One for those with an interest in motor bikes and flying

[Cormanus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hirsRnytT...ata_player

[flynrider]

A very interesting (if not horribly impractical) work of art.

[Rocky_imp]

This made me smile because at our Sunday bike club breakfast gathering yesterday, some of our members were talking about a rotary aircraft engine in a motorcycle and it may have been as a result of that video.

[the Ferret]

ahh those crazy Germans lol. Second guy looked over dressed compared to the first guy. Amazing what man can do if he gets any idea in his head. Those engines had what 6 or 700 horsepower?

edit..nope looked it up, between 70 and 240 horsepower

[redbirds_imp]

I think Jesse James built a similar machine a while back. Love to see someone build a rotating cylinder bank radial. That would be wild.

[ChipBeck_imp]

Gentlemen,

I loved that!!!!

Chip

[flynrider]

I think Jesse James built a similar machine a while back. Love to see someone build a rotating cylinder bank radial. That would be wild.

That would be a true aircraft rotary engine (i.e. crank shaft is fixed and cylinders spin). If the bike in the video is impractical, a rotary would be insanely impractical. Forget about figuring out how to get the rotating cylinders to power a wheel (mount sideways with a giant belt???). The design of those engines was such that there was no carb, therefore no fine power control. It was usually either full on, or off (by cutting the fuel or ignition) Barely workable in an airplane, downright suicidal on a motorcycle

A couple of decades back I met a guy who flew an original Sopwith Camel equipped with a Gnome rotary engine. Although it was an ingenious engine design circa 1915, to me it seemed to be just above bronze age technology.

[rboe]

Radials would be nice, but I can just feel the heat coming off of them. Not good in Phoenix, perhaps in the winter.....

Would be the bees knees going across the Great Plains though.

[ChipBeck_imp]

Gentlemen,

The biggest problem with putting aircraft engines in cars or bikes, even the big V-12 Merlins that are water cooled, is that they are designed to operate at or near full power and within a couple hundred RPM of their maximum. Car and bike motors are designed to operate throughout their entire RPM range and spend most of the time at low throttle settings and low RPM. A piston aircraft engine is flown at full throttle for hours on end about 200 RPM below maximum and the throttle is only moved during take off, climb, descent, and landing. Direct drive aircraft engines are limited to 2700 RPM because above that the prop tips go supersonic and efficency goes out the window. It's hard to get an aircraft engine to be happy operating like a car or bike engine as they are so different. Cheers.

Chip

[rboe]

So it should be mated to a CVT....

Only slightly kidding, that would solve a lot of problems (while creating the problem: How to engineer a CVT that could handle the torque from a radial).

Counter point; They did put radial engines in the DUCK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUKW) as well as some tanks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_engine - please note the car picture a little ways down the page; uber cool!). Although I think they were used because they were available. One in hand is always better than two in the bush.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Monaco for just the car. This car is just too cool.