Creaking DoorThe Bristol Hydra was a 16-cylinder radial, never saw production, but I’m pretty sure there’s a survivor at Filton – can anyone confirm?
There seems to be a photo of a preserved Bristol Hydra in the link below…
…along with many photos of an exquisite model one.
Not sure where the Hydra is (only two were ever built) but it is most probably in either the Bristol Industrial Museum or the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust collections.
Creaking DoorBritain did ‘dominate’ (certainly led) the world in the era of the technological peak – it was called the Industrial Revolution.
Technological peak? I’m surprised that you think technology is going to be of less importance in the future. 😀
And how useful is doing so through rose-tinted spectacles, anyway? British industry died on it’s feet because it couldn’t compete in a world market – the car, motorbike, aviation and other industries committed suicide with arrogance, incompetence, and products that didn’t do the job.
The politicians helped, but ‘British engineering’ became a byword in the Commonwealth, US and other markets for ‘badly designed’ by British engineers’ work, not political interference.
I hope my spectacles aren’t too rose-tinted.
Engineering is a very complex business and success relies heavily on other factors other than the fundamental ability of the engineers who actually design the product.
I’d agree that British industry has been guilty of all that you mention but so have the industries of other nations however their industry seems to survive whereas British industry does not.
As has been suggested ‘British Engineering’ and British engineers are still in demand and do attract considerable investment but unfortunately ‘British Engineering’ does not seem to get the recognition it (still) deserves from British government.
Whenever it is mentioned it is always said to be in ‘decline’ however what politicians mean is that the number of jobs in engineering is in decline but productivity still remains (relatively) high. In other industries this would be called efficiency.
Anyway back on topic.
I’d like to point out that I have no criticism of Brooklands as a museum and no criticism of Mercedes-Benz for purchasing their site.
The construction of the ‘large smoked glass building’ (which I either haven’t seen or don’t remember seeing) may be unfortunate but Mercedes-Benz are running a business not a charity and by some accounts they have at least preserved some of the existing track which I’m not sure was so safe in the hands of the local (or national) government.
It has been a number of years since I have visited the (aviation) museum and I was most impressed by what I saw. The Loch Ness Wellington has set a benchmark for the recovery of a genuine combat veteran aircraft, its display in a highly appropriate location and its sympathetic ‘restoration’.
The huge undertaking to recover a Concorde to a site where some of the design work was done also does the museum great credit.
A vision for the future?
‘Large smoked glass buildings’ and ‘Gallahers ghastly building’ could be swept away just as easily as banked track (if not easier) and since the whole of Brooklands was constructed in less than a year without the benefit of a fleet of British built, British owned JCBs I’m sure it would be possible to recreate the whole track. I’m sure Mercedes-Benz would not object if a plan could be formulated that would benefit all interested parties (and they were not expected to foot the entire bill).
It would be all too easy (and very British) to dismiss this as a pipe-dream but I’m glad that some other posters have used the word ‘vision’ as it’s not often heard these days in this country.
Creaking DoorShe was to be a floating university and had just been completed when several fires took hold.
Not sure if she is still there though.
I think she is under the new airport now!
Creaking DoorShe was to be a floating university and had just been completed when several fires took hold.
Not sure if she is still there though.
I think she is under the new airport now!
Creaking DoorA very interesting excerpt from the Brooklands Society website:
Brooklands was the brainchild of a wealthy landowner, Hugh Fortesque Locke-King who decided during a European tour in 1906 that Britain had to have its own motor testing track if its fledgling car industry was to develop and prosper in competition with the Europeans.
In Europe, motor racing on public roads had been commonplace since before the turn of the century but in Britain it was actively discouraged. In 1906 Hugh Locke-King had attended both the Italian Targa Florio and the French Grand Prix, both run on public roads with not a single British car to be seen.
British car makers obviously had no chance at all of competing in Europe on equal terms and it was obvious to Hugh Locke-King that an English off-road track and testing ground was sorely needed.
For nine months over seven hundred men worked almost around the clock for seven days a week, the only breaks being on Saturday and Sunday nights.
The river Wey was diverted, smallholders were re-housed, thirty acres of woodland were felled and 350,000 cubic yards of earth were moved. Seven miles of rail track was laid and 200,000 tons of gravel and cement were brought in and cast to become the race track.
As well as the outer circuit, a finishing straight ran from the reverse curve section known as the fork to the member’s banking making the overall track length 3.25 miles (5.23 km) of which two miles were level, the remainder being banked.
Because the centre of the site was swampy it had to be built up by five feet to form the finishing straight for a kilometre and a further acre also raised to the same height to form the site for the clubhouse, the paddock and the surrounding sheds.
http://www.brooklands.org.uk/stories/Stories%20archive/STORY1.HTM
Unfortunately I haven’t time for any more comment at present.
