willedoo

A brief inside view of a 80 hp LeRhone engine. Cheers, Willie.

A GE produced animation and overview of the GEnx engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isJRgEu7DQo

Thanks for the link, Geoff; there's an amazing amount of info there, and a wealth of photos. I'll get back to you in six months when I've got through it all. I should be speaking French by then. Already have 'Brevet' and 'Restaurant' down pat, so it should be clear sailing from here. Happy New Year. Cheers, Willie.

Found a forum with a reference to the 2 cylinder Anzani being a motorcycle engine. Apparently brevet is French for patent, which explains the number beside it. The engine looks very industrial. Cheers, Willie.

Getting a bit off track here, but at least it's on the subject of radials. Here's a clip of a Goggomobil fitted with a Russian Vedeneyev M14P nine cylinder radial; not quite as elegant as the Monaco-Trossi, though. Sounds a bit better in part 2 of the video. Cheers, Willie.

The Wiki page on the Anzani engine doesn't shed much light on the induction system: "They were all air-cooled side-valve engines; each exhaust valve was controlled from below by a cam in the crankcase.[2] Each was mounted in a cell to the side of the cylinder, with the automatic, atmospheric pressure -driven spring-loaded inlet valve immediately above it, partly to minimise volume and partly to help cool the hot exhaust valve." This article about an Anzani restoration mentions the ports at the bottom of the cylinders. http://stcroix.50webs.com/pages/anzani_story.html Must be a bit more detail somewhere around the place. Cheers Willie.

[ATTACH=full]1566[/ATTACH] I'm getting a headache trying to figure out what that looks like inside the crankcase. As far as the firing order goes, I'll try not to think about it. Cheers, Willie. [ATTACH]18339[/ATTACH]

An Antonov An-72 crashed on approach to Shymkent, Kazakhstan on Christmas day, with no survivors. On board were seven crew members and twenty soldiers, including the acting head of Kazakhstan's Border Protection Department. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20842116 [ATTACH=full]1546[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]18334[/ATTACH]

I should have taken more notice of the original photo posted above of the R-975. The rocker boxes have quite a pronounced cantilever rearward to accommodate the rocker arm and pushrods. This would put the valves and ports in much the same position as the more common engines, so no real disadvantage or advantage there. Maybe they thought there was some gain by having the cam gear running off the rear with the other drives. [ATTACH=full]1541[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1542[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1543[/ATTACH] I think I'll quit while I'm ahead and wait for a mechanic's opinion. Cheers, Willie. [ATTACH]18332[/ATTACH]

It's nice to know we're not the only ones with defence acquisition issues. Seems to be universal. Cheers, Willie.

Haven't seen a drawing of the Shvetsov cams, but from what I can gather, they are very similar to the Kinner's individual cams for each cylinder. I wonder whether the rear pushrods were just an experiment, or designed for a specific purpose. There would be only two factors at play, I'd guess: the gear train or porting. The R-975 has the cam gear running off the rear drive train, but it's just as easy to have the cam drive and ring driving off the front of the crank like other radials. The conventional setup makes more sense - cams, tappets, pushrods at the front; valves at the back for more direct porting to the supercharger and exhaust. I'll see if I can find a cylinder head diagram of the R-975. I'd imagine the Continental tank engine would be basically the same as the aero engine, apart from cooling fan, shrouds and accessories. Cheers, Willie.

Not sure if there's any connection between the two. The Kinner and R-975 have a totally different cam system. It might be coincidence that they both have rear facing pushrods. The Kinner has some commonality with the M-11 Shevtsov (Po-2, Yak-6, Mig-8 etc.), in that they both have individual camshafts for each cylinder instead of the usual central common cam ring as in the R-975. The Shevtsov has the pushrods at the front though, unlike the Kinner. Shevtsov M-11 [ATTACH=full]1536[/ATTACH] Cutaway of a Continental R-975 tank engine. You can just see the cam ring in front of the cam gear. [ATTACH=full]1537[/ATTACH] But none of this explains the reason why the two engines have the pushrods at the rear of the cylinders. Cheers, Willie. [ATTACH]18329[/ATTACH]

Nice cutaway. The core engine of the CJ805 was the J-79 turbojet, the Phantom/Starfighter engine. They had a lot of grunt in their original form, don't know how they went with the aft fan. Here's a bit of trivia I wasn't aware of - the F-16 was fitted with a J-79 at one stage, called the F16/79. Bit of a lost cause by the sound of it. I've just copied & pasted this info on it; it's probably accurate. F-16/79 In response to President Jimmy Carter's February 1977 directive to curtail arms proliferation by selling only reduced-capability weapons to foreign countries, General Dynamics developed a modified export-oriented version of the F-16A/B designed for use with the outdated General Electric J79 turbojet engine. Northrop competed for this market with its F-20 Tigershark. Accommodating the J79-GE-119 engine required modification of the F-16’s inlet, the addition of steel heat shielding, a transfer gearbox (to connect the engine to the existing F-16 gearbox), and an 18-inch (46 cm) stretch of the aft fuselage. First flight occurred on 29 October 1980. The total program cost to develop the F-16/J79 was $18 million (1980), and the unit flyaway cost was projected to be about $8 million. South Korea, Pakistan and other nations were offered these fighters but rejected them, resulting in numerous exceptions being made to sell standard F-16s; with the later relaxation of the policy under President Carter in 1980 and its cancellation under President Ronald Reagan, no copies of either the F-16/79 or the F-20 were ultimately sold. Cheers, Willie.

