According to Bill Gunston, one of the reasons for Feddon looking at Sleeve valves was
‘he wanted to build an engine in the 1,000hp class, which in the late 1920’s meant 14 or 18 cylinders in two rows, and he found that the valve gear for such an engine, with four valves per cylinder, was hard to design’.
If Feddon was looking at a 14 or 18 cylinder design, why was the first sleeve valve engine the Perseus (July 1932) a 9 cylinder and it wasn’t until January 1936 that the 14 cylinder Hercules was first run?
What impact would it have on design decisions if the potential of Hercules power levels was available 3 to 4 years earlier?
By: pagen01 - 1st November 2008 at 11:38
Surely the Hercules was later than ’36.
The 1,550 / 1,000hp Taurus (developed via the 9 cyl single row Aquila – first sleeve valve engine) was the first usable double row sleeve valve from Bristol, it first ran in ’36.
The Hercules was Perseus based and development ran just behind the Taurus.
Impact wise, if the engines were available earlier, I guess greater things could have happened, especialy with bomber and transport design.
By: John Aeroclub - 31st October 2008 at 11:45
I would hazard that the answer to your first question was “little acorns” and cost for proof of concept engineering and it could probably use Pegasus/ Mercury 9 cyl ancilliaries
John
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October 31, 2008 at 11:14 am