"Tater Schuld" wrote in message
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"Stealth Pilot" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 1 Feb 2006 13:25:16 -0600, "Tater Schuld"
wrote:



ummm curtis jenny? used a water cooled ford engine.

the jenny used an OX-5 engine surely?

I could be wrong. the only Curtis jenny I saw was in the bell museum at
Niagara Falls being restored. It had a water radiator that looked
automotive with a hole made in it. I *thought* I saw a ford logo on it but
I could be mistaken.

You were mistaken. Yes, it has a radiator with a tank on the top. I guess
that looks "automotive." Most aircraft used water cooled engines until
they got enough cooling fins on the cylinders and the airplanes got fast
enough to make the air cooling work reasonably well, in the 1920's. Then
they quickly switched over to air cooling, with a few exceptions that hung
on through WWII, such as the Merlin used in the P-51 and the Allison used in
the P-38 and P-40.

The WWI era Hall Scott was an all aluminum water cooled engine with four
valves per cylinder for better breathing. Unfortunately they were not very
reliable and the airplane manufacturers preferred the inexpensive, readily
available Curtiss OX-5 which put out 90 solid horsepower at only 450 pounds
and there were thousands of them available after the war because Curtiss put
them into every JN-2 "Jenny" ever built. Most of the low cost biplanes
built prior to the stockmarket crash of 1929 used the OX-5 engine because of
price and availability. The new radial engines that were coming out in the
twenties, such as the lovely Wright that Lindbergh used to fly to France,
cost more than the entire OX-5 powered Waco 10. :-)

Highflyer
Highflight Aviation Services
Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY )