Word: radials
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...ordinary motorcar engine, with its 4, 6 or 8 cylinders set in a line, or its 6, 8 or 12 cylinders arranged in a deep V. has much less wind resistance than the radial airplane motor. Cooling by water requires bulk and weight, yet many a large and powerful plane uses Packard and Curtiss water-cooled models...
Hence the development of the radial air-cooled airplane engine. In this type 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 9 cylinders radiate like spokes from a common centre. Each cylinder bristles with thin metal fins which absorb the engine's heat and spread it to the cooler...
...great designer of radial air-cooled engines is Charles L. Lawrence, now president of Wright Aeronautical Corp. There are no patents on the basic design, so more than a dozen U. S. motormakers are producing them. Most famed are the Wright Whirlwind* and Cyclone, Pratt & Whitney Wasp and Hornet, Warner Scarab...
...great handicap of the radial engine is that its spreading cylinders create wind resistance and so slow an airplane's speed...
...fuel oil, is desirable. So research has been going on. Diesel engines burn fuel oil. But Diesel engines are ponderous. Packard's triumph is that its engineers have designed a light-weight Diesel-type motor that burns cheap fuel oil efficiently, and is air-cooled. Although it is a radial, its invention gives promise of an "in-line" air-cooled successor...