioned it yet, but metalurgy and weight. Early engines easily overheated and would seize, or worse yet, start detonating the 40-50 octane gasoline of that day. Which could cause the motor to explode. Compression had to be low and mixtures rich to keep an inline running. Parts were wear-prone and fatigue-prone. The more you had, the more that could fail. The rotoray radial had the advantage of great cooling which allowed comparitively leaner mixtures (not sure if they had higher compression) and more power to be made. It also didn't need a carburator, radiator, hoses, coolant, long heavy crankshaft, heavy cam, etc. It used an absolute minimum number of parts, which could be cast then shop-machined on any lathe of sufficient size. So it was easy to build. And it had a very high power-to-weight ratio. Simplicity and P:W made it a great choice until inline engines exceeded about 150 hp. A few two-row rotaries were built, but the basic rotary radial design limited the drgree to which the engine could be scaled up before the gyroscopic forces exceeded practicality. However, if you bolted the crankcase to the airframe and turned the crankshaft, you got many of the advantages of the rotary in a package that could be massively scaled. Couple that with duralumin-type alloys, leaded high-octane gasoline, a centrifugal supercharger, a massive turbocharger, and later...fuel injection, water injection, and exhaust-recovery turbines and you got a real winner.
There were some designs where both the prop and the crankcase were rotating, but in different directions. That (partly) compensated the gyroscopic forces, but complicated the construction.
Also "detonating" doesn't really make the motor explode, at least not immidiately. It just ruines the bearings really quick (which then may lead to conrod failure followed by an unscheduled rapid disassembly, yes).
Nice. Thanks
The whole engine spins thats madd
Fixed crank. Bolted straight to the airframe.
love early biplanes (and triplanes)
Me too, I like Fokker dr.1
@@santiagoamado9056 i have that plane as a model
@@TSAR2010 I have the sopwith Camel from revell
and the albatroz
It worked but one of the big disadvantages was the gryroscopic effect of the spinning cylinders. Great if turning in direction of the spin not so good if turning against it
It created its own airflow for cooling and saved weight because the engine was itself the flywheel.
These Le Rhone rotary engines didn't have a throttle as such like we are used to today. To control revs the pilot "blipped" the ignition on and off.
The 1,2,3 modes weren't anything to do with the throttle or fuel... that was controlling the ignition... I believe it controlled how many spark plugs fired.
Later model rotary engines like the big Bentley used in the latest Sopwith Camels did have marginal throttle control. It was hard to throttle one with a carburetor throttle because the airflow balance was affected by the whole engine and crankcase. Any change in inlet airflow required all kinds of mixture and ignition changes to be effective so these engines ran with little to no throttle control. The earliest had two power settings- off and full-blast.
keith f
It controlled spark advance.
There is a replica Sopwith Camel with a Le Rhone engine flying in New Zealand. I've seen it at air shows and it can be disconcerting, seeing it flying around, running on full power, then suddenly spluttering and popping, while knowing that this is the way it operates normally.
Here it is, flying at Tauranga: ruclips.net/video/Hq78ZocOAkY/видео.html
So basically it was a hit and miss engine?
very cool, and fascinating commentary on it's operation
I'll be DAMNED if I understand why all "event" "announcers" must offer a continuous blather of commentary at all times.
because you have "no life"...?
Yeah it's horribly annoying
They love to hear themselves talk in an annoying way over the speakers...
It really isn't that big a deal
Maybe they get paid by the sentence?
My hero, Herman goering, used to fly a plane just like that. Amazing
Worth waiting for.
Lovely! Does anybody know what has happened to the one Jim Nissen owned in the 1970s?
first saw one like this at EAA years ago. My eyes just about popped out when I noticed that pretty much the whole engine spins with the prop.
@FuLLeFFekT1
Actually it IS rotary. In an radial engine the cylinders don't move and the crankshaft rotates. However back in WWI airplane engines still had cooling problems so somebody solved that by having the crankshafted fixed in one position and have the cylinders themselves rotate. The propeller rotated as fast as the cylinders around the fixed crank.
The Wankel engine used in some cars is popularily referenced as a "Rotary" by people in general.
