What's your favourite engine?

[Reynard]

I came very close to buying a Skoda Rapid 130 a lot of years ago. ( early eighties! ) Test drove it a few times and was properly in love with the wee rear engined beastie. Then I found out about the 20,000km clutch life And decided to run my dead reliable Lada for a few more years. I even rallied that poor Lada once, it was great fun and managed fifth overall against some proper cars. The stereo in that car, while not great, was worth more than the car. Oh the life of the college punk.

I never had one of the old rear-engined Rapids, but did have a Favorit, which replaced them, when I passed my driving test. Have had assorted Skuds ever since.

 

[fritz katzenjammer]

I was thinking of automobile engines, then I remembered the jewels that have inhabited some of my old motorbiikes. The flat head 500 twin in my ex-Canadian army Triumph and the 350 thumper in my India Enfield. Both lovely dead reliable lumps that made just enough power to be entertaining, sounded great and would run on shampoo.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Though I love the Yamaha R1 cross plane, I think for sheer simplicity it might be the steam engine. Very powerful and can pretty much run on anything that burns hot enough, and water. Someone might correct me though, I know nothing about how flexible or reliable they are

 

[figbat]

Though I love the Yamaha R1 cross plane, I think for sheer simplicity it might be the steam engine. Very powerful and can pretty much run on anything that burns hot enough, and water. Someone might correct me though, I know nothing about how flexible or reliable they are

All true and great for applications where you have constant access to the combustible fuel and water. One downside is the startup time.

 

[fritz katzenjammer]

All true and great for applications where you have constant access to the combustible fuel and water. One downside is the startup time.

I had an old air cooled VW type 3 that had similar issues… it would run on anything flammable but took forever to start…

just didn’t need any water.

although plenty found its way into the interior.

 

[Rusty Nails]

Years ago we stood just outside the fence at the end of Rhoose Airport runway when Concord took off directly over our heads. If there is a noisier engine I'd be very impressed.

 

[Drago]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the HTRE3 nuclear powered aircraft engine. I like nuclear stuff, so this appeals to me.

A real thing that actually worked, albeit only ever run up on ground based test rigs and never powered an aircraft. Shame.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the HTRE3 nuclear powered aircraft engine. I like nuclear stuff, so this appeals to me.

View attachment 787618

A real thing that actually worked, albeit only ever run up on ground based test rigs and never powered an aircraft. Shame.

I remember reading about that. The thing that really scuppered it was the weight of the shielding required to protect the crew. The Soviets also had a similar project and, as they weren't slaves to health and safety gone mad, actually got it to fly. And fry too, as far as the crews were concerned.

 

[fritz katzenjammer]

Years ago we stood just outside the fence at the end of Rhoose Airport runway when Concord took off directly over our heads. If there is a noisier engine I'd be very impressed.

I present, for your amazement, the Republic XF-84H. Known as the Thunderscreech because it was so friggin loud. It’s what happens when you drive a propeller at jet engine speeds so the blades are actually run at supersonic speeds at idle. Audible at 25 miles when idling on the ground they were only allowed to run this thing on the far side of the airbase because of the noise. The noise at idle was known to make ground personnel vomit.

oddly… it never went into production.

nor did anybody ever have the balls to kick in the afterburner which was good for about 1400 extra horsepower over the base 5800. So a proper friggin monster then.

 

[figbat]

I present, for your amazement, the Republic XF-87H. Known as the Thunderscreech because it was so friggin loud. It’s what happens when you drive a propeller at jet engine speeds so the blades are actually run at supersonic speeds at idle. Audible at 25 miles when idling on the ground they were only allowed to run this thing on the far side of the airbase because of the noise. The noise at idle was known to make ground personnel vomit.

oddly… it never went into production.

nor did anybody ever have the balls to kick in the afterburner which was good for about 1400 extra horsepower over the base 5800. So a proper friggin monster then.

View attachment 787625

XF-84H 😉

Also the first aircraft with a deployable RAT.

 

[johnnyb47]

I like the old Pinto engine.It was nice and easy to work on.
As for bringing back memories the sound of a Yamaha 350 LC ( and the smell) or the Honda400/ make me misty eyed.
The best sounding engine I can think of was the old 5 cylinder Audi Quattro's from the 80/90s

 

[fritz katzenjammer]

XF-84H 😉

Also the first aircraft with a deployable RAT.

fixed, thank you. Shows how good my proof reading has become. Time was mistakes like that got me into trouble.

 

[figbat]

fixed, thank you. Shows how good my proof reading has become. Time was mistakes like that got me into trouble.

Thing is there was also a XF-87. It also didn’t work and busted the company that developed it (Curtiss-Wright) when it was knocked back in favour of Northrop.

 

[fritz katzenjammer]

Thing is there was also a XF-87. It also didn’t work and busted the company that developed it (Curtiss-Wright) when it was knocked back in favour of Northrop.

The fifties… a glorious time when the red menace meant there was unlimited funds for trying out crazy stuff with the new jet and rocket technologies. Ya gotta love it.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I remember reading about that. The thing that really scuppered it was the weight of the shielding required to protect the crew. The Soviets also had a similar project and, as they weren't slaves to health and safety gone mad, actually got it to fly. And fry too, as far as the crews were concerned.

Looks like I was not entirely right about this.The Soviets did work on such a craft, and it did fly, but not under nuclear power. It was just a regular jet that happened to also carry a crew-frying reactor.

Wikipedia says that the "the whole concept of nuclear airplane propulsion was evaluated [by the Soviets] as too expensive and environmentally dangerous."

Given that in the1950s neither the US nor the Soviets were exactly tree hugging environmentalists I think we can interpret that as "was evaluated as being as stupid as it sounds, if not stupider"