Heat from engines

[Willi Von Klugerman]

How much warmth did the pilots get from the engine while flying in the cold air?

[Maureen Dig Aire]

From what I've been reading, next to none. And, when they got up into the 5-digit altitudes, it was even worse. Those suits they wore provided so little protection from the cold. Any heat that the engines generated was pretty much blown right away.

[SCMc]

It depended on the plane.

James McCudden wrote about how cold it was flying at 10,000 feet in a DH2. Later after returning to the front to fly Pups, he was envited to fly a patrol with 56 Squadron. He wrote about how warm the cockpit of the SE5(a?) was, obviously thinking it was an improvement over the Pup.

Inline engines have pipes to carry exhaust fumes out of the plane, air could be allowed to flow over the engine into the cockpit. This could not be done with rotaries, which release exhaust gasses directly into the surrounding air.

I don't know what other planes might have had a reputation for being warm. Perhaps someone else could add to this.

Steve

[Roadhog]

Dear SCMc would exhaust fumes being piped into the cockpit have been dangerous to the pilot? Maybe in an open cockpit they would have been dispersed before they could do the pilot any harm. I will ask my friend who owns a Stearman about this. VR, Scott Price

[Maureen Dig Aire]

I kinda don't think they'd "pipe" the hot air directly into the COCKPIT (OK???? How's that? ) Any heat you felt was the result of that heat being carried away by the exhaust pipes. The heat merely found its way into the cockpit, rather than being piped directly into it.

[Willi Von Klugerman]

In Sagittarius Rising, Cecil Lewis was training in a B.E.2c in the evening.He was feeling cold and switched the engine off.But it only made him colder and switched it back on.

[Maureen Dig Aire]

Which indicates just how little heat he was actually getting???? Coulda also simply made him feel warmer having the engine running.

[SCMc]

Hi Maureen,

They didn't pipe heat into the cockpit. They piped exhaust away from the plane. Most of the heat radiated directly from the hot engine.

My point was the heat from a rotary engine was not available to the pilot (because of exhaust contamination). Rotary engines were essentially outside the fuselage. Most or all of the heat waas lost.

Inline engines were mounted inside the fuselage, frequently without a firewall. Five hundred pounds of metal at 200 degrees F can radiate quite a bit of heat. This meant that planes with inline engines had the potential to be warmer than rotary powered planes.

McCudden appreciated the heat coming off the SE5's Hispano-Suisa engine, commenting on "warm" it was. "Warm" is probably a relative term, but we can be confident that it was noticeably warmer than the rotary engined Pup that he had been flying.

Steve

[Roadhog]

No Maureen, I didn't mean that engine exhaust was piped into the cockpit. As MCSc said the heat would have been generated by the engine through the firewall and perhaps down the side of the fuselage via exhaust pipes that I have seen mounted on the side of some Allied AC. VR, Scott