Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Tele man
...shades of the WWI Gnome engines! -- "snap" turn one direction but NOT the other (ha,ha).
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Thought I would revive this thread.
In the bike the flywheel is rotating on the same axis as the frame. In the plane the axis was 90 degrees to the frame. It was the torque of the 350 pound rotating engine that allowed the plane to turn so quickly in one drection versus the opposite direction. The Fokker Dr1 could do a Flat turn, basically spinning on the axis of the engine with the rudder alone.
Spin a flywheel on a dinner plate, you can move it around easily while it is spinning vertically on the plate. You can even lift the plate rapidly until the flywheel is airborne and let it land on the plate, still spinning.
The flywheel resists changes in its plane of rotation more than any other.
That is why if horzontal or vertical It would resist leaning in either direction and allow the bike to stand vertically.
The rotary fighters of WW1 were wicked to fly. With engines weighing almost a third of the total weight of the plane and gobs of torque, they were inherently unstable and killed more pilots in training than combat. They would do 6 g turns and make pilots black out if they were not careful. Not bad for fabric, wood, and wires.
A horizontal spinning flywheel in a vehicle would also tend to make the vehicle stay level when encountering bumps or things like railroad tracks.
regards
Mech