Word: rotors
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Because of its basic simplicity, the Wankel engine has long been considered a strong contender to supplant piston engines in mass-produced autos. Invented in 1954 by a mechanical wizard named Felix Wankel, the engine replaces conventional cylinders and pistons with a triangular rotor that revolves in a combustion chamber shaped like a fat figure eight. The spinning rotor not only controls the intake of gasoline and exhaust of burned gases, but turns the shaft that drives the wheels of the car. Thus Wankel engines have far fewer moving parts than piston engines. Moreover, they lack valves, rods, lifters...
...Sanh, the distinctive pump and whir of hundreds of helicopter rotor blades began at 7 a.m., even before the morning fog started to lift. Drowsy pilots walked out to their UH-1 Hueys and malevolent-looking OH-6 Cobra gunships, checked out the oil levels, the instruments and the control linkages, and then strolled back to their tactical operations centers. The call to combat came as it has almost every day since the Laotian operation began, well before midmorning. At the heavily sandbagged T.O.C. of the 4th Battalion, 77th Field Artillery, 101st Airborne Division, blond, mustachioed Warrant Officer Fred Hayden...
...over Viet Nam was difficult enough in the days of the old H21 "Flying Bananas." Back then, in the early 1960s, one Viet Cong trick was to set up long spears and trip wires along the ground in such a way that they would be set off by the rotor wash of low-flying choppers. On occasion, startled pilots would find one of the V.C.'s wicked little missiles imbedded in the tail booms when they landed. Now as then, helicopters are extraordinarily vulnerable. Even a single rifle bullet in the huge disc-shaped target formed by the whirling...
...point, an American helicopter bearing U.S. Ambassador Joseph S. Farland and 10-lb. sacks of rice, molasses and salt was nearly torn apart when it landed among starving Bengalis, who rushed the Ambassador and grabbed at the sacks. As the pilot swung into the air again, the tail rotor cut down three of the mob, seriously injuring them...
...induction motors. These are similar to conventional electric motors, but they have, in effect, been flattened out. Part of the undercarriage of the train acts as the motor's fixed coils, while a vertical guide rail in the center of the pathway takes the place of its spinning rotor. When enough electrical power is fed into the system, the train begins to move forward. Like an airplane, the train needs old-fashioned wheels for low-speed travel until it reaches "liftoff" at about 50 m.p.h...