Herschel Smith

[pmccarthy]

I have just finished reading A History of Aircraft Piston Engines by Herschel Smith. What a great, well researched book.No-one can ever have known as much about the subject as he did. And on the basis of all he knew, he wrote the following in 1981:

 

Thus, the opposed engine, unlike the other types we have examined, is very much a viable proposition today. It has a future. But to attempt to assess that future calls for extrapolation, which, as the designer of the de Havilland Comet said after he found out why Comets were coming apart in the air, is the fertile mother of error.

 

For example, the smaller engines are out of production as a result of steadily increasing power requirements for general aviation aircraft. This has come in part from demands for higher performance and in part because it has been cheaper to go to larger engines than to use refined structural and aerodynamic design in the airframe. Who will be so rash as to say that this trend will continue? If it reverses itself, we may see a trend to smaller engines. In addition, there are two opposing trends with regard to electronic equipment. On the one hand, the government, in its ongoing effort to foolproof the entire universe keeps thinking up new kinds of gear that has to be carried. On the other, the makers of such equipment keep reducing its weight, bulk, and power requirements. Which will prevail, and what effect will the result have on aviation's power needs?

 

And all this applies only to general aviation's current mainstream. Will the current interest in foot launched ultralights result in the reinventing of open-cockpit slow flying off grass strips, with perhaps

 

a whole new set of relaxed requirements for off-airways aviation? If so, we should see some much smaller engines in the future. This uncertainty applies to many other things besides engine size. The pursuit of fuel economy is very apt to lead to such features as stratified combustion, turbocompounding, and the Diesel. Despite the Tiara's failure, we should be seeing more and more high-speed geared engines. But whatever happens, it is long odds that the aero engine of the future will be of the opposed configuration.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

the god father of the 912!