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I have’nt been able to find any google reference to Mr Howcraft and his aircraft at Hartlepool, although it is confirmed his coach building company made fairground rides.
Novelty is always important in attracting customers; if a trip through the Channel Tunnel, complete with smoke and steam did not appeal, then a ride on Razzle Dazzle might. Sitting on seats on a circular platform, it dipped from side to side as it rotated. As early as 1893 Savages held a patent for the machine, but later examples built in Hartlepool by the Howcroft Carriage and Waggon Works proved superior.
I personally agree with Creaking Door and think it could be an upright, inline 6 cylinder water cooled internal combustion aero engine.
The copper and brass is consistant with the water jackets etc applied to the cast iron cylinders of other water cooled aero engines of the period such as the V8 E.N.V. (as seen under restoration in the De Cater’s Voisin in Belgium below), and therefore not neccessarily indicative this engine is associated with either marine applications or steam locomotion.
Links to the above pics as they do not seem to be visible?
http://picasaweb.google.com/bamf.bamrs/VoisinDeCaters/photo#5188458859203623650
http://picasaweb.google.com/bamf.bamrs/VoisinDeCaters/photo#5188458683109964434
I have a 1972 reprint of “The Aero Manual – 1910”, it describes the water cooled V8 E.N.V. ,the water cooled upright 4 cylinder Bayard-Clement and the water cooled upwright 6 cylinder Buchet motors.
I suspect the Howcraft engine is a self created engine on the same principles?
It seems from the photo below that:
1: It is possible spark plugs exist top dead centre of the cylinders
2. It seems the fuel inlet manifold is missing from the LHS of engine (can we have a better side on pic from that side?
3. It seems the water inlet manifold was located on the top of the engine adjacent to the sparkplugs?
4. It is assumed the carburettor is missing with the inlet manifold?
5. There is an exhaust gas manifold on the RHS of the engine, venting to the rear?
6. It seems there is a water jacket outlet manifold on the LHS of the engine
7. It is assumed there is some inlet and outlet to the manifold to allow connection to an external radiator and header tank that was a feature of water cooled aircraft of the period?
8. the “front” of the engine has a single gear/cog fitted to the crankshaft, possibly a drive shaft for the magneto?
9. The “rear” of the engine has three gears/cogs fitted to the main crankshaft, the closest to the engine drives the two camshafts, (one of the camshaft gear/cogs is missing).
10. The remaining two large gears/cogs are identical, and appear to be for chain drives to propellors, suggesting a Wright Flyer type twin pusher prop configuration?
The 1907 and 1909 Wright Flyers used a 4 cylinder upright inline water cooled engine, I wonder if this engine by Howcraft was used to power a Wright Flyer or derivitive? in the UK.
Short Brothers built 6 Wright Flyers at Leysdown UK during 1909-1910, but “apparantly” used French built engines?
Flugmaschine Wright GmbH in Germany constructed 22 Wright Flyers during 1909-1910, details of engines used is unknown?
Elsewhere the Green Engine Company of the UK is listed as supplying the upright water cooled 4 cylinder inline in November 1909 for the Short brother’s Wright Flyers?
Is it possible Howcraft was competing with Green’s for Short’s business?
The following webpage extract suggests there were many other inline 6 cylinder engines in development over the same period?
It would be interesting to unearth the 1910 Critchley and 1912 Clark engine lists referred to in it?
A later development of the Green engine was a six-cylindered vertical, cylinder dimensions being 5.5 inch diameter by 6 inch stroke, developing 120 brake horsepower when running at 1,250 revolutions per minute. The total weight of the engine with ignition system 398 was 440 lbs., or 3.66 lbs. per horse-power. One of these engines was used on the machine which, in 1909, won the prize of L1,000 for the first circular mile flight, and it may be noted, too, that S. F. Cody, making the circuit of England in 1911, used a four-cylinder Green engine. Again, it was a Green engine that in 1914 won the L5,000 prize offered for the best aero engine in the Naval and Military aeroplane engine competition.
Manufacture of the Green engines, in the period of the War, had standardised to the production of three types. Two of these were six-cylinder models, giving respectively 100 and 150 brake horse-power, and the third was a twelve-cylindered model rated at 275 brake horse-power.
In 1910 J. S. Critchley compiled a list showing the types of engine then being manufactured; twenty-two out of a total of seventy-six were of the four-cylindered vertical type, and in addition to these there were two six-cylindered verticals. The sizes of the four-cylinder types ranged from 26 up to 118 brake horse-power; fourteen of them developed less than 50 horse-power, and only two developed over 100 horse-power.
