Morris Minor Owners Club

at our Herts branch agm last night we got talking about rotary aircraft engines where the pistons go roung and the crankshaft stays still.as far as i know the oil system is total olss and it uses castor oil which smells fantastic.does any one know,it was an intresting topic of conversation last night dale.

OHV 4-stroke.

If you see a picture of one of these engines stationary, you can often see all the valve gear, rockers, etc. or at least the covers for them.

I'm pretty sure that's right.....

The Sopwith Camel had a rotary engine. The gyroscopic effect of the engine whizzing round meant that it could flick to the right really quickly, which made it v manoeuvrable and a bit of a beast to handle. Which made it a good fighter, of course. The total-loss lubrication had an unfortunate laxative effect on pilots, too....

I was just reading the explanation of the monosoupape here and starting to feel dizzy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome_Monosoupape

I spent a couple of years with a housemate obsessed with old planes so I might be able to shed some light. The Rotary engines were Otto cycle engines (therefore 4 stroke). The oil systems were total loss but some variants were more economical. I think the one valve system was the preference for quite a few years.

Excellent link to the Monosoupape - very interesting!

A few years ago while at a Model Engineer Exhibition at Wembly on demonstration was a model radial engine (I am sure I remember 2 valves per cylinder) 9 cylinder swinging a 30 inch diameter prop. It sounded wonderful and the blast was something else and the smell - fantastic!
This sort of thing is not permitted to be carried out now I guess because of higher and higher insurance premiums and general do gooders.

Here's a link to something about Charles Redrup, who put rotary engines into motorbikes, and who developed the Redrup reactionless coaxial wobble-plate engine (whoa!) .... I reviewed a book about him last year, just in case you're wondering why I know these things


http://www.fairdiesel.co.uk/Redrup.html

the Redrup reactionless coaxial wobble-plate engine

Well I have never heard reactionless & wobble used together before so I bow to your infinite knowledge Dru.

That or my infinite confusion ...hang on, the rotary job was reactionless, the wobble-plate one was co-axial, the music goes round and round, whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, and it comes out here. Morceau de gateau!

Dru wrote:The Sopwith Camel had a rotary engine. The gyroscopic effect of the engine whizzing round meant that it could flick to the right really quickly, which made it v manoeuvrable and a bit of a beast to handle. Which made it a good fighter, of course.

Whizzed to the right very quickly... but not to the left. But in those days we were all gents and the Hun wouldn't take advantage of that I'm sure!!
Old book by the master LJK Setright called "some unusual engines" very interesting if you can get hold of a copy. Basically the minutes of a meeting regarding future ideas of ic engines in 1974 staged by the IME. covers all kinds of weird engines, including a 2 stroke "internally cooled" diesel engine, cooling generated simply by forcing huge amounts of air through the inlet port. Worked too well-wouldn't produce enough heat to start itself!!