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A very simple carburettor of the float less, single-spray type was used, and the mixture was passed along the hollow crankshaft to the interior of the crank case, thence through the automatic inlet valves in the tops of the pistons to the combustion chambers of the cylinders.
A bullet through the petrol-pipe having put the carburettor out of action, the engine ceased its revs., so that we glided several miles, crossed the then lines at a low height, and touched earth among the network of last June's lines. We pancaked on to the far edge of a trench, and the wheels slid backward into the cavity, causing the lower wings and fuselage to be crumpled and broken.
"He's done more damage, the few times he's driven it, than a skilled chauffeur would do in five years." "Dear me," said the other. "Knows nothing of the mechanism, I suppose?" "Doesn't know the difference between the carburettor and the er exhaust." Lord Brethe laughed. "Dear, dear. These young men," he said. Here the spanner I was using slipped off a nut.
In the space above the crankshaft, between the cylinder rows, was placed the valve-operating mechanism, together with the carburettor and ignition system, thus rendering this a very compact and accessible engine.
Our carburettor continually got cold, and we stopped a good deal. Eventually about 1 p.m. we passed Lashly's car and made our way up a gentle slope on to the Barrier, waved to the party, and went on about three-quarters of a mile. Here we waited for Lashly and Hooper, who came up at 2.30, having had much trouble with their engine, due to overheating, we thought.
The final day of the meeting provided a further record in the quarter million spectators who turned up to witness the close of the great week. Bleriot, turning out in the morning, made a landing in some such fashion as flooded the carburettor and caused it to catch fire. Bleriot himself was badly burned, since the petrol tank burst and, in the end, only the metal parts of the machine were left.
I chased a whole row of things one after another battery, buzzer, oil or gasoline in the cylinders, defective insulation, commutator, water in the carburettor, choked feed-pipe, and all it did was to cough in a dreary, tow-me-home-to-mother sort of way, "If the captain had known anything about engines and could have made it start, I expect I would have married him and lived happy ever afterward.
If another pilot were detailed to fly it the owner would watch the performance jealously, and lurid indeed was the subsequent talk if an outsider choked the carburettor, taxied the bus on the switch, or otherwise did something likely to reduce the efficiency of engine or aeroplane.
When the machine began to lose height I knew there was a chronic miss. V. looked round and smiled reassuringly, though he himself was far from reassured. He tried an alteration in the carburettor mixture, but this did not remedy matters. Next, thinking that the engine might have been slightly choked, he cut off the petrol supply for a moment and put down the nose of the machine.
Mr Dugald Clerk's original two-stroke cycle engine is indicated roughly, as regards principle, by the accompanying diagram, from which it will be seen that the elimination of the ordinary inlet and exhaust valves of the four-stroke type is more than compensated by a separate cylinder which, having a piston worked from the connecting-rod of the power cylinder, was used to charging, drawing the mixture from the carburettor past the valve in the top of the charging cylinder, and then forcing it through the connecting pipe into the power cylinder.
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