Anyway, this is not a radial engine.
Holy shit the whole engine spins around
The only way to keep it cool enough. Metals in 1916 weren’t what they are now.
Seems crazy now. A German inventer used the same principal to put an engine inside a motorbike front wheel. Now that was crazy. The few that were made are now very valuable. It's called a Magola.
These old motors had a mixing chamber instead of a carburetor, iirc, which I guess is why they had a button on the yoke to cut the mag to control engine speed at landing and taxi. The oiling system is hilarious to me. Just blowing that mess out the end. I guess that's why the pilots wore the rag over their face. This old stuff makes me wonder what the hell those people were thinking. Their grasp of physics was a little loose I guess
Back in the day, scrambling a squadern wasn't as quick as the movies made it look.
In an emergency, the RAF of WW2 could have the first aircraft moving down the runway within a minute. In slightly more recent times, I've seen a squadron of 6 English Electric Lightnings (which were high speed interceptors from the 1950's) scramble and be through the clouds in less than a minute, but the engines were running, ready for the scramble signal. From leaving the runway up to cloud base at 1100 feet (330 metres) took them no more than 9 seconds.
Very cool. These engines were the latest technology 100 yrs ago. They had superior power-to-weight ratio to inline engines of that time and were called ROTARY because the entire crankcase-cylinder assembly rotated around a stationary crank. I've noticed nearly everyone who posts a video of one of these engines has to have (and win) a debate with a commentor insisting: "this isn't rotary...it has pistons...it's a radial...Wankel is rotary...blah,blah." Must get tiresome at some point.
What gets tiresome is people who don't know the difference between radial and rotary engines. Stationary radials were more popular than rotating radials because they could rev higher - if you rev a rotating radial too fast the cylinders come off. Both rotating and stationary radials were popular in the early days, stationary radials are still made. If you call this engine a rotary, then you are simply displaying your ignorance. I have known these engines for over 50 years and they weren't called rotaries then, either.
50 years takes you back to.. 1967?? You need to go back 100 years. What did they call them back in 1917? Everything I've read says they were called "rotary engines" back when they were in use. The MAIN reason they quit using them was that you had enormous gyroscopic precession when rotating large masses of metal like this. Not too bad when the engines were of around 100hp, but by the time you got to the Sopwith Camel (engines of up to 150hp) you had major handling issues. Planes were getting bigger and faster, and you needed more and more horsepower and bigger and heavier engines. Eventually they reached a size where the gyroscopic effects were just too big to be usable and other types of engine could provide the power without these effects.
Bruce Roger Morgan: 50 years ago there were no rotary engines being made, (there are now though), so you are showing complete ignorance on this subject, this is a ROTARY engine, 100 years ago, when these were made, there were no ,what you now know as radials being made, just check on your facts and learn.
Correct, they were called Rotary Le Rhones from day one, simply because they rotated around the stationary crankshaft. Pilots hated them because of prop & engine induced swing on takeoff as previously mentioned, requiring precise rudder control.
onemoremisfit 👌
I've often wondered about these rotary engines - the gyroscopic effect from all that metal whirling round must have made the plane very reluctant to turn. How difficult were they to fly?
Ratty the losses in training were "appalling".
The figures were not public knowledge till the 1970's.
IIRC half the reported losses were in training.
Love these!
What fun. A true blast from the past.
Crazy how with these engines it’s either full on or full off no in between
Nice sound. Now I know what the LeRhone on the S4C at the Eagles Mere Air Museum sounds like!
Yay THANKS SO MUCH for sharing I told people of this design & no one believed :( YAY for you! :)
The engine is started at 3:05.
damn shame that todays crowd wants everything to be instant like your oatmeal. life isnt like that.
For an engine thats over a CENTURY OLD !
W O W !
Hillarious design. :)
Rotating the whole engine...
+avada It's what worked back then; it made for good cooling and smooth running due to the flywheel effect of the spinning engine.
+parafan
It was smooth partly because of the flywheel effect and partly because the pistons don't reciprocate.
