CRAFTSMAN'S IDEA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 11

CRAFTSMAN'S IDEA

STEAM FOR AIRCRAFT EXPERIMENTS IN LONDON „ SUCCESS WITH MODEL £fhom ouh ow>- corresfoxdext] LONDON", 1 June 2 A tiny model steam engine, built by a craftsman iii a small workshop in London, may prove-to-contain an idea which will help to make the steam engine available for aircraft. The heart of the engine is its little steam generator, which, unlike the boiler of the average engine, is actually of smaller cubic capacity than the cylinder it supplies with steam. The weight of the ordinary tube boiler usually means so. big a total weight in relation to the horse-power produced that it has scarcely been possible so far to contemplate the application of steam power to flying. One steamdriven aeroplane was flown a.few years ago in the United States, but there has been no development of it yet. . The new idea which Mr. Ernest. Clarkson has developed in his little workshop is one which requires both an .unusually small steam generator" and a very small quantity of vrater. The plan is not to boil water in the mass in boiler tubes, but to apply a combination of spraying water into the tubes and impregnating ' with" it an absorbent material which is kept at. such a hoat that the moisture evaporates immediately.' • In his first simple, model Mr. Clark* sou derives his heat- from a Bunsen burner, but. in a new model now being, made he proposes to use a jet of burning heavy oil, and so to obtain much greater heat and better results. In its primitive form the engine works efficiently, notwithstanding the fact that the inventor has had to construct for himself the minute pump which delivers the water to the generator. This little model demonstrates; clearly the rapidity with which ari adequate head of steam is raised and the ease with which it is maintained. The engine, starting from cold yesterday, was turning over within 20 seconds, and continued to run with a good output of power until its small supply of water was finished. The energy developed by . a "boiler" only three-quarters the capacity of the cylinder was surprising.