Round Engines.

John Baker

John Baker

Final Approach
Joined
Oct 4, 2008
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San Diego, California
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Display name:
John Baker
I don't know who wrote this, but I thought ya'll might enjoy it, and it is VERY well said!

DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE WHO FLEW BEHIND/BETWEEN ROUND ENGINES

We gotta get
rid of those turbines, they're ruining aviation and our hearing...

A turbine is too simple minded, it has no mystery. The air travels through
it in a straight line and doesn't pick up any of the pungent fragrance of
engine oil or pilot sweat.

Anybody can start a turbine. You just need to move a switch from "OFF" to
"START" and then remember to move it back to "ON" after a while. My PC is
harder to start.

Cranking a round engine requires skill, finesse and style. You have to
seduce it into starting. It's like waking up a horny mistress. On some
planes, the pilots aren't even allowed to do it....

Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a lady-like poof and start
whining a little louder.

Round engines give a satisfying rattle-rattle, click-click, BANG, more
rattles, another BANG, a big macho FART or two, more clicks, a lot more
smoke and finally a serious low pitched roar. We like that. It's a GUY
thing...

When you start a round engine, your mind is engaged and you can concentrate
on the flight ahead Starting a turbine is like flicking on a ceiling fan:
Useful, but, hardly exciting. When you have started his round engine
successfully your Crew Chief looks up at you like he'd let you kiss his
girl, too!

Turbines don't break or catch fire often enough, which leads to aircrew
boredom, complacency and inattention. A round engine at speed looks and
sounds like it's going to blow any minute. This helps concentrate the mind !

Turbines don't have enough control levers or gauges to keep a pilot's
attention. There's nothing to fiddle with during long flights.

Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman Lamps. Round engines
smell like God intended machines to smell.

.........THE END, Amen......

______________________________________________________________

John




 
KennyFlys said:
A turbine engine is also a four-cycle engine. :)
Click to expand...

Knowing all internal combustion engines suck, squeez, bang and blow. what is the main difference between a reciprecating engine and turbine?
 
Tom-D said:
Knowing all internal combustion engines suck, squeez, bang and blow. what is the main difference between a reciprecating engine and turbine?
Click to expand...
Turbines move only one direction.
 
Tom-D said:
Knowing all internal combustion engines suck, squeez, bang and blow. what is the main difference between a reciprecating engine and turbine?
Click to expand...

The lack of reciprocation is the primary difference and a lack of timing is another. The reciprocating engine cycles through its SSBB "strokes" while a turbine runs them all continuously and simultaneously. The recip performs all the strokes in the same space, a turbine has a different space for each "stroke".
 
We use to say the only people in love with radial engines are those who never had to try to make a living with one...............
 
Rotor&Wing said:
We use to say the only people in love with radial engines are those who never had to try to make a living with one...............
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Nahhh. I'd get the choice between the AT-602 with a PT-6 and the Bull Thrush with an 1820, and I'd choose the Bull Thrush every time. The stench of the turbine makes me ill.
 
Rotor&Wing said:
The man paying the bills could care less which aroma entices you.:)
Click to expand...
They both hauled the same load and billed out the same. The recip is 1/10th the acquisition price, has a $40k rebuild and can be operated on condition forever. The Bull Thrush costs to replace about what the 601 costs to insure annually, and typically, recips carry no hull coverage, turbines are financed so they do. The PT-6 does not require the day to day maint and repair the 1820 does, but the engine is not the only system on the plane. There have been a lot of successful operators who transitioned from recip to turbine and went broke. My buddies AT 502 needed to fly 45,000 acres just to pay its own annual nut. You run into a bad year and you can be in trouble really quick. Not a big problem to leave an assett that's free and clear sitting in the hangar through a bad season. It sucks, but at least it isn't costing you much. If you are a chemical distributor in irrigated farm country, yes, the turbine makes sense because you are flying enough acres every year, so many in fact that you need the dispatch reliability of the turbine. But a lot of operations aren't in that situation, and when you have a year where the phone doesn't ring because a late freeze destroyed the regions crop, or the weather is so good, and insects at non threatening levels that it can all be done with a ground rig at a fraction of the price, well, when your fixed expenses are a couple hundred grand to just have that plane parked there.....that gets painful fast. Two years in a row like that and you're sunk.
 
Henning said:
The lack of reciprocation is the primary difference and a lack of timing is another. The reciprocating engine cycles through its SSBB "strokes" while a turbine runs them all continuously and simultaneously. The recip performs all the strokes in the same space, a turbine has a different space for each "stroke".
Click to expand...

Nope still not the primary difference in the theory of operation.

The recip, does each of the 4 strokes ( intake, compression, power, and exhaust) one at a time, the turbine does them simultaneously.

all engines will only rotate in one direction during operation, all have some type of ignition, and there are only 2 types of engines, Internal combustion and external combustion.
 
Henning said:
The lack of reciprocation is the primary difference and a lack of timing is another. The reciprocating engine cycles through its SSBB "strokes" while a turbine runs them all continuously and simultaneously. The recip performs all the strokes in the same space, a turbine has a different space for each "stroke".
Click to expand...

