That doesnt prove thats the reason. Sorry.
Fish live in water. Whales live in water. Whale must be a fish.
That just showes that some water pumpers put out a lot of horsepower.
They have built air cooled motors that put out over 200 horse.
But water cooled motors are quieter and dont overheat sitting still.
Motoguzzi is still air cooled. Most Harleys are still air cooled. BMW still makes an air cooled machine. Triumph still makes an air cooled bike. Honda still makes air cooled bikes. I’m pretty sure others do too, but you get my point. Your statement that all motorcycles are now watercooled is incorrect. Your statement that its because of horsepower I believe to be incorrect, and I havent seen any proof of it.
Oh bdgr, I never meant to imply that ALL motorcycle engines went watercooled in the mid 80’s - just that a lot of them did because overall they provide greater horsepower per given capacity. Yes, it’s quite possible to provide huge horsepower from any air cooled engine, but by and large, they tend to be bigger, heavier machines. And in motorcycles in particular, there are many class restrictions the world over which implement various license taxes and insurance rates based on engine capacity. Also, the various classes of superbike racing the world over have very fixed engine displacement too.
All in all, these are the factors which prompted designers to implement water cooled engines in the mid 80’s - especially in the performance end of the range.
Look, you’re entitled to your view and that’s fine. But one thing’s for sure, in Grand Prix racing and Superbike racing, engine noise is a very low reason for going watercooled - it’s the fact that you can produce more horsepower per cc that counts.
But I’ll happily concede that many models remain aircooled - don’t have a problem with conceding that at all. Indeed, the 1986 Moto Guzzi Le Mans Mk II that I’ve got sitting in my garage proves that quite conclusively. It’s worth noting though that Ducati’s top flight performance bikes are watercooled now too - even though their famous DESMO was always an air cooled jigger.
THis was a factor in WW1 dogfights, I don’t know if it was so big a deal in WW2, but IIRC radial engine planes could do a very tight turn in one direction (due to engine gyroscopic effects) but not so good in the other direction. Once a pilot understood this it woud give him a great advantage.
You are probably thinking of airplanes that used the rotary-radial engine. It’s a radial engine where the crank remains stationary, and all the cylinders and the propeller turn around it. Needless to say, that thing had a LOT of gyroscopic precession. They had no throttles, and were controlled with a “burp” switch, which the pilot used to briefly interrupt the ignition.
I doubt any were still in use by WW2. The conventional radials don’t seem to have an abnormal amount of precession. I feel it just as much when raising the tail in the Super Cub as I do in our Beaver.
Close. The engines on most WWI aircraft were actually rotary engines, not radials - kind of an inverted radial, where the cylinders spun round the crank, rather than vice versa. This did indeed result in very significant torque and gyroscopic effects. Radials do not display such effects to nearly the same degree, and indeed if memory serves the WWII aircraft most notorious for torque-related handling characteristics were the inline-powered Bf109 and P-51.
Actually that large gyroscopic effect was in therotary engine, not the radial. In a rotary engine, the cranksaft is rigidly attached to the airframe and the engine block - pistons, connecting rods and all - rotates. TheFrench Nieuport, among other planes used it.
The engine in the Nieuport didn’t have a throttle but ran wide open all the time it was running. Speed control was by a hit-or-miss governor and the pilot could control the setting of the governor. So the engine would run all-out up to a certain rpm, then the ignition (or maybe it was fuel) would be cut off, slowing it down. At some lower speed the ignition (or fuel) would be cut back in and the engine would rev up again, etc…
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but I’ll give ya that…Specially since you ride a goose.
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Not neccessarily
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No, they werent
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I worked as a motorcycle mechanic for a very well know racer and later race tuner. Its my view, but its an educated one. I wrenched on everything from vintage vincents to Ducatis and guzzis…and occasionally even water pumping jap bikes.
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See, now were talking about somethig differant again. Stick that much tupperware around a motor making that much horsepower and it has to be water cooled. Otherwise it melts. Has nothing to do with horsepower per cc.
Yep. I didnt say watercooling was a bad thing…in some cases, especially fully enclosed bikes like ducatis(most ducatis), its a good thing. Just that I don’t believe it has anything to do with horsepower. My old guzzi, an 850cc machine with a really hot cam and some port work would stomp the dog shit out a lot of watter pumper jap fourbangers…Really pissed em off to. I wish had gotten a chance to dyno that thing. And my bosses BWM R90S was faster still. That bike was plain scary. Now, they mind you, ths was 20 something year old technology even then, if sombody had a mind to make a really hotrod modern high tech air cooled four banger, it would put out as many ponies as is water cooled brethren, but it would sound like a threshing machine and overheat with the plastic on it…so why would they? Hell, even the new Harley Vrod is watercooled…its more practical. But its not because its somehow magically makes more ponies.
Because, overall, radials are somewhat lighter for a given horsepower than inline engines.
There are a couple of common myths about inline engines advantages over radials, the first being that radials have more drag because radiators had less drag than the cooling fins on the engine cylinders. Using the refereed literature, cooling drag for radials and liquid-cooled inlines is indistinguishable (there are AIAA papers about this; look them up). There may be some aircraft with negative cooling drag under some specific conditions; this is controversial, but it’s equally achievable with radials and inlines. The other myth, which is the bigger one, is that the pointy nose possible with inlines reduced drag. This is blatantly false, as piston-engined aircraft were too slow for nose shape to have a significant effect on drag unless there was separation within the cowling. The cowling, incidentally, is a major change: before the inventions of the Townend ring and NACA cowling, radial cylinders caused separation. Also, uncowled radials could not be as reliably and as well-cooled as properly cowled ones, which restricted the radials’ achievable power. This didn’t mean it was all golden for the liquid-cooled crowd: early radiators were quite effective airbrakes, but at least the cylinders were not as likely to get overcooked.
So, the real question isn’t why the navies used radials and the air forces used liquid-cooled inlines; the real question is why air forces used liquid-cooled v-12s.
Note that you are replying to a thread that is almost ten years old. Many of the participants in that thread are no longer around.
We tend to call threads like this zombies since they went inactive (dead) a long time ago and now were raised again. Expect a few braiiiinnnnnsss type jokes.