HEAVY OIL ENGINE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 31, 5 August 1933, Page 15

HEAVY OIL ENGINE

AN AIR-COOLED UNIT

An aeroplane fitted /with an air-cooled motor designed to burn heavy oil is added to the list of new and' experimental aircraft which will be shown for the first timo in public at the coming Royal Air JTorco display. It is the first air-cooled unit designed and constructed exclusively for oil burning to emerge from the mists of secrecy; its' predecessors, the heavy oil engines mounted in the rigid airship R.lOl and the KollsBoyee 500 h.p. modified ."Condor" engine which will provide power to another aeroplane selected for first show at the display, were liquid cooled, tho former by steam and tho latter by water. Both of the oil-burning motors are of great technical interest. They mark a new stage in the development of the compression-ignition unit. Important advantages are sought in the search for the efficient oil-burning engine. Fire risk is practically eliminated, but more vital are the lesser cost of heavy oil compared with petrol and the lesser weight of-fuel consumed. A modern pfitrol-burning- motor consumes approximately its own weight of fuel in four hours' flying. Thus, though an oilburning engine is inevitably heavier than a petrol-burning motor of equivalent power, because the loads imposed .on the moving parts are much greater and demand stouter components, tho "operating" weight—engine plus fuel —may be much less with the oil-burn-ing unit, especially for long journeys. .Till recently, the chief disadvantage of the oil engine for aerial use has been its excessive- weight; British engineers are discovering how that mag be oyerooine, ,