Brodhead Pietenpol Association

Original Posted By: "Jack Phillips"
Subject: Pietenpol-List: Aircraft engines in the PietFellow Pieters: If there is an argument for never using an aircraftengine in the Piet, it would be for appearance. To understand what Imean, look on p. 6 of the latest BPA News letter. All Pietenpols withaircraft engines all seem to have their engines low slung on thefirewall causing this massive step down on their cowling. This look isawful no matter how good a job the builder does covering the engine.Other aircraft in the Piet. class don't do this. Look at the Pixy onlast month's Sport Av. Also there is a Baby Ace in the same issue. Theirfuselage top makes a smooth straight line clear out to the nose bowl. Ipresume BHP designed the engine mt. to put the Cont. prop hub on thesame thrust line as it was with the ford A. Is this necessary? Those other 2 Piet. like airplanes have theirengines setting much higher than in the Piet, and have a good lookingappearance. Maybe you design engineer type can explain why the engine onthe Piet must set so low. Can it be mounted higher for appearance sakeand not effect performance or handling? I'm building with the Model A,but always considering that I may have to change engines latter as somany others have done. If the Piet had never been built with the ModelA, only with the low slung aircraft engine with step down cowl (i'mbeing nice when I only say step down cowl. There are other adjective Icould add), I would never have considered building it, strictly becauseof thee look. An added note on water cooling. If you can stand theextra weight and complexity, your engine will cool more efficiently andrun leaner than with air cooling. Dave Blanton who did the work on theFord V6's several years ago use to call air cooled engines "fuel cooled"because so much raw gas was ran threw them to cool the cht. He said aCont. 65 tat burned 4 gph. could e cut down to about 2 gph. with watercooling.Doesn't sound like much, but If the Arabs turn off the oilspigot, (they already hate us) 2 gph could suddenly be $10 or more inoperating expense. Leon S. At 50 and already practicing to be an oldfart. Just yesterday I backed into the street without first lookingback.________________________________________________________________________________

Original Posted By: "Jack Phillips"
-----Original Message-----I presume BHP designed the engine mt. to put the Cont. prop hub on thesame thrust line as it was with the ford A. Is this necessary? Those other 2Piet. like airplanes have theirengines setting much higher than in the Piet, and have a good lookingappearance. Maybe you design engineer type can explain why the engine onthe Piet must set so low. Can it be mounted higher for appearance sakeand not effect performance or handling?Generally, airplanes are designed with the thrust line of the engine in linewith the top longeron of the fuselage. One reason few upright inlineengines are used in aircraft is that the cylinder bank sticks up too high,restricting visibility and increasing drag. The early DeHavillands used aninline 4 cylinder engine called the Gypsy, but lacked somewhat in forwardvisibility, so the engine was inverted and it became known as the GypsyMajor. This was the engine that powered the Tiger Moth. In this country,both Ranger and Menasco made inline aircraft engines, and to my knowledge,all were inverted.I think Mike Cuy and Frank Pavliga have both done good jobs in cowling theirflat four Continentals. I've also seen some less successful attempts. Toeach his own.Jack________________________________________________________________________________

Original Posted By: Jack Phillips
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