Creaking DoorBut think about what Britain really is today (such as a top five economic power) think about our sucesses (The first British Grand Prix was at Brooklands and most Grand Prix teams are based in Britain because of engineering skills).
I would suggest that we look to the past only so we can think about what we can do to celebrate it.
How many of us watching Lewis Hamilton win the American Grand Prix at the week-end took pride in the fact that Mclaren is a ‘British’ team?
Did we however know that only 15% of Mclaren is British owned (40% is Mercedes-Benz owned) and although the Mercedes-Benz engine is British the (former Ilmor) engine manufacturer is now 100% Mercedes-Benz owned.
I grant you that Britain has a wealth of talented individuals in many fields, especially engineering, but Britain has no ‘national interest’ in engineering as other countries do.
This lack of national interest stems from the very top of government and is a trait of all political parties and is for me a very worrying state of affairs as we move forward into an era utterly dominated by technology.
Without comparison with our past and our present, and the past and present of other nations, how is our future to be measured?
I’m glad to see Mercedes-Benz taking such an interest in preserving our heritage, in this and in many other things, they put us to shame.
Creaking DoorSix-Cylinder Radials
Thanks for taking the trouble to post that information.
A single-row radial must be about the only way that it is possible to produce an unbalanced six-cylinder engine. Straight-six and opposed-six are perfect, V-6 (and V-12) are near perfect.
Of the engines listed…the only engine that I KNOW has all the six cylinders on the same plane (as opposed to being a staggered pair of three) is the American built Smith, of WWI vintage.
It was the first American air-cooled radial engine design.
Not a very auspicious start for the American radial aero-engine industry…
…but America did seem to produce a few half decent engines in the end! 😉
Creaking DoorWell yes exactly…..how did that happen to such a significant site??? 🙁
I think the historic site is the least of our worries on that score.
Doesn’t anybody else see the irony (and for British industry the tragedy) of the current situation?
Ask yourself what Brooklands and Mercedes-Benz were doing in say 1943?
Or for that matter Longbridge (or Cowley) and BMW?
Or Vauxhall (Luton) and Opel?
Or Napier and Siemens?
Or Foden (ERF) and MAN?
Creaking DoorLeaving the museum aside for a second, I would like to question how the local council allowed a Mercedes car dealership to build the monstrosity that is, the a large smoked glass building, right in the middle of it all!
Probably because Daimler-Chrysler (Mercedes-Benz) own the land!
(In fact I think they own most of the former Brooklands site.)
Creaking DoorIt’s a ‘Smith Gun’!!!
I knew I’d seen that ‘wheel’ arrangement somewhere before!
For towing it has two cone shaped wheels (one detached at the side in the picture) but for firing it was tipped on its side and used the lower wheel as a turntable.
The curved gun-shield the spanned the gap between the wheels is missing though (which would have made identification much easier).
Very ‘Home Guard’, in fact I think the first time I ever saw one was during an episode of ‘Dads Army’!
There is a good photo here:
http://www.national-army-museum.ac.uk/exhibitions/shortVisits/iconic/page17.shtml
Creaking DoorCould it be a Wellington?
It’s big with a big ‘bomb-bay’, no geodetics but the nose ladder looks right.
Creaking DoorCrude Anti-Tank Gun
I saw the prop blade in the photo so realised the ‘weapon’ is pointing backwards.
Clearly this thing is rigged for transport not firing so possibly intended to support airborne forces.
Maybe a lightweight ‘recoilless’ piece of artillery?
Aircraft, possibly Whitley?
Creaking DoorLooks like some sort of crude anti-tank gun.
Creaking DoorHow about modifying a surplus Lancaster back to Machester status.
Brilliant idea…all you would need is a surplus Lancaster…ah…er…maybe not so easy! 🙂
Creaking DoorI am sure that the answer to this question is to do with oil scavenging and the fact that one side of the engine got more oil into the combustion chamber than the other, and this reduced the detonation limit. To mitigate this issue the engines had a lower compression ratio on one side. This was an issue that the inverted V engines built by Daimler Benz had. I do not have my detailed references to hand but I doubt that the offset supercharger could cause this.
The scavenging of oil on inverted engines has always bothered me; can’t seem to get my head round how you stop the crankcase filling with it.
Not quite sure what you mean by ‘oil in the combustion chamber reduced the detonation limit’. Surely lubrication oil is not volatile enough to cause detonation (or even burn properly) at the compression pressures involved, or have I missed the point?
…the German approach to getting power out of their engines that they ran higher compression ratio’s with lower boost, whereas the British ran lower compression and higher boost…
That’s an interesting observation, two different ways of achieving the same result. My only thought here is that compression ratio is fixed and boost is not so the British approach may have been more flexible.
On the whole the British enjoyed a better supply of superior (mainly American) fuel; German 87 and 96 octane versus ‘British’ 100 and 130 octane fuel.
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