schreef:
Indeed, comparing the American & British efforts makes a damn good
adventure novel -- one in which the British should have won (ie,
because of their slide-valve engines).

[[off-topic, only of interest to historians:]]

Bob, you are writing history here as a US'an crediting a US patent to a
non-US'an! Indeed Mr. Charles Yale Knight, first holder of sleeve-valved
engine patents, was born in Indiana, USA, in 1868, at least that's what
I learn from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Engine

Then again, his idea was based upon early concoctions by German Mr.
Otto, and then again his ideas were most succesfully implemented in
Europe, in some British aero-engines (Bristol Centaurus and its
predecessors) but also in the notorious luxury Minerva cars from Belgium
- that factory was close to my home, indeed the allies only nearly
missed killing my mother when trying to bomb the factory in May 1943.


KA