On Mar 9, 5:44*am, "TOG@Toil" wrote:
On 9 Mar, 07:49, Grimly Curmudgeon
wrote:

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember jan olieslagers
saying something like:

If you are really curious about diesels in airships, consult
www.dair.co.uk-that engine scales down the idea behind the JuMo diesels.

I recall a Rolls-Royce WW2 service manager told me he was utterly
gobsmacked when he saw the Krauts were using diesels in some of their
bombers. At the same time, he was quite impressed, although the diesel
story was spread around as some sort of negative propaganda - weight,
lack of power, etc.

It wasn't the most successful application, it must be admitted.
Obviously you'd have had the inherent reliability of a diesel compared
with the petrol engines of the era (the Junkers 86 was a pre-war
design), but the criticisms of weight and lack of power would have
been valid, and for a warplane, lack of power is an absolute no-no[1].

There were some German wartime flying boats that used diesel engines,
too. Rather successfully, actually, but then flying boats can't really
be classed as combat aircraft, no matter how many defensive guns they
carried.

The R101 airship used diesel engines, which were then really untried
technology as far as aircraft went, and they were unsuccessful. Had
the thing not crashed and the British airship programme continued,
it's almost certain the R101 would have been re-fitted with petrol
engines.

The Graf Zeppelin used spark-ignition engines, but fuelled with
natural gas called Blaugas, stored uncompressed. This was a bit like
propane, and was named after its inventor rather than its colour. The
beauty of Blaugas for airships was that it weighed more or less the
same as air and so as the fuel was used up, it didn't affect the trim
of the airship. I think the engines also ran on, and the craft
carried, petrol but I cba to Google right now.

[1] Well, for any aircraft, I'd have thought[2]
[2] And motorcycle :-)

Keep in mind that while the Jumo 205 was a successful diesel aero
engine, It was built at a time when titanium and other high strength,
light weight alloys weren't available.

Aero diesels under development today use titanium in many parts and
high strength aluminum alloys elsewhere to achieve a much better power-
to-weight ratio. Most better 1LB/HP. All will use universally
available JET A rather than diesel fuel - although they can use that
too if the temperature is high enough.

To return to the subject, the stock Hyabusa uses titanium valves and
rods.