RE: the DAIR engine. I looked more carefully at their literature,and of course you're right that it's an OP engine more or less like the Fairbanks. There are a least a few others, including (I think) something called a Sun-Doxford made in England. The interesting thing is that in railroading and tugboats, the OP Fairbanks was quite common for a long time.
I''ve always wondered if the future of freight aviation wouldn't be a propellor driven diesel airplane configured more like a giant C130 than a swept wing jet. Lower speed, longer range, hugely reduced fuel consumption.
For ultimate utility I suppose they'd go to a dirigible or big blimp.
It always seemed to me that Deutz would be the logical company to produce them. They have built many air-cooled diesels, and know how it's done.
I always worry about cool ideas that are combined with English engineering. These are the people who brought you the Lucas electrical system. Lucas, Prince of Darkness.
Q: Why do the English drink warm beer?
A: Lucas refrigerators.
I dearly love my Triumph TR4, but I'm not sure I'd want to fly in something engineered by those people.
seo

I'm not sure I go along with ports being defined as valves. Poppet valves, slide valves, rotary valves, sure, yeah, no problem. But if cylinder ports are valves, so is a potato jammed in the exhaust pipe.
seo

Interesting valveless diesel conversions:

http://davisdieseldevelopment.com/home.htm

__________________
Ron Schroeder
'85 300 Turbo Diesel 2 tank WVO
'83 300 Turbo Diesel 2 tank WVO
Some former WVO vehicles since ~1980:
'83 Mercedes 240D
'80 Audi 4000D
'83 ISUZU Pup
'70 SAAB 99 with Kubota diesel
'76 Honda Civic with Kubota diesel
'86 Golf
Several diesel generators
All with 2 tank WVO conversion
LI NY

I heard about these guys but was not sure they were still around.
I think their CO2 engines were widely used in micro RC and Free-Flight model airplanes.
Thanks for the info.
Cheers

__________________
FRED

Daily Driver: 98 E300TD 199K
Hobby Car: 69 Austin Mini
Past Diesels: 84 300SD, 312K
87 300SDL, 251K
94 Chev. K-1500 6.5Ltr.TD, 373K

Check out the Commer 'Knocker". It is a British OP engine with only one crankshaft.

When I worked at Midway Atoll we had two WWII era tugs which had the OP engines. Quite neat engines- I got to look thru the engine manuals, which took alot of time to absorb. We had alot of time to kill, so it was good reading...

Recent? The movie was released in 1996......

My boy scout troop was supose to get to spend the night on the USS Pampanito, the ship used in that movie, but the cancelled our tour because they were using the sub for filming that movie.

__________________

I think you're missing the point, but you're certainly entitled to your opinion. A port, all by itself would not be a valve. A piston, sliding past a port to open or close it is indeed a valve. So would the potato be a valve if you could figure out how to remove and reinstall it in concert with the rest of the engine (and keep from baking it at the same time).

Now, if you fed diesel into a ramjet and lit it, you would have a truly "valveless" engine.

Oh, all right. Next time the question will read "without poppet valves..." Which will probably confuse many people who don't know what a "poppet" valve is.
seo

A few years ago I delivered (retirement job ) a 110 foot, X navy YTB (tug) from Norfolk to Seattle and it had a 10 cylinder OP Fairbanks. Thats 20 pistons in 10 cylinders, producing 2000 HP. It was considered a medium speed engine running at around 800 rpm. We stopped in SF on the way up from Panama and the were given a berth near the Maritime Museum where they have an old WW2 sub which has an OP for a main engine.

I should add that these engines were were a BIG step up (from the drivers point of view) from the "direct reversable" which took a little more "getting used too"

__________________


1985 Euro 240D 5 spd 140K
1979 240D 5 spd, 40K on engine rebuild
1994 Dodge/Cummins, 5 spd, 121K
1964 Allice Chalmers D15 tractor
2014 Kubota L3800 tractor
1964 VW bug

"Lifes too short to drive a boring car"

Not to engage in endless trivialities, but one of the first tugs I ever worked on as engineer was a YTB with a direct-reversing OP, which was how it was built in 1943. Years later I worked on the other end of the bell-rope, up in the wheelhouse. I've also run clutch-boat OP's, and several Cleveland electrics.
I actually liked the direct reversing boat better than the clutch boats. It was quicker from ahead to astern, and made you plan ahead better and think more. This from a wheelhouse point of view.
Of course, nothing (in my opinion) makes for a better ship-docking boat than electric drive. All that means is that I've never run a tractor tug.
What does this have to do with Mercedes cars, you might ask.
No good answer to that.
seo

Back in the 80s I ran a tug for a Seattle Co over in the Indian Ocean at a top secret Navy base in an undisclosed location which was 1700 mls west of Singapore and 800 mls south of Shri lanka, Auh geeze, now those pesky black helicopters are gona be back. There were also a couple of OP powered YTBs there also run by civilian crews. Just for fun one day we did a bow to bow pushing contest, the YTB with 2000 HP and me with twin screws (X YTM) , 1600 HP V 16-149 Jimmys on each shaft. I wasn't really surprised when the YTB pushed us backwards. Cant beat that big wheel down deep for power. We were outfitted with "belly fendering" for working subs and did have the disadvantage of not being able to lay along side one like the single screw boats but other than that the twin screw boats worked out well. The pilots liked the fact we could hold a "90" without pushing on them and work further under the bow or stern without crunching our radar scanners and search lights ,thats because there was no need for a "lazy" stern line, which has killed more than one or two deck hands when a pilot has found himself in trouble and had too kick the ship ahead, forgetting about the tug that couldn't hold a 90 without a stern line which if it didn't part and kill somebody could cause the tug to roll over and spoil an otherwise nice day.

I spoz the single, twin screw, direct reversible, clutch, diesel electric, debate could go on forever but for me, I would take the deep, comfy, single screw boat for the long haul and the high speed twin screw boat for harbor work, if I couldn't get my hands on the controls of a tractor tug.

__________________


1985 Euro 240D 5 spd 140K
1979 240D 5 spd, 40K on engine rebuild
1994 Dodge/Cummins, 5 spd, 121K
1964 Allice Chalmers D15 tractor
2014 Kubota L3800 tractor
1964 VW bug

"Lifes too short to drive a boring car"