On Jan 15, 6:23*am, "Anyolmouse" wrote:

Hope you don't mind my jumping in here Bob. Do you remember the Porsche
engine with the cooling fan behind the prop?
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If you mean the engine for the British blimp, yeah, I remember it.

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It was supposed to
eliminate the need for cowl flaps and also prevent shock cooling too.
What happened to it?

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They had trouble with the blimp, as best I can recall.

Come on... you should be able to remember it. It was in most of the
magazines back then.

The blimp could not provide the forward velocity needed to cool the
engine, so instead of going to Fat Fins or any of the other possible
solutions (the Porsche engine was already Type Certified -- they
couldn't mess with it without running into the CAA. So they came up
with the idea of providing a 140mph cooling air-flow INSIDE THE
COWLING. The engine didn't know any better. It would stick out it's
toe, feel that blast of 140 mph cooling air and say, "Oh goody!" (but
in Chermann of course) and fly off into the sunset... with half a
dozen tourists on-board (at about $50 per, as I recall). Quick tour
around the pea-patch, niffty landing to the portable Pylon Tower,
commerative T-shirts, coffee mugs and an autographed picture of the
Fearless Aviator, and off they go for another trip around the pea
patch.

Ah, the wonders of aviation...

It wasn't the ENGINE'S fault that the thing was not a howling
success... and the truth is, I've forgotten the details as to WHY it
was not a success... if I ever even knew them.

-Bob