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For the aviation nuts......

2K views 24 replies 12 participants last post by  jnyork 
#1 ·
Yesterday I was at a yardsale and scored several pristine copies of a magazine titled "Army Ordnance" , a slick-paged publication of the Army Ordnance Association in Washington DC. I got all 7 copies they had, all dated 1940-1941. Wonderful articles and photos of Army equipment of the era immediately preceding WWII.
Also, it seemed that every company that made anything for the military had placed large adverisements, the ads were at least as informative as the articles, maybe more so.

One ad in particular caught my eye, that for a diesel radial aircraft engine!! I had no clue such thing ever existed and doubt many others have. Here's the scoop from Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiberson_A-1020
 
#2 ·
When i was in high school 1960 - 1964 we had a 9 cyl Lycoming radial gas engine that's we had to disassemble completely, check for damage, wear, etc, reassemble and start it up. It was in a frame bolted to the concrete 3rd floor classroom floor. When that thing fired and ran the entire school could feel the vibrations.
 
#7 ·
:eek: Lol!
Yeah, the Germans liked diesels, the Hindenburg airship was powered by diesels
Hindenburg was powered by four reversible 890 kW (1,190 hp) Daimler-Benz diesel engines which gave the airship a maximum speed of 135 km/h (84 mph). Although the Graf Zeppelin had the same engine car design in its early stages of construction, the pods were later completely redesigned to power tractor propellers. The engines had a water recovery system which captured the exhaust of the engines to minimize weight lost during flight.
84mph in calm air? The big balloon ship?? :eek::eek::eek:
 
#5 ·
Yeah, the Germans liked diesels, the Hindenburg airship was powered by diesels
Hindenburg was powered by four reversible 890 kW (1,190 hp) Daimler-Benz diesel engines which gave the airship a maximum speed of 135 km/h (84 mph). Although the Graf Zeppelin had the same engine car design in its early stages of construction, the pods were later completely redesigned to power tractor propellers. The engines had a water recovery system which captured the exhaust of the engines to minimize weight lost during flight.
 
#6 ·
There are several manufacturers of diesel engines for aircraft of varying horsepower. Weight has always been an issue but there have been serious advancements in that area.

They're still a rarity though, and I imagine more than a few line personnel have been surprised to see a single-engine recreational propeller-driven plane pull up to the jet fuel pump.
 
#14 ·
I remember my dad telling me about a "semi-diesel" engine in German aircraft. It was described to him by friend, who was a B-17 gunner and told about seeing his .50 caliber bullets hitting the nose of what had to be A Focke-Wulf 190, that supposedly had a diesel radial powering it, and watching his rounds being slung out through the cowling by some sort of fan that maybe supplied cooling.(?) I don't doubt the gunner's description...maybe my dad's interpretation?

He did call me a liar, when I described the Cessna Skymaster, with one tractor and one pusher engine to him.

Afaik, No German "semi-diesel" ever powered their warplanes. Does someone know for sure?
 
#20 ·
While there is True Air Speed, there is no "true ground speed" there is just "Ground Speed" ..

Here, read this.

Ground speed is the horizontal speed of an aircraft relative to the ground. An aircraft heading vertically would have a ground speed of zero. Information displayed to passengers through the entertainment system often gives the aircraft ground speed rather than airspeed.

Ground speed can be determined by the vector sum of the aircraft's true airspeed and the current wind speed and direction; a headwind subtracts from the ground speed, while a tailwind adds to it. Winds at other angles to the heading will have components of either headwind or tailwind as well as a crosswind component.

An airspeed indicator indicates the aircraft's speed relative to the air mass. The air mass may be moving over the ground due to wind, and therefore some additional means to provide position over the ground is required. This might be through navigation using landmarks, radio aided position location, inertial navigation system, or GPS. When more advanced technology is unavailable, an E6B flight computer may be used to calculate ground speed. Ground speed radar can measure it directly.

Ground speed is quite different from airspeed. When an aircraft is airborne the ground speed does not determine when the aircraft will stall, and it doesn't influence the aircraft performance such as rate of climb.
 
#25 ·
Kind of like which is going faster, the moving bus or the bee inside flying to the front of said bus, no? :D
Closer than you think, Al.

The bee's AIRSPEED is measured as related to the air in the bus, likely 1-2 mph or some such. The bee's GROUNDSPEED is measured by his movement related to the ground, which might be 65-70mph or so.

Pretty astute observation by yourself, Al. Especially for someone who once measured groundspeed by progress through the mud and leeches. :bthumb:
 
#22 ·
Back in my (retired in 2002) time most A/C didn't have Ground Speed Readouts (we called it GS) and would occasionally ask ATC for it, with GPS systems now I imagine they have it available in most A/C now.
 
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