Rotary Engines

Rotery Engines do what their names suggest. The whole engine actually rotates along with the propeller. This concept is a hard one to grasp and wrap ones head around, so I have a video and explanation courtesy of Andrew King. Once you watch this video, you may have a better understanding of how this works. The Rotery engine did have it's issues in that since the whole engine turned and not just the propeller, there was a huge gyroscopic precession involved with the rotation of the engine. This made controlling the direction of the airplane trickier with every movement of the nose. Andrew also touches on other problems with a rotery engine and why the engineers developed this type of engine.

Enjoy the video.

 

This next video is Andrew starting this Gnome engine. The sound is wonderful and the flying hat is entertaining.

 

 

The collection of Rotery engines is as follows:

• Gnome
• Le Rhone 80