For high performance engine both completly different trains of though ran through high performance combustion engine design. Why where so radically different desgins still be competive in the same field?? Each must have it strenghts and drawbacks but there seems to point in which one type is better than the other, very different but evenly matched??? Allwaysfound it intriguing that one design dosnt run away with it, what does the forum think?
Same as you get petrol and diesel car engines. One has advantages over the other in different areas, but niether has all the advantages or disadvantages. The radial engine has the advantage of being lighter than a standard 'block' engine and it also takes up less area front to back and needs little in the way of coweling. It is also air cooled as the cylinders are in the direct air flow. The disadvantages are that they are usually wide measured across their face and are fiddly to start, as oil can flow to the lowest cylinder(s) and unless drained before starting can cause problems as oil can't be compressed. In-line, 'V' or opposed 'block engines' are heavy having their cylinders cut out of solid blocks of steel. This leads to structural difficulties in mounting them. They also need to be enclosed and have complicated water or oil cooling systems that can be easily damaged. One is more complicated than the other but neither is perfect and both are still being used today. There's no right or wrong and it's all down to what the designer of the aircraft has available and what he wants to achieve.
I think tou missed the point, i dont think I explained it very well. Yes there are distinct advantages and disadvantages with each type ,but you would think that these small advantages would lead to distinct difference in how say for example a certain type of aircraft would be engined. For example an air cooled radial engine would be easier to maintain with out sophisticated facilities so you would think the Red army aircraft would prefer radials, but they fielded a large amount of w/c V engines??? or V engines have much smaller frontal area so therefore suited ot high speed aircraft, but the big US aircraft with no slouches. Just the type of useless thing I have spinning round in my head, I wondered if anyone else did had the same.....