Tom-D said:
Nope still not the primary difference in the theory of operation.

The recip, does each of the 4 strokes ( intake, compression, power, and exhaust) one at a time, the turbine does them simultaneously.

all engines will only rotate in one direction during operation, all have some type of ignition, and there are only 2 types of engines, Internal combustion and external combustion.
Click to expand...

Same Same.

Mmmmm I can think of a third.... Nuclear powered engines, no combustion whatsoever, but still derive their energy from heat within a generation (same as most external combustion steam engines.
 
Tom-D said:
Nope still not the primary difference in the theory of operation.

The recip, does each of the 4 strokes ( intake, compression, power, and exhaust) one at a time, the turbine does them simultaneously.

all engines will only rotate in one direction during operation, all have some type of ignition, and there are only 2 types of engines, Internal combustion and external combustion.
Click to expand...
That was my thought when I said it's still a four-cycle engine as well as rotates in one direction.

What's really sad is I know of a recent ATP recipient who did not understand how a turbine operated just before he went for his 733 type rating. That one was shocking.
 
"Suck, Squeeze, Whine, Blow" just lacks the essential appeal...
 
Henning said:
Same Same.

Mmmmm I can think of a third.... Nuclear powered engines, no combustion whatsoever, but still derive their energy from heat within a generation (same as most external combustion steam engines.
Click to expand...

Nukie power is a reaction not an engine.

It really does not matter where or how a external engine gets its energy, steam from a nukie plant is still an external engine. Which can be either a recip or turbine.
 
Tom-D said:
Nukie power is a reaction not an engine.

It really does not matter where or how a external engine gets its energy, steam from a nukie plant is still an external engine. Which can be either a recip or turbine.
Click to expand...


Of course it is, same as any steam engine is. It is not a combustion engine, but nothing says combustion is required to have an engine. Perhaps you meant endothermic or exothermic engines. This will clarify things.
 
Tom-D said:
Nukie power is a reaction not an engine.
Click to expand...

Soooo, you believe that combustion isn't a reaction? Better dig out the chemistry book again...

If you really want to classify engines perhaps you'd best dig out a thermodynamics text.
 
Henning said:
The lack of reciprocation is the primary difference and a lack of timing is another. The reciprocating engine cycles through its SSBB "strokes" while a turbine runs them all continuously and simultaneously. The recip performs all the strokes in the same space, a turbine has a different space for each "stroke".
Click to expand...
So is a Wankel a recip? It has a different "space" for each "stroke" too.
 
Clark1961 said:
Soooo, you believe that combustion isn't a reaction? Better dig out the chemistry book again...

If you really want to classify engines perhaps you'd best dig out a thermodynamics text.
Click to expand...

You need to read what I wrote, there are 2 types of engines, an internal combustion and an external combustion.

For any external combustion engine it matters not how the energy is made. The energy is made in one place and delivered to the engine in another place.
 
Tom-D said:
You need to read what I wrote, there are 2 types of engines, an internal combustion and an external combustion.

For any external combustion engine it matters not how the energy is made. The energy is made in one place and delivered to the engine in another place.
Click to expand...

With the advent of nuclear energy and other catalytic heat sources, that is no longer accurate. An engine is a device to change any other form of energy into kinetic energy. In modern parlance it is a device to turn heat into kinetic energy. Since there are other forms of heat besides combustion, the two types of engines are Endothermic and Exothermic An internal combustion engine is an example of endothermic (heat comes from inside), and a steam engine is an example of exothermic(heat comes from outside). Whether the heat comes from a coal firebox or a nuclear pile is irrelevant to the exothermic engine. Now, a fire (a chemical reaction) and a nuclear reaction are very similar, they both rapidly decompose their "fuel", Uranium using free neutrons, coal or oil using oxygen. These reactions release heat which boils the water for the steam to power the steam engine. BTW, a nuclear reactor will power a Sterling engine with no steam in between.
 
Tom-D said:
You need to read what I wrote, there are 2 types of engines, an internal combustion and an external combustion.

For any external combustion engine it matters not how the energy is made. The energy is made in one place and delivered to the engine in another place.
Click to expand...


Write all you like but engines are defined by their thermodynamic cycle.

Whether or not you can admit the fact is entirely up to you. Have you started in on the chemistry text yet?
 
Henning said:
<SNIP> BTW, a nuclear reactor will power a Sterling engine with no steam in between.
Click to expand...

Maybe not steam, but it still uses a gas which expands and contracts as the energy is added or removed. This gas takes the place of steam. One could even consider the water vapor in a steam engine to be a gas. You can buy (or make) small Stirling engines where the heat source is the palm of your hand from http://www.stirlingengine.com/
 
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Cap'n Jack said:
Maybe not steam, but it still uses a gas which expands and contracts as the energy is added or removed.
Click to expand...

Depends on the reactor type and where in the system you're talking. If you're talking about reactor to primary heat exchanger you can use pressurized water, sodium, some bismuth alloys, etc. as the medium to exchange heat from the reactor to the heat exchanger that generates the steam.

