Hello Folks,

Just want to share something that I learnt today. May be its already know to many over here. The early WW1 radial engines were in fact out-runners. I saw an avro 504 WW1 engine in the science museum. To my surprise the engine did not have a separate prop shaft. The cylinders, crank case and the prop shaft are made as a single mold. When the engine runs, the cylinders were also spinning along with the propeller like the out-runner motor. That must have generated some serious torque!...

I thought that these WW1 multicylinder engines should have been spinning a propeller drive shaft like the modern radial engines..

Here is a youtube link on a similar WW1 out-runner.. They are rightly named as rotary engines!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UBAukXPD-0&feature=related

Pic of the engine(s)

Wonder how movement of the pistons causes the whole assembly to rotate Just inertia ?

strange but true, couple of years back my instructor was teaching this and we used laugh on him ,in this mechanism crank shaft is connected to mounting and prop is connected to body (crank case)here is one video of mother of all fighters Fokker DR I which had this engine