Besler Steam powered biplane

[Gnarly Gnu]

Interesting short article & video someone sent me on the Besler steam powered aircraft from 1933.

 

Other than boiling a kettle and poaching some eggs I know zip about steam but I'm struggling to believe the claim that "10 gallons of water were sufficient for a flight of 400 miles." That's only 38 litres.... I wonder how much fuel was carried to heat this water?

 

 

 

[pmccarthy]

I love the reversible propellor, maybe you could back out of inadvertent entry to a cloud.

 

 

[facthunter]

You would be in your OWN cloud (of steam). It has no condenser so it would use a lot of water. No need for a mag check and your feet would be warm in the front seat. Is that the origin of the term "OLD BOILERS" in Peter Abele's Planes? ANSETT. Nev

 

 

[Guernsey]

It does have a condenser, see engine diagram at beginning of video.

 

Alan.

 

 

[facthunter]

Why is it puffing out steam then?. It should have to be a working concept. Steam was tried 30 years earlier. I think the thing was called an aerodrome and wasn't successful but maybe a bit unlucky. I can't remember all the details as I was quite young at the time. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Love it GG. I'd always wondered if it could be done, and like so many feats, it was done in the 30's. One advantage; just about any old liquid fuel could be used. I bet the pilot has to be even more ahead of the aircraft; with steam a big lag between pouring on the juice and feeling the power.

 

 

[facthunter]

You don't have to build one to prove it's inefficiency. You just do the maths and apply the physics. Nev

 

 

[Stoney]

I'll bet you said that to Wilbur and Orville when you were a teenager, Nev.

 

 

[FlyingVizsla]

The steam plane has been discussed in two previous threads - here's what I said on one of them:

 

 

 

Go to Wikipedia and search for "Steam Aircraft". There is a good article there with a lot of references to the Besler steam aircraft. Scroll down to the bottom to find useful links to further information. What's missing is the critique on the design and the reasons it never went past a prototype. According to the 1930's article the engine weighed 180lb. (81kg) and it could do 400 miles on 10 gallons (38 litres) burning fuel oil at 800F (but didn't say how much). A condenser reclaimed the steam, cooling it to be reintroduced to the water tank, claiming 80-90% efficiency. One article claimed the Beslers were aiming for 100% reclamation "where upon they could remain aloft indefinitely." Journalists were clueless back then too! Another article said the engine was 500lb (225kg). There are a number of newspaper archive sites which have contemporary reports, but most appear to be of the "media release" variety - the Yanks being good at publicity. I guess the problems were the fear of sharing the craft with fire, fuel & boiling water and the logistics of including extra weight required for steam generation vs the internal combustion engine. They were also working on a steam driven car.

 

Sue

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

You don't have to build one to prove it's inefficiency. You just do the maths and apply the physics. Nev

They claimed 40 miles per US gallon. Compares well with modern aircraft. Anyway, who cares about efficiency. Steam sounds wonderful!

 

 

[facthunter]

It is only the exhausted steam that makes any sound. With a condenser it never goes to atmosphere. I like steam too OK for the nostalgia, but it can't be efficient due to the high latent heat of vaporisation of water. With other liquids perhaps better. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

It is only the exhausted steam that makes any sound. With a condenser it never goes to atmosphere. I like steam too OK for the nostalgia, but it can't be efficient due to the high latent heat of vaporisation of water. With other liquids perhaps better. Nev

Refrigerators seem to recycle their liquid pretty efficiently without needing a top-up. With the technology available today, such as the massive surface area inside a catalytic converter, maybe steam engines still have a future (even if what they are boiling is not water). Even if they could never match the calorific efficiency of internal combustion, perhaps that have a place with the use of multiple types of liquid and gas fuels of variable quality.

 

 

[facthunter]

Infernal combustion gas it's limits too. Efficiency doesn't matter too much if the energy source is abundant and there anyhow. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Infernal combustion gas it's limits too. Efficiency doesn't matter too much if the energy source is abundant and there anyhow. Nev

Therein lies the issue: one man's abundant is another's finite resource.

 

 

[SDQDI]

Get a bit of nuclear energy to heat the fluid of choice with an efficient condenser you could stay up indefinitely just need to find someone silly:loopy: enough to drive it. Wouldn't be a nice thing to be sitting in if people were inclined to be shooting at you.

 

 

 

[facthunter]

Nuclear FUSION is ok. The nearest source is 93 million miles away. We are short of helium too. Nev

 

 

[Zibi]

Get a bit of nuclear energy to heat the fluid of choice with an efficient condenser you could stay up indefinitely just need to find someone silly:loopy: enough to drive it. Wouldn't be a nice thing to be sitting in if people were inclined to be shooting at you.

They've tried it once already:

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

They've tried it once already:

Are you being fair dinkum, Zibi? This looks like a concept painting. More info please.

 

 

[SDQDI]

I did see a video of a working nuclear plane a while ago can't remember if it was Russian or German

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

I did see a video of a working nuclear plane a while ago can't remember if it was Russian or German

Just googles nuclear-powered aircraft. Both superpowers researched the idea, and the Americans flew the NB36 with a functioning reactor to test radiation effects, but it didn't actually power the aircraft. Both the Soviets and Americans cancelled their programmes. Thankfully.