utube rotary engine (not wankel)
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHRuEkvO8E

regards
Mech

Looks like an aircraft radial engine.

It is an old aircraft engine. The LeRhone goes back to the early 1900s.

I'm trying to remember the engine where the shaft was actually fixed to the firewall and the engine spun with the prop. I imagine overheating wasn't a big issue on that one. Can anyone tell me what that was?

That is the one, crank bolted to air frame prop to engine block. Radials had spinning crankshafts, like every other reciprocating piston engine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UBAukXPD-0

regards
Mech

I image getting the plane to turn could be tricky with the torque from that heavy block spinning around.

Turned twice as fast one way as the other. Those kites could do 6 g's in a turn. The spinning engine provided 90% or the valve spring tension dueto centrifugal force and the Le Rhone with intake runners was also a centrifugal supercharger. I think it was 80 HP at 1200 RPM and weighed around 325 to 250 pounds. Took something like 80 man hours on a lathe to machine each cylinder jug. 100 pounds of steel finished to something like 7 pounds and a lot of cuttings on the floor!

regards
Mech

That was why the Sopwith Camel was so dangerous to fly.Many pilots were killed in training.An experienced pilot used this to his advantage in combat, it would turn slower to the left but could "Right hand you to death" .:eek:

How did the carb/fuel delivery work?

Fuel was mixed with castor oil, and delivered through the fixed crankshaft. Late in WW1 they even developed a carb that would work inverted, something the early Spitfires did not have in early WW2. Gnomes went through a valve the piston crown, LeRhones and most of the others had intake runners for each cylinder.

Pretty sure they controlled speed by selectively shorting the plugs out, plugs fired once per revolution but they were 4 stroke.

regards
Mech

Combustion pushed the cylinder head away from the piston, Con rods rotated around the crankpin, unlike any others that only oscillated on the journal. Very similar to the modern rotary vane pumps use in air tools except reversed. Originally built to provide good cooling when air speeds were 45 MPH in 1908 they jumped to 120 MPH in 1912 at the Rheims air races.

regards
Mech