The majestic beauty of engines...

A Tribute To The Majestic Beauty Of Engines (30 Pics) - Caveman Circus | Caveman Circus

Wasn't quite sure where to post this, but since a lot of em are aircraft engines.....
(bonus points for identifying the engine in the pic BEFORE opening the article...LOL)
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Looks like a P&W Wasp Major.

 

R4360

 

Yep, R-4360 AKA the Wasp Major.

 

Turbines are Ruining Aviation

We gotta get rid of those turbines, they're ruining aviation and our hearing...

A turbine is too simple minded, it has no mystery. The air travels through it in a straight line and doesn't pick up any of the pungent fragrance of engine oil or pilot sweat.

Anybody can start a turbine. You just need to move a switch from "OFF" to "START" and then remember to move it back to "ON" after a while. My PC is harder to start.

Cranking a round engine requires skill, finesse and style. You have to seduce it into starting. It's like waking up a horny mistress. On some planes, the pilots aren't even allowed to do it...

Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a lady-like poof and start whining a little louder.

Round engines give a satisfying rattle-rattle, click-click, BANG, more rattles, another BANG, a big macho FART or two, more clicks, a lot more smoke and finally a serious low pitched roar. We like that. It's a GUY thing... When you start a round engine, your mind is engaged and you can concentrate on the flight ahead. Starting a turbine is like flicking on a ceiling fan: Useful, but, hardly exciting.

When you have started his round engine successfully your Crew Chief looks up at you like he'd let you kiss his girl, too!

Turbines don't break or catch fire often enough, which leads to aircrew boredom, complacency and inattention. A round engine at speed looks and sounds like it's going to blow any minute. This helps concentrate the mind!

Turbines don't have enough control levers or gauges to keep a pilot's attention. There's nothing to fiddle with during long flights.

Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman Lamps. Round engines smell like God intended machines to smell.

 

I was hoping to see some seductive odd-number-of-cylinder radials...

 

About 60 years ago, someone might have said "Diesels are Ruining Railroading" with the same refrain. I always said that when a diesel locomotive starts from rest, it just, well, starts. When a steam locomotive starts from rest, it's high drama!

And about 30 years ago, in places like Detroit and Seattle, some said that "Turbines are Ruining Hydroplane Racing".....

 

Jim, there is one thing exotic about starting my turbine....I know if I screw up the sequence I just blew enough to buy a Bugatti Veyron. That'll keep your attention

 

Radials are all odd numbers... at least each row is. 3, 5, 7, 9 cylinders (AFAIK)...

The featured R-4360 above has 4 rows of 7 cylinders so the total is even (28).

The 4360 is the displacement. 3-4k HP

The B-36 used 6 of them turning pusher props.

I think that's seductive, myself.

Jim Curry's post above is perfect...

 

Of course, here's an engine that makes even the R-4360 seem small. I saw this beast at the Smithsonian's Garber Facility; now it's on display at Udvar-Hazy, looking spiffier than ever:

Lycoming XR-7755 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

You're right on, Jim. Those who do not feel the temperament of a radial are doomed to suffer their wrath when not gently stoked. One winter day in Texas an airplane next to me erupted in a bright orange glow at 0430 when the kid screwed up the staring procedure by over priming and then letting the engine barf and back fire. The ensuing fire ignited the pool of gasoline below the engine , the puddle of oil, the wheel well, the tire, and warmed things up pretty quick. The fire watch could do nothing and we had to scramble to get airplanes out the area near the blaze. Quick way to wake up in the morning.

 

Sounds like waking the wife up in the morning.....

This was always a good one...more likely to die starting the engine than from enemy fire....complication for complications sake....
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How could I not?

The 1916 Gnome 9B-2 Monosoupape rotary: 12.8 liters with a 4.85 compression ratio using 40 octane gasoline making 110hp at a whopping 1250 rpm spinning a 102 inch propeller - can you say torque? Swings the biggest wood on the airport, just like its pilots.

What a sound (and the aroma of burnt castor oil) !
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When I was at Duxford IWM they had a nice range of engines on display.

I had just watched a 1970's movie (Dirty Harry in "Magnum Force" pretending to be a pilot to get the hijaakers) and the 4 engine Boeing(?) looked like it had tiny jets compared to the diameter of current ones!
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That's what I'm talking about!



Matt

 

Saturn F-1
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Here's the Continental A65 my Dad and I put in our Aeronca Champ. It was rebuilt by Don's Dream Machines.

Dave
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I believe the first engine in this thread, the 4360, was known as the corncob.


Regards,

Art S.

PS. If you want an engine that will wake you up, look up PDE - sounds like a machine gun going off next to your ear when heard through a two foot thick reenforced concrete wall.

PPS. I'd love to know the fuel flow rate through the F-1

 

Helping to run the rotaries at Abottsford was a real eye opener: the soft swing of the prop, the power when the engine kicked in, and the huge column of air and thrust when it got up to speed. You could hear the rush of air around the airplane as it started the take off . Big prop, big torque, big fun.

 

And some Mormons?

 

I have some really cool pics of engines in various states of disassembly from one of the major airlines in which we have done some work. I'd love to post them up, but I cannot. I was given permission to take whatever pics I wanted when I was at one of their maintenance facilities, but I don't think I should disclose them for a few reasons. Suffice it to say, I was geeking out big time.


Mark

 

If I remember correctly, it was was over 5,000 lb / second.

Total burn was only about 2 1/2 minutes. Burned NOx and Kerosene, I think.

 

It was either a Boeing 707 or a Douglas DC-8, don't remember which (maybe a Convair 770/880).

Those were turbojets. They didn't have a fan on the front, just a straight jet engine, so the diameter is small compared to modern fans.

Terrible fuel economy until they got to cruising altitude.

 

I don't remember the exact intake dia. but it was around 42 inches. Touring guests always got a chuckle out of seeing that the intake plugs in the factory were kids plastic wading pools. An employee got a handsome reward for his suggestion that saved the company thousands of dollars. The torque produced by the early gas turbines wasn't appreciated at first but then came the JT3D with the first fan. The 720B with the fans and the leading edge glove was an absolute hotrod and had to be carefully monitored as fuel burned off or it would knock on the door of Mach 1. The gas producers of the modern fan engine aren't any larger in dia. than the JT3 or JT4.

 

Bob,

Don't the remaining B-52s (H model?) still have the JT3D? (military calls it something else)...

It originally had 8 turbojets some 60 years ago.