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FLYING STEAM ENGINES - Recent Efforts
Comet Too
I will describe these in the order in which I tackled them,
I first got hooked on the notion of steam powered flight when the UK magazine Aeromodeller published details of
David Parkers free flight version of Comet in 1967; it was hailed as 'The most remarkable model of 1967'. I had
no lathe and no workshop at that time but twenty years later things were looking very much more favourable because
in May 1989, details of David's latest version of Comet, by then Radio Controlled, were published as a short series
in the UK magazine Model Engineer. It was probably another 10 years before I got my version Comet Too flying at
our local flying field on the South Downs.
Comet is about 7 feet span and is a floater which flies at perhaps
20 mph (32 kph), I have had 20 minute glide times out of a two minute engine run, it needs some thermals of course
which adds to the fun. The picture on the right is 'Comet Too' on the verge of making her very first take off. The
photograph of Comet Too's boiler area taken a few years later shows all the evidence of burner heat and the
occasional bump and knock from use and three fires.
H H Groves
This man is still remembered in UK for his remarkable series of Flash Steam powered model aircraft from around 1910
to the 1930's,
having built and flown Comet I felt compelled to take it all a stage further and make a flash steam engine of one sort
or another and I decided to make a copy of his 1936 engine published in the Model Engineer 9th. April 1936. This Engine
is quite tiny being of 0.25" bore and 7/16" stroke (6 mm x 11 mm). It is built as designed with a sheet alluminium frame
holding the engine, boiler and boiler as a complete sub-assembly which makes it so much easier when repairs and adjustments
have to be made. This displays the fact that H H Groves anticipated problems with this very small intricate design, there
were plenty of those! I felt I was mixing in very good company as I dealt with them one by one. An aircraft for this
engine was designed by another very well known modeller at that time Mr. Richard Trevithick. At this time I found out that
Richard Trevithick's son lived nearby and I went to visit him when I learned that in his opinion that 1936 aircraft was
never flown! A pity was that as by that time I replicated the engine with great success in that it went very well and I
had decided to build the plane too! This was all a bit fraught in that the engine was too fragile for the load it had to
drive and the plane as I had built it was too heavy. Apart from that all was well! That was about 8 years ago from today.
I slunk back from that loss and went onto something new which I call Tiddler and this is my first and very successful
'own design' flash steam flying steam engine. That is where I still am in January 2007.
Tiddler
I was very disappointed with the short life of H. H. Groves 1936 engine: after about 2 hours running the main bearings
were worn out as was the piston valve the piston and the cross head, I may have over loaded it and in it's new rebuilt
form, when I run it I will do so with smaller loads and let it run at higher speeds.
As mentioned I decided to try to design and build an even
smaller engine and monotube; the engine is 5 mm bore X 5 mm stroke, uniflow,
the monotube is 7 feet (2.1 metres) of 2 mm overall diameter Stainless Steel
tube; the bore of this tube is 1.6 mm. Because I had some, the crankcase is
made of Titanium but steel would be just fine, the cylinder is Mild steel
case hardened, the cylinder head is Titanium. Crank is a single piece turning
from a car half shaft softened turned re-hardened tempered then finish
lapped, it has two tiny ball races supporting it, the single poppet valve is
turned from an old motorbike exhaust valve.
The connecting rod is of mild steel case hardened and the big end is a hand
made, crammed roller race with rollers 0.6 mm diameter and 2 mm long. The
rollers were made of piano wire lapped and vee grooved at 2 mm intervals in a
softened condition hardened and tempered then broken off, I have a tiny 6 mm
Boley Watch makers lathe on which these operations become far less irksome,
leading to very rewarding results. The ends of the rollers were cleaned off
after being broken off under a binocular microscope with the roller held in a
tiny pin chuck, the big end has 13 rollers in it.
This is all a bit extreme but it is not so much more than is
done to make tiny diesels like the Allbon Bambi deliver a reasonable working
life. I have to say that I once had one of those and Tiddlers design owes a
little to that tiny gem of IC engine history. However the main inspiration
and design for this engine came from Articles printed in the mid 1940's in
'Model Engineer' written by E.M.E. This man's real name was A. A. Sherwood
and he built a series of steam powered and very tiny hydroplanes called Dot 1
through to Dot 4, the smallest of which was only 6" (150 mm) long with a twin
cylinder engine of only 0.1" (3 mm) cylinder bore.
My engine is a uniflow, poppet valve version of Dot 4 with more
compact water and oil delivery systems. Tiddler is not without problems and
whilst its performance is excellent the oil system is at fault, as is the
tiny water pump, I hope in the course of the next year or two I can put these
points right and make reliable runs a matter of course, without a high level
of engine reliability more work building the plane is a waste of effort. This
engine is built on a lightweight frame that facilitates easy removal from the
airframe, it is designed as a pusher and the engine will fly inverted. The
boiler may well end up enclosed in its own perforated housing of very thin
stainless steel shim forming an environment isolated from the slip stream to
aid consistent boiler performance. This is a direct copy of H H Grove
practice, I cannot imagine a more simple, lighter and effective solution.
Except of course to find a source of 0.002" (0.05 mm) thick titanium, where
do I buy one square foot of 0.002" Titanium shim??
Skylark
Skylark is a boat, not a bird or a plane! I bought Skylark in 2002 her main appeal lay in
the fact that she is a flash steam powered vessel of a handy size and in fact
the boiler was not that much bigger than some 'model' ones found in racing
hydroplanes. It was a new challenge and another chapter in the exercise of
learning more about Flash Steam and "Monotube Boilers". I prefer the title
'Monotube' as it is more direct and accurate; it is also the principle of the
'NEW' super economical gas fired domestic boilers we are being urged to buy
in order to save the Planet. I got Skylark steaming again in 2003 and my
involvement in that work forms part of this renewed and still expanding
version of the "flysteam" web site. I will soon begin making a new core for
the monotube and a rebuild of the feed pump so I will have a few notes and
pictures to add a few months hence from now.
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