+Leif Vejby
There's no such thing as a not reciprocating piston. Taking a quick peak at wikipedia, the animations shows the pistons reciprocating.
avada The pistons are not reciprocating, and the cylinder aren't either. Pistons and cylindres are rotating about different centres. But neither pistons nor cylindres reciprocate. I had to think it over several times before I was sure. And I am a mechanic and used to all sorts of engines!
avada Oh, and the best animation I could find is this: www.animatedengines.com/gnome.html
The pistons spin with the prop? CRAZY!
The whole engine does
Correction!, the cylinders spin around a Fixed crankshaft. A weird, but fascinating design. Old technology.
Runs pretty smoothly for a rotary engine.
Is this the only rotary engined kite where the cowling is attached to the engine and not the airframe?
Is it me or does removing the chocks when the blade is turning seem a bit sketchy?
No brakes! Just the way it's done. That's what makes it such a handful to fly, no brakes, tail skid, no wheel.
THANK YOU FOR POINTING THAT OUT MOTHER
its called a rope, you should learn its uses.
“Starts on the first pull every time, it’s never failed” famous last words 🤣. Also, after staring it (on the first pull of course) how do you remove the wheel chalks?
That's a sloppy American pronunciation of 'Chocks'.
There are ropes fixed to the chocks, so that the erks can pull them away.
You approach from the rear and dont step into the whirling knife blades. I do it frequently
Anyone know how the fuel system work?
never seen a radial where the whole engine spins, is that for cooling or something?
Rotary around a fixed crank! Early WWI design. Shrapnel machines!!
When the whole engine spins it's a rotary engine (rotary engine literally means "spinning/rotating" engine). A radial doesn't spin. Radial is a cylinder arrangement, rotary is a type of engine operation. A rotary has a "radial" cylinder arrangement but they OPERATE by rotating.
In other words a radial runs just like any other internal combustion engine with a flywheel except the cylinders are in a circle. A rotary HAS to spin in order to RUN and for it to be balanced FOR that spinning the cylinders need to be arranged in a circle. A rotary has no flywheel the engine itself acts as one. Cooling and power to weight ratio are why they were used.
Fantastic engine and aircraft .
"When you are ready, it will start on the first throw."
>Four consecutive failed starts in a row
Thats because these guys are idiots.
it's like boarding a flight today: "before we start the official starting process, we'd like to pre-crank our VIP cylinders, props and components operating with small parts" :D
If it started on the first throw it would be kind of boring wouldnt it ?
nice, think our Oberursel engine in the Fokker Triplane was a licence ?
kubanskiloewe
The Oberuersel was a license-built Le Rhône engine. After war broke out production continued even though the license was revoked. The Germans were never happy with the Oberuersel and would replace them with captured Le Rhônes whenever possible.
much oil consumption but still the factory is alive and well ;-) They build and repair Heli engines for NATO.
Would be nice to see it go airborne... with the way it sounded when they finally got it running though I would not trust it to stay in the air...
Why it's doesn't make a smoke 🤔
Excelent video lads,love it !! I actualy work on these engines,it's just that are in 1/72 scale. (note:very few moving parts)
This one Served in WW1?
yep. Gnome Rhone engine from last two ww1 years.
No,no,no----it's a ROTARY engine--The crankshaft is bolted to the engine mounts and the Prop is bolted to the engine crankcase. The ENGINE rotates around the STATIONARY CRANKSHAFT taking the prop along with it. This engine pre-dated the RADIAL although the principle & firing order are similar.
awsome engines!
Start is @3:13
hell yeah!!! YAHOOO!!!! fantastic, really gets the blood pumping!
Hows life nowadays?
I hadn't seen it mentioned, but... what advantage (if any) was there to a rotary piston engine as opposed to a stationary type?
These times (1913-20), rotary engine had best weight/power ratio, compared to other engine types. This was critically important for planes. The disadvantage of this engine type is impossibility of further power increase.
Oleg Zaidullin -That mkes sence , thanks.
The power to weight ratio advantage was; because the engine spun, the cylinders were self cooling. No water or radiator was needed to cool the engine, therefore the engine was kept light and didn't overheat while producing enough horsepower for flight.
