Club Cobra - History of aircraft piston engines

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History of aircraft piston engines

This is an outstanding article on the history of aircraft piston engines. This was written by one of the giants whose shoulders all modern engine designers stand.

http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancon...AOF-0001.4.pdf

Nice article Tom

Tom Kirkham Nice article Tom, Tom when you get a chance can you clean out your private e-mails. I have a couple of questions to ask you. Rick L.

Okay Tom spill the beans!

Are you building a car that will be powered by an aircraft engine?

My guess is that it will be a Salt Flat racer.

Am I right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Kirkham (Post 955859)

This is an outstanding article on the history of aircraft piston engines. This was written by one of the giants whose shoulders all modern engine designers stand. ...[/url]

Tom,

Charles Fayette Taylor left us several other memorable books of his. One that is published in two volumes is 'The Internal Combustion Engine in Theory and Practice' Volumes 1 and 2. Not light reading by any stretch and done before we had the benefit of computers for modeling purposes it is simply the bedrock for modern engine designers.

On his 100th Birthday at MIT the University read a Resolution honoring him before the faculty. Here is a link to a little more about him and the resolution from an MIT site click here => http://web.mit.edu/hmtl/www/taylor.pdf

For those on Club Cobra that would like to get a copy of his work while it is still available, it can still be found on Amazon. Not light reading but nothing short of extraordinary for an internal combustion engine designer.

Professor Taylor passed away just three months short of his 102nd birthday.

Ed

This is an excellent paper. I also found his text book facinating. It literally caused me to change careers from civil to mechanical engineering many years ago.

I live very close to the Evergreen Air and Space museum and just marvel at the engines on display, especially the big CornCob cut-away display. To think these people designed and built such complicated masterpieces with slide rules and drafting tables....:confused:

Thomas never ceases to amaze me with his breadth of knowledge on mechanical engineering. I have never met anyone in my life who has a more innate understanding of engineering and engineering systems--especially automotive ones. I have met and worked with some of the brightest engineers on earth from F1 to Aerospace to nuclear weapons engineers--he can carry on an in-depth conversation with any of them.

I can't wait to read this...after I finish this dang book!

David
:):):)

A photo of the P&W 4360 at Evergreen.

Magnificant!!!