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Info on this airplane from a 1917 video


countrytravler

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As nzcarnerd stated, the engine is a rotary.  The crankcase and cylinders rotated with the propeller while the crankshaft remained stationary.  There was no throttle as we know it, and power adjustments were made by intermittently  grounding the magnetos, or as it was called, "blipping the engine".  The airplane itself appears to be a Fokker DR. 1 triplane.

 

Cheers,

Grog

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In those days it was a big problem to make an engine light enough for an airplane, that still had enough power to get it off the ground. There weren't that many occasions when you wanted less than full power.

 

That type rotary engine had the crankshaft bolted to the air frame and the cylinders spun around like a fan. One problem with this design was inertia. It had a great flywheel effect, without the weight of a flywheel, but it also made the plan turn to the right a lot easier than to the left. If you weren't careful it was easy to crash on takeoff and in a dog fight made it easy to predict which way you were going to turn.

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