Trivia

thats a flexible prop shaft hooked up to an adjustable skeg.with a lightweight counter balanced prop..theres no problem there at all bob see how the prop is still at the right angle..

Ahhhh, the wonders of technology. It advances so quickly these days its hard to keep up.

bob how did you go with the paint job??..its starting to get too bloody cold now for our type of spray booths....my mate and his boat are ok for next weekend..might have sum extra helpers too..cheers..

Am I too late, or is the log boat pictured at Windsor called "merlin" and is another from Darryl Brown's stable?

On the hydro pic above, yes I too had one of those type of shafts although the prop angle was variable according to engine revolutions - quite novel I felt..

No. it was Ray Jones' and he had not given it a name. The project was incomplete at the time of his death.

Pooh, bad guess eh?

Whos up?

Technically it's me but as we need more players I'm leaving the questions and answers to others for the time being. Otherwise we'll become inbred.

Whats the capacity of a Rolls Royce Griffin engine?

It's 37 litres according to Wiki. They referred to the merlin as "the smaller engine" at just 27 litres.

The merlin did a remarkable job really when you consider that the two best known German fighters, the Messerschmidt BF 109 had a 39 liter engine and the Fockewolfe 190 had an engine over 40 liters. The Spitfire changed over to the Griffon at MK 14 which was about 1942 I think.

Interestingly the only factory which was still making 109's after the war was in Spain and they couldnt get the German engine any more so they went to the British and were sold Merlin engines for them. They went pretty well, there is a utube clip of one.

Spook

Warm up of Mustang P-51 and Messerschmitt BF109 on Rygge Airshow 2007,Norway.
The 109 is actually a Spanish built version with a RR Merlin engine.

Reklaw I know that its your turn but I'll ask a question anyway.

What is peculiar about the mounting of the Daimler engine in the Messerschmidt BF109?

Spook

i know its not my turn but back to the merlin thay allso made a smaller one what was that called ?

Rolls Royce experimented with a lot of engines. There was one which was 21 liters and was called the Kestrel. They also experimented with two Kestel blocks bolted together in an "X" configuration which gave a capacity of 42 liters.

The Merlin was supposed to be a stopgap engine while they tried to sort out engines such as the "X" configuration and Griffon. However once they got started on the Merlin it was so good that they scrapped the "X" configuration and went with the Merlin and continued to develop the Griffon at a slower pace until it was ready in about 1942. By this stage the Merlins in the Spitfires were going about as hard as they could reliably go and the decision was made to change the Spitfires over to the Griffon. The Merlin continued to be used in Hurricanes, Mosquito's, P51's and Lancaster bombers.

The reliability of the Merlin was apparently one of its biggest assetts. Rolls Royce continually tested the Merlins to destruction. They would get an engine off the production line and set it up on their engine test bed, put the appropriate propeller on it and then start the engine and run it to maximum revs (3000 rpm) and run it non stop until it failed. Once it failed they would pull the engine down and work out why it failed. Each time they would redesign the part that failed and put that new part into the engines on the production line, when the upgraded engine came off the production line they would repeat the process again. This continued and continued and continued until the engine was almost indestructable apart from enemy fire. The story goes that the Lancaster bombers could fly all the way from England to Berlin or any other German city (at maximum revs) and back again and not lose an engine to anything other than enemy fire.

Little Lucifer wrote:i know its not my turn but back to the merlin thay allso made a smaller one what was that called ?

minature??

i got a mate and after the war he worked in scrap he pulled down heaps of brand new merlins and one day 2 smaller 1 s came in he couldnt help himself and took one home he kept it for a few years lots of people tried to bye it in the early 70s he sold it to some bloke who was going to put it in a boat?when i see him next i will ask him if he rembers what it was

Simon

I'd be inetrested to know what it was.

Spook

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Merlin#Variants

I'm disappointed, no one has attempted to answer the question about the BF109 Daimler engine.

Spook

INVERTED v-12.

Oletyma

Thats right, its upside down in the plane.

Spook

Guess it's my turn. Be careful, this question might be, just might be, sneaky.
Which limited class boat was the first in the world to officially exceeed 100 mph?

"Paul Sawyer was the first driver, reaching that benchmark in 1950 and again in 1951"
Alter Ego F-211
http://www.vintagehydroplanes.com/maynard.html