Sexiest Engine?

[Paul]

...and here's that Guzzi V8 nestled inside the race bike. Looks like we both share the same taste in museums

[stevesilver]

Hello,

These are a couple from me...

Alfa V6.jpg

Laverda V6.jpg

Best regards,

David

Deffo those two come under "sexy"

[Blackal]

I've always had a love of the MV Agusta 4 cyl engine with the sandcast components................

Al

[The Teutonic Tangerine]

and is that barge of a triumph a six?

Nope it was a triple 2300cc. In line - like the Sunbeam S7 / S8 (which only had two cylinders but was a good looking engine - IMHO)

[nab 301]

Crappy photo but the intakes on the vfr 750 do it for me..

[milleplod]

Here's another Napier engine - the Deltic, a supercharged, two-stroke, opposed-piston engine, originally for marine use.



https://youtu.be/D3bj47TAYiU

And to give you an idea of its size, here's a shot of a bloke working on the gear case at the rear of the engine.



Anyone who says it isn't sexy has no soul!

Pete

[David_S_Walker]

Hello,

Another one from me - Doesn't show the actual engines but am amazing piece of engineering IMHO on which I had the great pleasure to fly faster than a speeding bullet....

Concorde 4 x Olympus engines on full reheat! Shown here on Aircraft Alpha-Foxtrot (BOAF) currently at rest in Bristol.

In action

rht3.jpg (28.31 KiB) Viewed 4858 times

Static

engine2.jpg (67.74 KiB) Viewed 4858 times

It's the power generated that does it for me..... I'll get me coat

Best regards,

David

[milleplod]

No need to leave the building David, I'm staying in with you! An awesome, awesome thing. And sexy because of sheer brilliance of the engineering involved.

I used pop over to Binbrook to watch these when I was in the RAF -



And I used to work on these, and was involved in the firing of one many moons ago - 4 Gosling solid-propellant boost rockets take it up to Mach 2.5 ish, then the 2 Bristol Thor ramjets take over. Sheer brute force.....sexy!!



Pete

[David_S_Walker]

Pete and anyone else who is interested,

Maybe straying a little off topic but this thread has reminded me of my flight....

I had the pleasure of flying out of Heathrow in 1996 with my partner Deborah on what was her birthday treat (Actually she didn't like flying so perhaps not such of a treat for her) on Concorde BOA-D (Alpha-Delta as she is known) on a pleasure flight to Paris. We paid the princely sum of £695 each for the trip - I had just been given a large redundancy settlement! As a child my father had taken us to Farnborough Air show (Late sixties I think) in the days before you were not allowed to park outside. It was then I caught my first sighting of Concorde - One of the prototypes flying into the show. I thought to myself then I would love to fly on that one day...

Roll forward some 25 years or so and I was sitting on this wonderful creation. After take off from Heathrow which happens at a much higher speed (240mph) than a normal aeroplane, we headed over towards Bristol and then over the Severn Estuary. We were only doing about 500mph and I was thinking this is pretty bumpy and uncomfortable! As this was a pleasure flight there was a running commentary as to what was going on - Once over the water the Captain informed us that he was now going to light the after burners which even at around 500 mph produced an enormous shove in the back!! It was said that on a routine flight they light the afterburners two at a time so as not to disturb the fine dining that was going on but as this was a pleasure flight they lit them all at once and gave it some beans!! Once supersonic the aeroplane smoothed out dramatically as it was operating at its intended speeds and we topped out at a speed in excess of MACH 2(1,350mph) at around 59,000 feet. As has been said often (but until then doubted by me), the sky had a darker hue to it due to the height we were at and as it was a clear day you really could see the curvature of the earth - My dear father had recently passed on and I do not profess to be a religious man but for a moment I felt closer to him! - This was from the cockpit as we were all invited to go up and meet the crew (Pre 911 days)and you could see the truly wonderful view. We saw the gap that opened up in the instrument panels where the Flight Engineer would place his cap after take off but then have to remember to remove when subsonic as the airframe shrank and closed this gap back down!. On our flight a couple went up to that flight deck for their visit and an unexpected proposal of marriage took place which prompted the flight crew to open even more champagne - The guy must have been planning it for months!

Back in those days there was also an additional seat in the cockpit which one lucky passenger could sit in for the take off and landing! Imagine that! If it had had been me I would have thought that all my Christmases had come at once! After flying out to the Bay of Biscay to turn it round we landed in Paris after (for me) a couple of hours of bliss! We stopped over in a superb Paris hotel and then returned via Eurostar the next day which whilst in itself a wonderful piece of engineering it wasn't quite the same as Concorde.

Sadly now the aeroplane I flew on is on display on or near the USS Intrepid minus it's engines. They all should be preserved as a testament to what men in white coats smoking pipes, holding clipboards and working in their sheds can achieve!

We will never see the like of it in most of our lifetimes.

All of this means I can always win at top trumps when the question is "What is the fastest you have travelled?" The problem is these days that when you confess to flying on Concorde the youngsters stare at you blankly.

Happy days and sorry for dragging this a bit off topic.

Best regards,

David

[milleplod]

Fantastic story David, thanks! My wife's birthday is in a couple of weeks time.....I might get her something I really want!

Pete

[SP250]

Nice story David.

Many years ago when Concord was still in service, I was bored one Sunday and entered a competition at the Science Museum.
Well I won it and the prize was to spend half a day crawling over Concorde whilst it was in ground maintenance at Heathrow.
So after a free BA lunch, we were given the tour of the inside of the aeroplane, carbon fibre loos, flight deck etc.. Then we were given some overalls???
We were allowed to walk out onto the wings and up a gantry to crawl inside the jet pipes and look at all the innards of the engines and up inside the wheel wells - fascinating for an engineer, even if I didn't get to fly in her.

Now we just need someone to post a picture of the warp drive on the Starship Enterprise to finish this thread off ..............

[stevesilver]

images.jpg (2.92 KiB) Viewed 4825 times

Quite a few impressive engines and a great story too.
I'll always remember 1st time I saw concord fly over. Playing footie in park in the 70's, was only about 9 or 10 at the time, remember thinking it looked like a spaceship. So different to other aircraft of the day, truly awesome piece of engineering.

As we seem to have switched to aircraft, this is the most awesome thing I have ever seen or heard.
Its the euro-fighter Typhoon, it shakes the ground and makes kids cry when it flies over.

Its BRILLIANT

[milleplod]

Nice pic! Whenever me and my mate ride over to Norfolk, we always go via Coningsby - there's a viewing area on the B1192 that runs down towards Boston, a cracking place to spend half an hour watching the Typhoons....they come in to land about 30 feet over your head! And yes, the ground does shake when they going uphill! Mind you, having been close to the Typhoon and the Lightning, I'd say the Lightning did it more!

Pete

[slparry]

<snip>
Now we just need someone to post a picture of the warp drive on the Starship Enterprise to finish this thread off ..............

A few years ago I owned a BMW 750iL ... it had a sumptuous V12 5 litre engine that sounded gorgeous .... and accelerated like the starship enterprise when in sports mode

[img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/BMW_750iL_Individual_-_Flickr_-_The_Car_Spy_(21).jpg
[/img]

[slparry]

<snip>
Now we just need someone to post a picture of the warp drive on the Starship Enterprise to finish this thread off ..............

A few years ago I owned a BMW 750iL ... it had a sumptuous V12 5 litre engine that sounded gorgeous .... and accelerated like the starship enterprise when in sports mode