It became apparent, even in the early stages of heavier-than-air flying, that four-cylinder engines did not produce the even torque that was required for the rotation of the power shaft, even though a flywheel was fitted to the engine. With this type of engine the breakage of air-screws was of frequent occurrence, and an engine having a more regular rotation was sought, both for this and to avoid the excessive vibration often experienced with the four-cylinder type. Another, point that forced itself on engine builders was that the increased power which was becoming necessary for the propulsion of aircraft made an increase in the number of cylinders essential, in order to obtain a light engine. An instance of the weight reduction obtainable in using six cylinders instead of four is shown in Critchley’s list, for one of the four-cylinder engines developed 118.5 brake horse-power and weighed 1,100 lbs., whereas a six-cylinder engine by the same manufacturer developed 117.5 brake horse-power with a weight of 880 lbs., the respective cylinder dimensions being 7.48 diameter by 9.06 stroke for the four-cylinder engine, and 6.1 diameter by 7.28 stroke for the six-cylinder type.
A list of aeroplane engines, prepared in 1912 by Graham Clark, showed that, out of the total number of 112 engines then being manufactured, forty-two were of the vertical type, and of this number twenty-four had four-cylinders while sixteen were six-cylindered. The German aeroplane engine trials were held a year later, and sixty-six engines entered the competition, fourteen of these being made with air-cooled cylinders. All of the ten engines that were chosen for the final trials were of the water-cooled type, and the first place was won by a Benz four-cylinder vertical engine which developed 102 brake horse-power at 1,288 revolutions per minute. The cylinder dimensions of this engine were 5.1 inch diameter by 7.1 inch stroke, and the weight of the engine worked out at 3.4 lbs. per brake horse-power. During the trials the full-load petrol consumption was 0.53 pint per horse-power per hour, and the amount of lubricating oil used was 0.0385 pint per brake horse-power per hour. In general construction this Benz engine was somewhat similar to the Green engine already described; the overhead valves, fitted in the tops of the cylinders, were similarly arranged, as was the cam-shaft; two springs were fitted to each of the valves to guard against the possibility of the engine being put out of action by breakage of one of the springs, and ignition was obtained by two high-tension magnetos giving simultaneous sparks in each cylinder by means of two sparking plugs–this dual ignition reduced the possibility of ignition troubles. The cylinder jackets were made of welded sheet steel so fitted around the cylinder that the head was also water-cooled, and the jackets were corrugated in the middle to admit of independent expansion. Even the lubrication system was duplicated, two sets of pumps being used, one to circulate the main supply of lubricating oil, and the other to give a continuous supply of fresh oil to the bearings, so that if the supply from one pump failed the other could still maintain effective lubrication.
It would be interesting to know what archival information/ photos exists about Howcraft’s aircraft? in 1908?, as to if it was his own design, and what its configuration was? (twin pusher etc?)
regards
Mark Pilkington
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Australia has a number of sites with dams, quarries or holes filled with aircraft parts, the Archerfield quarry is linked to in an earlier post and yielded a Wirraway wing, Lincoln and Mosquito parts, there remains the legends of Spitfires in mine shafts in Qld or the P40 and zero’s in the Bundeburg bunkers yet neither of those legends have progressed beyond that status.
Another site that has yielded alot of aircraft parts over the years is Tocumwal at the former USAAF McIntyre Field and laterRAAF Base, complete aircraft such as the Moorabbin Air Museum T7 Meteor were recovered from the site, as well as many Wirraway fuselage frames (from nearby properties) Wackett Trainer and Boomerang frames, B29 Undercarriage, and B24 ailerons etc that survived in the area.
On my own first visit to the site in the mid 1970’s roads into the airport still had items such as Beaufighter narcelle panels lying in the dirt.
On my last serious visit there a few years ago I unearthed an anti-glare panel from a wartime Wirraway rear instrument panel, and a gun camera mount from a Wirraway centre-section, both were in excellent usable condition with no corrosion or metal damage, and only requiring paint stripping and re-painting.
Water Irrigation channels around the airfield were reputed to have 30 and 50 cal machine guns dumped in them but I never saw evidence of those.
The well known “Dam” at Tocumwal is full of steel aircraft parts dumped after the smeltering process, with a few odd aluminium parts also being in existance, these include B24 waist gun mounts, and many steel parts from Wirraway, Boomerang, Anson, Mosquito and Tigermoth, representing the types scrapped nearby.
The Dam still contains a mountain of parts, but action of heat during the smelting process to remove aluminium and the subsequent years of water submersion has rendered most useless other than as patterns or for use in a static display.
Again this is not evidence of the military burying surplus material, but more the actions of the scrapper to dispose of waste scrap material, and assumed permission to do so via “land fill”.
Regards
Mark Pilkington
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