Or you can save the heat exchanger entirely and just use a boiling water reactor which also has the benefit of some self-moderation.


Trapper John
 
Love the sound and look of a radial engine. Nothing like it. However, I would not want to maintain them if on a budget.
 
Trapper John said:
Depends on the reactor type and where in the system you're talking. If you're talking about reactor to primary heat exchanger you can use pressurized water, sodium, some bismuth alloys, etc. as the medium to exchange heat from the reactor to the heat exchanger that generates the steam.

Or you can save the heat exchanger entirely and just use a boiling water reactor which also has the benefit of some self-moderation.


Trapper John
Click to expand...

Very true. There are also some reactors (I think this is what Henning was actually alluding to, but it perhaps didn't come across well) that simply heat air.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

For some reason I thought the French had done some of the early work on these reactors but they aren't mentioned in the article...
 
Anthony said:
Love the sound and look of a radial engine. Nothing like it. However, I would not want to maintain them if on a budget.
Click to expand...

Why do you believe they are more expensive than a flat engne?

my Warner goes oil change to oil change with out adding a qt. the mag point set costs 8 bucks, the valves clearance check and oil change at 25 hours.

a complete valve job was $800 At Al Holloways.

and it runs about 9 gallons per hour 50/50 mix auto and 100LL.

Yes it has 14 plugs WoW.
 
Henning said:
With the advent of nuclear energy and other catalytic heat sources, that is no longer accurate. An engine is a device to change any other form of energy into kinetic energy. In modern parlance it is a device to turn heat into kinetic energy. Since there are other forms of heat besides combustion, the two types of engines are Endothermic and Exothermic An internal combustion engine is an example of endothermic (heat comes from inside), and a steam engine is an example of exothermic(heat comes from outside). Whether the heat comes from a coal firebox or a nuclear pile is irrelevant to the exothermic engine. Now, a fire (a chemical reaction) and a nuclear reaction are very similar, they both rapidly decompose their "fuel", Uranium using free neutrons, coal or oil using oxygen. These reactions release heat which boils the water for the steam to power the steam engine. BTW, a nuclear reactor will power a Sterling engine with no steam in between.
Click to expand...

The point is, the nukie reactor is still out side the engine, thus it is an external combustion engine. Your argument about if it is a combustion or not is irrelevant.
 
Anthony said:
Love the sound and look of a radial engine. Nothing like it. However, I would not want to maintain them if on a budget.
Click to expand...


????? An R-985 is cheaper to maintain than a TSIO/GTSIO 520 or TIO 540. I can operate 3 985s 2000hrs for less than the cost of one TIGO 541.
 
Henning said:
With the advent of nuclear energy and other catalytic heat sources, that is no longer accurate. An engine is a device to change any other form of energy into kinetic energy. In modern parlance it is a device to turn heat into kinetic energy. Since there are other forms of heat besides combustion, the two types of engines are Endothermic and Exothermic An internal combustion engine is an example of endothermic (heat comes from inside), and a steam engine is an example of exothermic(heat comes from outside). <SNIP>
Click to expand...

You're using a South Park clip as your reference? I don't know if you're trying to have a serious conversation here or not- especially when some of the information is wrong.

In any case you are using endothermic and exothermic in the opposite sense I am used to...

In chemistry, an exothermic reaction gives off heat. An endothermic reaction absorbs heat or requires heat for the reaction. The South Park clip you cite has it backwards- evaporation of water requires heat. Thay why you feel cooler upon perspiring- you provided heat to the water.

The reaction of hydrocarbons with gasoline is exothermic- once started, you get heat as well as carbon dioxide and water (assuming you are running lean of peak or a stoichiometric mixture of oxygen and fuel.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exothermic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothermic

Also your misuse of the word "catalytic"- A catalyst is a compound that increases or decreases the rate of a chemical reaction. An example relevent to aviation (although not to most of us) is conversion of hydrogen peroxide to oxygen and water - this was used for the attitude control rockets on the NF-104, I think the space shuttle uses them too. Catalysts that slow reactions are enzymes in cells. We efficiently get energy out of sugars without having body temperatures of 451°F. Catalysts have nothing to do with nuclear reactors (at our present knowledge level).

Tom-D said:
The point is, the nukie reactor is still out side the engine, thus it is an external combustion engine. Your argument about if it is a combustion or not is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

I'm more familiar with the definition posited above. The external energy source could be geothermal as well but this would make a horrible aircraft engine.
 
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Tom-D said:
The point is, the nukie reactor is still out side the engine, thus it is an external combustion engine. Your argument about if it is a combustion or not is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

Well, kinda but now. The difference difference may be nit picky and semantic, it is however very critiacal. Nuclear reactor= Exothermic=Good...Nuclear reactor = external combustion = Chernyoble.:yikes: That is far from irrelevant.:smilewinkgrin:

BTW, there are also engines that are hybrid combined cycle engines which use both exothermic and endothermic power sources. Can you name an aircraft engine that does this? I can....:D
 
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