Le Rhone Rotary Engine Startup on 1917 Thomas-Morse Scout

[restaurantattheendofthegalaxy]

I’ve seen these in museums and always wondered whose idea it was to have the entire motor swinging around a stationary crankshaft. Weird idea, but then airplanes were less than 10 years old at the time.

[huell]

I'm very happy that she still goes, what a wonderful beast.

[kdlarson]

My dad was a motor mechanic at Carlstrom Field in Florida in the First World War. I have some photos of him running tests on le Rhones. The building in the background of the photo is covered in castor oil as were the mechanics! Really geat to see one running.

[tiredlight]

I totally fall in love with this plane and engine :-)
Thanks for uploading and thanks for _NOT_ dub it with music!

[noshsreqd]

Randomly came across this doing the YouTube crawl through vintage plane stuff, as I watched I couldn't help but think that the voice of narration sounded like a fellow I knew by the name of Gene Soper, it brought a huge smile to my face when I read the description and realized it is indeed Gene who I was hearing!

[wiy]

To think, they used to lubricate those engines with caster oil. Took on a whole new meaning of "needing to go".

[doktorscottdiabolical]

No one has mentioned it yet, but metalurgy and weight. Early engines easily overheated and would seize, or worse yet, start detonating the 40-50 octane gasoline of that day. Which could cause the motor to explode. Compression had to be low and mixtures rich to keep an inline running. Parts were wear-prone and fatigue-prone. The more you had, the more that could fail. The rotoray radial had the advantage of great cooling which allowed comparitively leaner mixtures (not sure if they had higher compression) and more power to be made. It also didn't need a carburator, radiator, hoses, coolant, long heavy crankshaft, heavy cam, etc. It used an absolute minimum number of parts, which could be cast then shop-machined on any lathe of sufficient size. So it was easy to build. And it had a very high power-to-weight ratio. Simplicity and P:W made it a great choice until inline engines exceeded about 150 hp. A few two-row rotaries were built, but the basic rotary radial design limited the drgree to which the engine could be scaled up before the gyroscopic forces exceeded practicality. However, if you bolted the crankcase to the airframe and turned the crankshaft, you got many of the advantages of the rotary in a package that could be massively scaled. Couple that with duralumin-type alloys, leaded high-octane gasoline, a centrifugal supercharger, a massive turbocharger, and later...fuel injection, water injection, and exhaust-recovery turbines and you got a real winner.

[gibsonfenderbacker]

It created its own airflow for cooling and saved weight because the engine was itself the flywheel.

[michaelbauers]

very cool, and fascinating commentary on it's operation

[fourfortyroadrunner]

I'll be DAMNED if I understand why all "event" "announcers" must offer a continuous blather of commentary at all times.

[leifvejby]

Lovely! Does anybody know what has happened to the one Jim Nissen owned in the 1970s?

[Mullay]

These Le Rhone rotary engines didn't have a throttle as such like we are used to today. To control revs the pilot "blipped" the ignition on and off.

[animalian]

It worked but one of the big disadvantages was the gryroscopic effect of the spinning cylinders. Great if turning in direction of the spin not so good if turning against it

[nikaluss]

My hero, Herman goering, used to fly a plane just like that. Amazing

[rattywoof]

I've often wondered about these rotary engines - the gyroscopic effect from all that metal whirling round must have made the plane very reluctant to turn. How difficult were they to fly?

[avada]

Hillarious design. :)
Rotating the whole engine...

[mikejohnson]

first saw one like this at EAA years ago. My eyes just about popped out when I noticed that pretty much the whole engine spins with the prop.

[lucywucyyy]

never seen a radial where the whole engine spins, is that for cooling or something?

[rodparsons]

Is this the only rotary engined kite where the cowling is attached to the engine and not the airframe?

[TradebaTali]

سلام .
من ارزوی پرواز دارم.کسی هست که برام نقشه ساخت یه هواپیمای دونفره رو بفرسته .ممنون میشم