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Updated: July 3, 2025
"Well," I said, choking down the rest of my rum, "you'd seal the ball in a big steel cylinder, attach the cylinder to a crankshaft and flywheel, give the thing a shake to start the ball bouncing back and forth, and let it run like a gasoline engine or something. It would get all the heat it needed from the air in a normal room.
The crank case was a circular aluminium casting, the engine being attached to the fuselage of the aeroplane by a circular flange situated at the back of the case; propeller shaft and crankshaft were integral. Dual ignition was provided, the generator and distributors being driven off the back end of the engine and the distributors being easily accessible.
A modification of the V type is the eighteen-cylindered engine the Sunbeam is one of the best examples in which three rows of cylinders are set parallel to each other, working on a common crankshaft. The development these four types started with that of the vertical the simplest of all; the V, radial, and rotary types came after the vertical, in the order given.
At the forward end of the crankshaft there is mounted a master bevel gear on six splines; this bevel floats on the splines against a ball thrust bearing, and, in turn, the thrust is taken by the crank case cover. A stuffing box prevents the loss of lubricant out of the front end of the crank chamber, and an oil thrower ring serves a similar purpose at the propeller end of the crank chamber.
Each crankshaft drove a separate air-screw. This pattern of engine was taken up by the Dutheil-Chambers firm in the pioneer days of aircraft, when the firm in question produced seven different sizes of horizontal engines.
The crankshaft was a nickel chrome steel forging, machined hollow, with four crank pins set at 180 degrees to each other, and carried in three bearings lined with anti-friction metal. The connecting rods were made of tubular nickel chrome steel, and the pistons of drawn steel, each being fitted with four piston rings.
It was quickly realised that increasing the number of cylinders on an engine was a better way of getting more power than that of increasing the cylinder diameter, as the greater number of cylinders gives better torque-even turning effect as well as keeping down the weight this latter because the bigger cylinders must be more stoutly constructed than the small sizes; this fact has led to the construction of engines having as many as eighteen cylinders, arranged in three parallel rows in order to keep the length of crankshaft within reasonable limits.
The double cylinder I thought could be applied to a road vehicle and my original idea was to put it on a bicycle with a direct connection to the crankshaft and allowing for the rear wheel of the bicycle to act as the balance wheel. The speed was going to be varied only by the throttle.
Lubrication was by means of two pumps, one scavenging and one suction, oil being fed under pressure from the crankshaft. A single carburettor fed all three cylinders, the branch pipe from the carburettor to the circular ring being provided with an exhaust heater. The total weight of the engine, 'all on, was 280 lbs.
With these engines the cranks are so placed that two regular impulses are given to the crankshaft for each cycle of working, an arrangement which permits of very even balancing of the inertia forces of the engine. The Darracq firm also made a four-cylindered horizontal opposed piston engine, in which two revolutions were given to the crankshaft per revolution, at equal angular intervals.
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