Tighter cornering due to the rotating masses.
Cooling.
Todo el rato hasta que logró encenderlo estuve tenso, tenía miedo que saliera mal y se quedará sin brazos...
If this engines cylinders spin would it turn hard to the right?
Yes. That's why these planes were infamously hard to fly.
Thats exactly what happened.
The Sopwith Camel got a particularly bad reputation for that.
Thats exactly what happened.
The Sopwith Camel got a particularly bad reputation for that.
Nice sound
the thing on the front's a cooling fan. if it stops spinning, the pilot starts sweating.
What happens❤❤❤🎉
Did they remove the cowling?
Yes
I wonder who first thought it would be a good idea to fix the crank and spin the motor.
Felix Millet.
Someone who thought that would be the easiest way to cool the engine, presumably
Dead stick is an engine out landing....this looks pretty normal to me😏 Doing a pre flight with the engine running and no one in the cockpit.....not a great idea.
سلام .
من ارزوی پرواز دارم.کسی هست که برام نقشه ساخت یه هواپیمای دونفره رو بفرسته .ممنون میشم
Does it fly?
Three minutes until it starts.
9 positve
These engines are smooth running. No reciprocating parts.
NCF8710 Huh? They have the same parts as the vast majority of engines in cars. Only functional difference is the crank is fixed and the prop is mounted to the case and both spin together. Smooth because well balanced. This is not a wankel rotary.
Of course, this is certainly not a Wankel rotary engine. Unlike the piston engines found in cars and other machinery, the pistons in a rotary engine are fixed to a common point offset from the center of rotation of the cylinder block. The pistons move in a circular motion along with the cylinder block. They do not move back and forth like they do in a conventional piston engine. The offset between the piston center of rotation and the cylinder block center of rotation determines the 'stroke' displacement of the engine and therefore the compression ratio. The absence of piston reciprocation is responsible for the inherent smoothness of these engines. Research these engines and you should find an animation that will illustrate this clearly.
NCF8710 Let me help you out a bit. Dad piloted a Neptune for 25 years, 2 radials in the early years. Uncle taught avaition mechanics at a private college, dad-in-law had 4 super wasps to keep running on his plane, buddy's ag-cat had a radial. Now, all of these were conventional radials, granted. But I can assure you, I've known about the WWI tech since the 60's. Now, you can pretend to have some knowledge 'cause you saw a great animation. All Otto-cycle engines, which this is, and all engines using a piston that moves from top of the bore to bottom of the bore, back and forth...hmmm, whats another word for that. That the case spins, rather than the crank makes no difference, the piston still reciprocates in the bore. It is a radial engine. It is a rotary radial engine. it is a reciprocating, Otto-cycle, rotary radial engine. It is the nature of radials of all types to be smooth, fixed case, or fixed crank...it is a balanced design.
If anyone is pretending to have knowledge of these engines, it is you. I do not need any help from someone who is obviously unqualified to do so. The pistons in the WW1 rotary aircraft engines (LeRhone) DO NOT move linearly as they do in conventional radial engines (P&W Wasp). They ARE NOT reciprocating parts as they remain at a fixed distance from their point of rotation within the engine. They only exhibit rotary motion. They have zero linear momentum and generate zero vibration from this source. Do some research before you make a fool of yourself.
NCF8710 You see the 9 cylinders, right? Inside are 9 pistons. each has a wrist pin, and connecting rod. The 8 rods connect to the 9th, which connects to a crankshaft. The ONLY difference here, is the crankshaft is the part that is fixed to the aircraft via the engine mount. The crank does not move relative to the plane. And, again for the thich, and I"ll type slowly, ..All Otto-cycle engines are reciprocating. This is not a rotary engine, it is a radial who's case rotates. Reciprocating always has referred to the piston's movement relative to the cylinder. But you are more than welcome to show ...nevermind.
You can find them fighting King Kong atop the Empire State Building in the original 1931 film.
How it works
シリンダーとプロペラが一緒に回ってるように見えますね。
Why does there have to be an announcer? Just start the damn plane.
