Adams-Farwell Rotary Engined Auto ...

Crazy Horse · Oct 27, 2020

This is a great six minute You Tube video (link below) ..... a different kind of rotary engine(not a Wankel type) and not to be confused with radial engine designs found on many airplanes. I wouldn't want to try timing it while running .... ha! If you do some Google research, you will see that there were several other versions of the same design, some even showed up in aircraft.
Untitled URL Link

Steve@Advance · Oct 27, 2020

The early planes, WW1 British I believe, used a similar engine.

It had no throttle, the pilot had to push a button to kill the mag to control the RPM.

That's the sound the movies have used to this day of a doomed airplane headed for a crash, a disabled pilot that doesn't control the engine speed!

There was the burned remains of one in a museum here when I was a kid. Very crude design, so out of balance an over rev would break the lag bolts that secured it to the air frame.

It ran on total loss castor oil lube. The pilot constantly inhaled the vapor, so emergency diarrhea was the end result of every mission, if he made it back, literally...

DeltaSteve · Oct 27, 2020

I read in a book once that those pilots were called "drizzle butts" because of that issue.

CGID · Oct 27, 2020

The mass of the rotating engine produced an enormous amount of counter-torque. In an aircraft, it was not possible to make a sharp turn opposite the direction of engine rotation. In WWI, enemy pilots would set up their attacks to take advantage of this limitation. Take-offs required a very ginger touch on the throttle. Too much throttle - too much counter-torque - and the aircraft would flip over. The castor oil/intestinal problem was real.

cdmn · Oct 27, 2020

The rotary engine was quite highly respected. The French also pioneered the radial engine that evolved into Pratt and Whitney, Curtis Wright, and Lycoming, etc.
One advantage of the rotary was the balancing. The rotating parts were all the same weight. The flywheel effect made it difficult to throttle.

The WWII planes also had a gyro effect with the big radial engines. P47 especially. The P38 solved this by using two engines, rotating oppositely.

http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/projects/engines/oberursel-urii-engine/history

http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/projects/raf1-engine-reproduction/history-raf1
LeRhone Engine

Pycoed · Oct 27, 2020

(quoted from post at 17:03:32 10/27/20) The mass of the rotating engine produced an enormous amount of counter-torque. In an aircraft, it was not possible to make a sharp turn opposite the direction of engine rotation. [b:c647f7a1bc][color=red:c647f7a1bc]In WWI, enemy pilots would set up their attacks to take advantage of this limitation[/color:c647f7a1bc].[/b:c647f7a1bc] Take-offs required a very ginger touch on the throttle. Too much throttle - too much counter-torque - and the aircraft would flip over. The castor oil/intestinal problem was real.

The "limitation" was actually an advantage: nothing else could match the speed of turn WITH the torque of the rotary, which was perhaps why the Sopwith Camel shot down more enemy planes than any other allied fighter (or scout as they were then known)
Turning against the torque was a lot slower, but there is smoe evidence that many pilots could turn 270deg WITH the torque, faster than 90deg AGAINST the torque!

I must admit my jaw dropped the first time I saw a rotary engine running on a stand at St Athan air show!!!

Russ from MN · Oct 27, 2020

That's pretty neat, a good video, thanks for posting!

Adams-Farwell Rotary Engined Auto ...

Crazy Horse

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Steve@Advance

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DeltaSteve

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CGID

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cdmn

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Pycoed

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Russ from MN

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