Congratulations, Simon & all the best for the future. Cheers, Willie.

I don't know if you'd have to be mad to be an Alaskan bush pilot, but I suppose it would help. Always like watching the water assisted landings; I guess the tundra tyres would act like floats to a degree. Often wondered how many psi they run in them. Youtube has a lot of good clips of SuperCubs and others. A few good ones of Greg miller with his 'Got Rocks' experimental SuperCub, and Loni Habersetzer puts on a good show as well, with his Cubdriver series of video clips. This one's supposed to be a 17 year old pilot. (clip can't be embedded, hence the link.) Cheers, Willie.

Nice video; I wonder if the pilot got any steam burns. The Metrovick engine sure looks like a similar basic principle. It would be good to see a higher resolution diagram of it. Incredible stuff for 1942; the quantum leaps made during the war and immediate post war period are a bit mind boggling. War certainly drives technology. Cheers, Willie.

And something a bit older: [ATTACH=full]1528[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1529[/ATTACH] Cheers, Willie. [ATTACH]18325[/ATTACH]

Here's one in the "modern" category ( I guess 50 years old is modern), and probably only unusual by todays standards. It's a GE CF-700, one of the early aft fan designs, which were a simple way to develop a turbofan from an existing turbojet. It's based on a J-85 turbojet as the core engine ( used in the F-5, Cessna Dragonfly etc.) A separate single stage low pressure turbine and fan, as one wheel unit, was mounted aft of the existing J-85 two stage turbine. This fan/turbine unit had no mechanical connection to the core engine and was driven aerodynamically by exhausting gases. Original J-85 with 2 stage turbine driving 8 stage compressor. [ATTACH=full]1519[/ATTACH] CF-700 with the addition of the free wheeling aft fan assembly. [ATTACH=full]1520[/ATTACH] It was used in the Dassault Falcon, Sabreliner, and the lunar landing simulators.The idea was eventually dropped in favour of the modern front fan design, due to problems with the large temperature variation between the turbine and fan materials, with the central turbine running much hotter than the outer fan blade tips. A similar aft fan engine design was developed from the J-79 turbojet (F-4 Phantom, Starfighter etc.) and powered the Convair Coronado. Another design unusual for it's use of both radial and axial compressors combined is the two spool Garrett TFE 731, relatively new at 40 years old, powering Lear jets, Cessna Citations, Dassault Falcons etc.. At the rear of the engine, a three stage low pressure turbine drives a four stage LP compressor and geared fan at the front. Central to the engine, a single stage high pressure turbine drives a single stage HP centrifugal compressor. [ATTACH=full]1527[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1523[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1524[/ATTACH] Cheers, Willie. [ATTACH]18324[/ATTACH]

I was wondering where that photo was taken & tracked it down to the Museum of Polish Aviation in Krakow. Another museum for the bucket list. Cheers, Willie.

Couldn't figure out what the above engine was, so I blatantly cheated. Right click/save as came up with Antoinette_4.jpg. Thinking it must be connected with this lot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoinette_(manufacturer) This one is apparently a result of Indian Motorcycles experimenting with aero engines. [ATTACH=full]1510[/ATTACH] Also read something about Indian Motorcycles producing a barrel or swash plate engine in 1938 named the Alfaro, after it's inventor Heraclio Alfaro. Apparently he was knighted at the age of 18 for inventing Spain's first aeroplane, or something to that effect. Haven't found a photo of the Alfaro barrel engine, though. Cheers, Willie. [ATTACH]18318[/ATTACH]

I guess we can't let the USA off the hook, either. This comical looking jet is the Vought XF8U-3 Crusader 3, developed as a successor to the F8U Crusader, and competitor to the F4 Phantom. Five were built and three flown before losing out to the F4. [ATTACH=full]1497[/ATTACH] The ventral fins enabled speeds of Mach2+ and rotated to horizontal for landing and take off. [ATTACH=full]1498[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1499[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1500[/ATTACH] Cheers, Willie. [ATTACH]18315[/ATTACH]

It seems like the prototypes commonly suffer in the ugly stakes, due to the amount of experimentation involved. These two Sukhoi prototypes look quite normal for the period (mid 50's) except for the addition of the radomes and antennas. They're both prototypes of the Su-9/Su-11 family of delta wing tactical fighter/interceptors. The T-3 had a fire control radar with separate search and target tracking antennas. [ATTACH=full]1492[/ATTACH] Font view showing the search antenna's metal radome and air data boom attached to the top intake lip. The lower one is the tracking antenna inside the intake, attached to the splitter. As a result, intake efficiency and pressure recovery was fairly poor. [ATTACH=full]1493[/ATTACH] This evolved into the PT-7 prototype where the tracking antenna was shifted to the lower lip and enclosed in a conical radome.These were dropped for the production models which had a variable geometry shock cone inlet. [ATTACH=full]1494[/ATTACH] Cheers, Willie. [ATTACH]18312[/ATTACH]

Forgot to mention, G-AFRP is a Shapley Kittiwake. Don't know much about it, but it looks like two were made.The first was supposed to be an open cockpit with a different engine according to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley_Kittiwake Seeing some of these photos really brings to mind how far design has advanced to the present day. Cheers, Willie.

Another potential contender from the U.K. [ATTACH=full]1485[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1486[/ATTACH] Cheers, Willie. [ATTACH]18309[/ATTACH]