The Beardmore Cyclone was an
aero engine
An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years many ...
produced by
William Beardmore & Co
William Beardmore and Company was a British engineering and shipbuilding conglomerate based in Glasgow and the surrounding Clydeside area. It was active from 1886 to the mid-1930s and at its peak employed about 40,000 people. It was founded and ...
with the aim of producing an engine generating a high power output at low revolutions by designing an engine of large displacement.
The design did not enter volume production.
Design and development
The Cyclone was an upright inline six-cylinder water-cooled engine with a bore of and stroke of stroke, giving a displacement of . It had a combined
crankcase
In a piston engine, the crankcase is the housing that surrounds the crankshaft. In most modern engines, the crankcase is integrated into the engine block.
Two-stroke engines typically use a crankcase-compression design, resulting in the fuel/a ...
and cylinder block made of
aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...
with steel cylinder liners and aluminium pistons. Each cylinder had its own detachable head, with
two spark plugs and four valves operated by push-rods driven by a single
camshaft
A camshaft is a shaft that contains a row of pointed cams, in order to convert rotational motion to reciprocating motion. Camshafts are used in piston engines (to operate the intake and exhaust valves), mechanically controlled ignition systems ...
. The compression ratio was 5.25 to 1.
[
The Cyclone was first run in 1922, producing 700 hp (522 kW) at 1,220 rpm. Further development increased output to 850 hp (634 kW) at 1,350 rpm but could produce 950 hp (708 kW) at the same rpm with a larger carburettor.]
Variants
The Beardmore Typhoon was an inverted version of the Cyclone, with almost all parts being interchangeable between the two engines. It was test flown in Avro Aldershot
The Avro 549 Aldershot was a British single-engined heavy bomber aircraft built by Avro.
Development and design
The Aldershot was designed to meet the 1920 British Specification 2/20 for a heavy long-range day and night bomber to be powered by ...
''J6852'' in January 1927.R101
R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Mi ...
airship, but this version proved impractical.
Specifications
See also
References
{{Beardmore aeroengines
Cyclone
In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...
1920s aircraft piston engines