Big Bangers for Big Birds
THOSE OF YOU who have been following this series may recall our original objectives. We felt that both active and potential Giant Scalers lacked useful data about the many large, gasoline-fueled engines that were becoming available. As a result, many of those same modelers have been unable to make logical selections for the aircraft they wished to build. In an effort to provide information to which most modelers could easily relate, we confined our testing to measurements of static thrust and rpm with various propellers-and of fuel consumption with the prop that produced the highest thrust. In addition, physical dimensions, weight, design details, etc., were included. A listing of the engines tested and the relating issue dates is provided near the end of this article.
Big Bangers: For Big Birds
OF ALL OUR engine reports to date, this has turned out to be the most difficult in some respects and the easiest in others. A combination of weather and equipment problems forced us to have a total of four sessions in order to complete runs on four engines. Normally, we would do all of them in one session. This was all spread out from March to June, with cool conditions for the first runs and hot, humid conditions at the completion. The first runs were with the big, 4.3 cu. in. Hornet. It was a clear but cool day in March, and things were moving along nicely. We got an early start and expected to make runs on all four engines that day.
