Dart, the May 1st weekend looks good.

Let's hope the wheels are here - though they should be in next week some time.

Meanwhile I'm re-engineering brake mount adapters. I can now say I know how not to make them.

I've almost broken the code on how to do them, though; I'm going up to the airport again this weekend and try and suss it out.

Nope, it's not Kermits This is his..

Isn't it funny how the prop would change the direction of its spin ? I first thought that it might be that old radial engine, but I see modern aircraft do it as well.

Its a video recording flaw, most recording happens at 30fps. When the prop exceeded that it distorts into
the video you are witnessing. Even if you record at 60fps, this can happen.

The prop also gets into funny shapes.

I think it is caused by the stress of changing direction. That must put a lot of stress on the blades.

What kind of engine is in that Fokker? It sounds so annoying I had to turn down the sound. Not like Darts. Now that's what a engine should sound like.

rotary engine

A lot better rotary. The Fokker sounds like it has a miss.

Some of those old rotary engines you controlled the RPM/power by chopping off the ignition which leads to them to sounding like they have a miss - which is exactly what it is doing

The blip switch. They had very limited RPM control; some had none, it was on or off. Some had limited control of the fuel, but not what we think of as a throttle.

Wrong. What happens is the engine gets dizzy and forgets to ignite occasionally.

:P

From what I saw it seems they also controlled speed by selecting magnetos. So it wasn't all on and off.

OG is on the money.

The Rhone engines in Nieuports and some Fokkers had three controls.

There was air, fuel, and a magneto ("blip") switch.

One adjusted the fuel and air for best mixture for RPM adjustment. But it was adjustment, not for throttling at we think of it today. In fact, one wanted the air/fuel mix for best RPM at all times, with the engine running smoothly.

The blip switch in the early rotary engines was for all cylinders that were firing.* Either there was juice to the spark plugs or there wasn't.

Later models, like the ones that went into the Nieuport 28, had a variable magneto switch that fired every cylinder, every other cylinder, every fourth, every eighth, or none at all. Plus a blip switch. But the Nieuport 11 was either running or it wasn't. Even in later models most pilots preferred to leave it on all cylinders firing and just blip the engine.

Of course all of them were "total loss" systems where the fuel and oil was dumped out of the spun cylinder and into the cowl. Gasoline and castor oil. Yum!

* Though the engine was spinning around the crank, it was still a four cycle engine, so only one of four could be on the power stroke at a time.

Still waiting on my damned wheels.

I love the smell of 2-stroke in the morning

As a motorcycle mechanic for 33 years, it has been a blast to follow this build thread. Have fun and fly safe.

Edit:
Yes I know your working with 4 strokes But, 'Gasoline and castor oil' is (play commercial song) the best part of waking up.

Clerget 9B Engine Build

http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/projects/engines/clerget-9b-engine/detail/build-gallery?page=0%2C0

Thanks KK,
I never looked that closely at a radial engine. I know racers who complain about the rotating mass of a wider tire. I can't imagine the torque effect from that engine's RPM change. No wonder it was all on or all off.

I am lost. Do the cylinders spin on a radial engine or not?

You are saying "radial" but mean "rotary". Radial engine has cylinders in a circle but are stationary driving the crank. In a rotary the cylinders spin around it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engine

real engine
http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/projects/engines/clerget-9b-engine/detail/engine-workings

When I was about 8years old I was given a box of Biggles books by my older cousin, they all were about WW1 and Biggles flying his Sopwith Camel and that really kickstarted my interest in aviation.

I had 2 pictures on my wall back then, one of a Sopwith Camel and the other was of an Avro 504K

Nice find KK thanks for sharing it.