The Potez 8D is the largest member of the Potez D series of

air-cooled Air-cooled engines rely on the circulation of air directly over heat dissipation fins or hot areas of the engine to cool them in order to keep the engine within operating temperatures. In all combustion engines, a great percentage of the heat ge ...

piston

aircraft 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 ...

s which share several common features. It is a

supercharged In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced induct ...

eight cylinder The engine configuration describes the fundamental operating principles by which internal combustion engines are categorized. Piston engines are often categorized by their cylinder layout, valves and camshafts. Wankel engines are often categorize ...

inverted engine with a take-off power of .

Design and development

In the 1930s Potez planned a series of new engines to replace their

Anzani Anzani was an engine manufacturer founded by the Italian Alessandro Anzani (1877–1956), which produced proprietary engines for aircraft, cars, boats, and motorcycles in factories in Britain, France and Italy. Overview From his native Italy, An ...

-derived

radial engines The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is cal ...

. The

Potez 4D The Potez 4D was a four-cylinder, inverted inline aircraft engine. It was first built shortly before World War II, but did not enter full production until 1949. Like the other D-series engines, the cylinders had a bore of 125 mm (4.9 in ...

, a four-cylinder inverted inline engine ran before World War II but did not reach production until the late 1940s, when it was joined by another inverted inline, the six cylinder

Potez 6D The Potez 6D is a French six cylinder inverted inline aircraft engine put into production after World War II in normal and supercharged versions. Unsupercharged, it produced a take-off power of at 2,530 rpm. Design and development In the 1930s ...

, and the eight cylinder inverted-V 8D. The D-series engines had much in common, most obviously sharing pistons and cylinders, with the same stroke, bore and valve gear. The larger 8D required an enhanced though similar lubrication system and different

connecting rod A connecting rod, also called a 'con rod', is the part of a piston engine which connects the piston to the crankshaft. Together with the crank, the connecting rod converts the reciprocating motion of the piston into the rotation of the cranksh ...

s because of its 90° V layout. A 8D.32 powered the first prototype of the

Potez 75 The Potez 75 was a low-cost, simple, ground-support, observation and launch aircraft for anti-tank missiles, designed and built in the early 1950s, for use in colonial conflicts. One hundred and fifteen were ordered in 1956, but cancelled in 1957 ...

ground attack aircraft but budget cuts in 1957 led to the cancellation of an order for 15 pre-series and 100 series machines.

Variants

;8D-00 ;8D-10: ;8D-20: ;8D-30:

Tractor configuration In aviation, the term tractor configuration refers to an aircraft constructed in the standard configuration with its engine mounted with the propeller in front of it so that the aircraft is "pulled" through the air. Oppositely, the pusher c ...

;8D-32:

Pusher configuration In an aircraft with a pusher configuration (as opposed to a tractor configuration), the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). Since a pusher propeller is mounted behind the engine, the drive shaft is in compression in nor ...

, with stepped up engine driven cooling fan. ;8D-40

Design and development

Variants

Applications

Specifications

References

Further reading