I agree, he was annoying. Squirt in some nitro I wanna hear some pop! 😂
@FuLLeFFekT1
The cylinders rotate (as in move) in the rotary engine. Very clear for anybody to see.
In a radial the cylinders don't rotate (or move in any direction).
You know what Bertrand Russell once said:"Whoever proclaims another one a complete idiot often makes an idiot of himself."
And aside from that you're flagged too.
Doesn't the engine act like a big flywheel?
Yes, and it makes it very difficult to turn left as well.
hell of a way to cool an engine
If you accelerate hard, yes. But if it's spinning at a constant speed, it shouldn't be all that noticeable.
i would trust it more than a Bombardier engine.
the announcer could take a break anytime they wish,such as now.
Are you blind? Those cylinders are moving here alright.
I can't figure out how these engines work!!! Makes no sense to me. The engine rotating with the propeller??? Clever engineering for 1917.
j267699 my great uncle Harold was a machinist and RFC air mechanic during WW1 so the rotary aircraft engine has always been well known and understood in our family!
It's built inside out kinda; the crankshaft is fixed and the rest of the engine spins around it. (Imagine that going on under the hood of your car!)
I m 71❤😂
@FuLLeFFekT1 You're thinking Wankle. Wankle engines have rotors, and rotary engine has pistons. The engine in this video was called a rotary engine long before peole started calling the Wankle a rotary.
*Wankel. And you're right; the Wankel engine is not a rotary engine. It has no rotating cylinders. It doesn't even have cylinders or pistons. It is an epicycloidal engine, essentially with only one moving part.
Ha ha you can even hear him hitting the blipper switch.
Thomas -Morse Scout was old technology by 1917, the German aircraft were more advanced by then and could out fly it. So was the British aircraft by then and the French. The T-M Scout could only carry one Merlin machine gun vs two by all other aircraft. American was way to far behind in aircraft building to make any difference in the air war.
5 years late...but...it was never meant to be a fighter...it was a trainer
I do not understand why this kind of engine is made?
Well... this was built in 1917. It is not a modern design, however, it was simple and lite and it cooled very well. No big heavy flywheel to turn.
I always like the Thomas - Morse scout. Too bad it arrived too late for World War One to have any significance. But America never put much stock into developing fighters with our neutrality stance from 1914 onward.
+David Smith if you fly this too long in the air,you dead.
I believe the tech behind the Thomas - Morse scout was a result of the British sharing their aviation expertise. Kind of like a World War One version of Lend - Lease, in reverse.
Those engines still f****g scare me. Thats from this side of a computer.
You Tube is educative
Атлично!!! На заднем плане НАШ Ан-2!!!!!!!!
yes and Wankel engines are not rotary despite the common calling, but épicycloïdal rotor engines like they german name "kreiskolbenmotor" or "drehkolbenmotor"
Awesome!!!!!
That's not a rotary engine , it's a radial engine get it wright ! Radial 9 cylinder engines were made. Pratt and Whitney also had two row 3 row 4 row all bolted back to back in B 25 bombers.
Nope, thats rotary engine with entire engine rotating, radial refers to all engines with cylinders placed radially, all rotaries are radials. Not all radials are rotaries.
Robert, the rotary has a fixed crankshaft that the entire engine rotates around. The radial is a fixed crankcase with a rotating crank shaft. The confusion comes from the Wankel engine being called a rotary engine.
What your seeing here are the "Original" if you will, rotary engines. And why are you being so butthurt at all the others that corrected you?
I want one
#rotaryengine
Meu sonho ver piloto
FANTÁSTICO!!!🤣🤣🤣👍👍👏👏👏👏
@fangornf
German NSU used Wankel engines in their cars long before Mazda.
they should make repilca engines so otheres can make some replica planes
I'm pretty sure they do.
There is a company at Omaka Air Field in New Zealand making rotaries to order: cams.net.nz
This is their test rig: ruclips.net/video/j16aTccXIbk/видео.html
so talented. they memorized 1 3 5 7 9 and 2 4 6 8
thats prop is like ur brain and them guys are like data
that radial engine nice sound
Отлично