1/4 scale gnome rotary

[Breguet]

A friend of mine just purchased a second hand one of these. They are built by replica engines. Does anyone know anyone who has one or has run one or have any of the paperwork about them?

[mgtaylor]

I had a few conversations with Replica Engines several years back when I dreamed of owning & using one on a 1/4 scale kit.

First off they were 3-5 Grand at the time. They were limited run. a limited number were built and thats it. So it you have one I'd Assume their is a collectors factor there ? I see its still posted on thier web site.

GNOME

The Web site at the time showed a Flying FOkker E.III with one installed. BUT in converstaions with Replica after pushing them for Hp & performance numbers on the engine they admited that the E.III barely flew and was under-powered.

They went in to the background of the engine whenit was first released, it caused a fire storm of excitemwnt from the WWI RC Crowd and the first slew of issues were snapped up by them. BUT a flying/working example has yet to date been produced. he went on to complain about the excees wieght of the more robust WWI kits which are bigger and more complicated than the E.III ie more wings fuselage drag etc. Word eventualy made its way thru the WWI R/C community at the time and sales dropped off.

Bottom line he backed up on the engines performance and stood by it as a working display replicia instead.

I STILL Wanted one. Even if it only ran on a test stand. But common sense and the expense of kids came along and I shrugged the idea off.

NOW there was a guy in upstate NY who was featured on Glenn Torrences page a year or more back who built himself a working 1/4 clerget or leRhone and installed it on an AVRO or Sopwith 1 & 1/2 strutter and/or Fok DVI. It really did work and push that puppy around the patttern like the REAL thing form the video.
I wrote the individual but he never responded to beg him to put it in production for the masses but he must have decided to leave it as an one off. Remember without a throttle and only an on/off switch and the precessional torque produced it can not in the end be an R/C friendly Powerplant, possibly ?

Who wants to send a Kit and equipment theyve spent hours upon hours and money on in to the sky with a Deathwish on it ? I doubt any gyro stablized radio equipment is going to be able to recover from the kind of advanced stalls which it might get into from improper use of that engine ?

But the Dream Lives on !! I really do not see why the engines cannot be reporduced in 1/4 scale with CAD drawings and moderen light wieght alloys ?

Yours Mike.

[Breguet]

Thanks Mike I'll pass the info on - although the news is not great it is better knowing than not knowing.

[The PIPE]

Dear Breguet:

The PIPE Here again...

...and it's RAY WILLIAMS, in NY State, with his enthusiast website at Welcome to Model Rotary Flyer , that has been making his own 1/3rd scale rotary engines, and FLYING monstrously huuuge 1/3rd scale aircraft with them, that you're probably thinking about !

I've LONG wondered how I might want to simulate the spinning action of a rotary engine for an RC model, since the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker prototype (one of only FIVE built) that Kurt Wintgens flew in that history-making summer of 1915, HAS a plainly exposed Oberursel U.0 seven cylinder rotary engine in the open area of the lower nose, and seeing THAT spinning in flight on an accurate RC model would just add SO much realism, to what is intended to be the first ACCURATE flyable miniature depiction ever attempted, especially in 1/4th Giant Scale size, of the early M.5K/MG Eindecker.

I had remembered that one British RCer had built a Sopwith Snipe for FAI World Championship competition many years ago with a dummy rotary that DID spin...and it was spinning just from the backwash of air from the propeller, and from the motion of the air past the dummy rotary, as this modeler has used something like large diameter roller bearings to mount the dummy rotary's crankcase into the nose, and had attached clear plastic "vanes" to the appropriate rear quarter of each and every cylinder on his RC model's dummy rotary engine...

...so, acting like a child's "pinwheel". the slipstream from forward speed AND the backwash of air from the model engine propeller got the dummy rotary spinning. from it being mounted only on the large diameter roller bearings, while the model engine was running...all WITHOUT the dummy rotary engine having ANY fastening to the model engine's propshaft of any kind...and gave a very convincing appearance in the Snipe's cowl that there WAS a "real" rotary engine moving his model along through the air.

Now, Kurt's Eindecker, WITH that plainly exposed seven cylinder rotary on there, also begs to have such an arrangement on its nose...

...and thanks to what I would use for its engine needs, viewable at RCV120-SP ...

...we RC fliers NOW have something that the Brit who built a Snipe with a dummy rotary that looked like it was spinning, didn't have available to him, in the RCV 120 SP powerplant that could have the pair of bearings situated "around" the forward projecting cylinder of it, to mount the dummy rotary onto, with the bearings themselves mounted onto a stationary cylindrical framework that surrounds the RCV's cylinder, which would also force cooling air to flow "straight rearwards" over the cylinder, and the cylinder would be running forward through where the rotary's crankcase would be located...and add to that the fact that the RCV 120 SP has a built-in 2:1 gear reduction for its propshaft, from its basic design...

...you have an engine that, because of its built-in gear reduction, CAN operate a very large, scale diameter propeller for a 1/4th scale Giant RC Scale model.

One "Damnathius" on the RCU forum has flown a Balsa USA Nieuport 17 with the RCV 120 SP engine using as large as a 24" diameter x 8" pitch propeller with great success, and for Kurt's Eindecker, a 22 x 10 prop sounds like just the size to use, from the CAD drawing plans I've been working on here at home intermittently for some time now.

I've already got one of these RCV 120 SP powerplants in storage for future use (especially once I CAN GET BACK TO WORK) and I'm planning on getting at least two MORE of them in the future for my 1/4th scale Bristol Scout C CAD project, and Kurt's Eindecker...not to mention kits like the Mick Reeves 1/4th scale Sopwith Camel, Glenn Torrance's same-scale Fokker Dr I, a Balsa USA Nieuport 17 I might one day build for the AMA Dist. I VP (Andy Argenio) in Francesco Baracca's Italian colors (complete with its "Ferrari Horse" personal insignia in three places), and maybe even the little-modeled RAF F.E.8 pusher, all in RC Giant Scale, for RCV 120 SP power, all with those "spinning" dummy rotaries.

I'm just looking to get back to work for the time being, as I've been OUT of work for a year now, and I may soon be going back for evening college courses to finish up an old business degree program that SHOULD help me big-time in working once more...so these ARE future plans, but it's a solid idea that HAS been tried with success already by that long-ago British RCer, and with the RCV 120 SP as the powerplant, there's an engine that lends itself almost perfectly to such a concept.

Just HOPING to get back to work for now, though...but "forwards-thinking" about how to do a spinning dummy rotary for a WW I RC Giant Scale aircraft, keeps me going a little bit...!

Yours Sincerely,

The PIPE!