Engines - Wright

Around 1916 Charles Lawrance designed, built, and tested the engine at the Lawrance Aero Engine Company. It was built by the Excelsior Auto Cycle Motor Manufacturing and Supply Co. of Chicago, Illinois.

This firm shipped the engines to the Breeze Aircraft Co. for installation in the Breeze Penguin Trainers. These preflight trainers were designed with short wings so they could not fly; however, the cadets could get the feel of an aircraft’s ground handling.

There is a scene featuring Penguin Trainers in the 1958 movie (IMDB) Lafayette Escadrille.

The A-3 had a single-throw crankshaft with the pistons directly opposed, which resulted in the pistons both moving in the same direction at the same time causing horrible vibration.

The Lawrance Aero Engine Co. was acquired in 1923 by the (Wikipedia) Wright Aeronautical Corp and Charles Lawrance became vice-president of Wright.

Lawrance became President of Wright Aeronautical in 1925 when Frederick B. Rentschler left to form Pratt & Whitney and served until 1930. During that period, Wright developed the Lawrance J-1 into the famous Wright J-4, J-5 and J-6 series engines known as the Whirlwinds.

This engine is mounted on the kid's plane in the south hangar.

(Wikipedia) - Lawrance A-3

(cradleofaviation.org) - Breese Penguin non-flying trainer

enginehistory.org - Lawrance A-3

The Curtiss-Wright Corporation was created in 1929 from the consolidation of 12 companies associated with Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, Wright Aeronautical, and various supplier companies, by the end of World War II it was the largest aircraft manufacturer in the United States.

The Curtiss OX-5 was the first American designed aircraft engine to enter mass production, which started in 1917, although it was considered obsolete when it did so in 1917. About 12,600 engines were produced. It nevertheless found widespread use on a number of aircraft, perhaps the most famous being the JN-4 “Jenny”. The wide availability of the engine in the surplus market made it common until the 1930s, although it was considered unreliable for most of its service life.

It is a liquid cooled V-8 engine that weighs about 390 pounds, and put out 90 hp.

Cons: The valve gear was fragile, and it had no provisions for lubrication other than grease and oil applied by hand, leading to an overhaul interval as short as fifty hours. Additionally the engine featured a single spark plug in each cylinder, and a single ignition system, in an era when ignition equipment was less reliable

According to Wright bulletin #16: “all engines with exposed valve gear require complete readjustment and lubrication of the valve gear approximately each five hours.”

The OXX-6 is the successor to the OX-5. The OX-5 had only 1 magneto to fire each cylinder which caused frequent engine failures. The OXX-6 had dual magnetos which had fewer failures and set an industry standard for aircraft engines.

(Wikipedia) - Curtiss OX-5

In 1931 this particular engine powered a WACO-9 known as the Anna on a winter flight in eastern Alaska. The engine did develop a problem and the pilot, Freddie Moller attempted to land in the snow near the Nebesna River. The plane flipped and suffered some damage. In order to salvage the engine, the pilot removed the engine and placed it on a stump. He than took one of the skis off the plane, placed his survival gear on the ski and towed it roughly 40 miles to the community of Tok, taking a bit more than 2 weeks to complete the journey.

The R-790 Whirlwind began as the Lawrance J-1, a nine-cylinder air-cooled radial developed in 1921 by the Lawrance Aero Engine Company for the U.S. Navy. The Navy was very enthusiastic about air-cooled engines, which it felt were better suited for naval use than liquid-cooled ones.

The J-5 Whirlwind, introduced in 1925, was a complete redesign of the engine which greatly improved its cooling and breathing, further increasing its reliability and reducing its fuel consumption. Among the more visible changes were a much wider separation between the valves, for better cooling airflow, and completely enclosed pushrods and rocker arms, rather than exposed ones as on the earlier engines.

The reliability of J-5 Whirlwind engines also led aviators to use them for a number of record-setting distance and endurance flights. The most famous of these is Charles Lindbergh's solo transatlantic flight from New York City to Paris on May 20–21, 1927, in the Spirit of St. Louis, powered by a single Whirlwind J-5C. During Lindbergh's flight, the engine ran continuously for 33.5 hours. Lindbergh's achievement greatly boosted the Whirlwind's already good reputation.

Used on: 1928 Stearman C2B NC5415, Fokker Trimotor, Ford Trimotor, Fairchild FC-2, Lockheed Vega, Stinson JR SM-2AB

(Wikipedia) - Wright R-790 Whirlwind

From Bellanca Pacemaker NC259M that was piloted by Steve Mills when it crashed on August 30, 1936.

(Wikipedia) - Wright R-975 Whirlwind

The Wright R-975 Whirlwind was a series of nine-cylinder air-cooled radial aircraft engines built by the Wright Aeronautical division of Curtiss-Wright. These engines had a displacement of about 975 in³ (16.0 L) and power ratings of 300-450 hp (225-335 kW). They were the largest members of the Wright Whirlwind engine family to be produced commercially, and they were also the most numerous.

During World War II, Continental Motors built the R-975 under license as a powerplant for Allied tanks and other armored vehicles. Tens of thousands of engines were built for this purpose, dwarfing the R-975's usage in aircraft. After the war, Continental continued to produce its own versions of the R-975 into the 1950s; some of these produced as much as 550 hp (410 kW).

The R-975 is most famous for being used as the power plant for the (Wikipedia) M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, the fastest and most efficient American tank killer of World War II. The R-975 powered M18 remained the fastest tracked armored vehicle in the world (60 mph (90 km/h) on road - 18 mph (29 km/h) off road) until the introduction of the turbine powered M1 Abrams in the 1980s.

The Wright R-1820 Cyclone 9 was an American radial engine developed by Curtiss-Wright, widely used on aircraft in the 1930s through 1950s.

The R-1820 was at the heart of many famous aircraft including early Douglas airliners (the prototype DC-1, the DC-2, the first civil versions of the DC-3), every wartime example of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Douglas SBD Dauntless bombers, and the Piasecki H-21 helicopter.

(Wikipedia) - Wright R-1820 Cyclone

These pictures are the engine on the Piasecki H-21 “Flying Banana” on the AAM grounds.

The Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone was one of the most powerful radial aircraft engines produced in the United States. It was a twin-row, supercharged, air-cooled, radial engine with 18 cylinders.

This engine was manufactured at the Dodge Chicago Aircraft Engine Plant.

Power ranged from 2,200 to over 3,700 hp (1,640 to 2,760 kW), depending on the model. Developed before World War II, the R-3350's design required a long time to mature before finally being used to power the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. After the war, the engine had matured sufficiently to become a major civilian airliner design, notably in its turbo-compound forms. The engine is now commonly used on Hawker Sea Fury and Grumman F8F Bearcat Unlimited Class Racers at the Reno Air Races.

(Wikipedia) - Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone

(Wikipedia) - Dodge Chicago Aircraft Engine Plant

allpar.com - Chrysler’s Short-Lived Chicago Plant

As of September 2017, the sign for the 1928 Stearman C2B NC5415 is wrong where it says that the engine is a J-4. The original engine was a J-4, but the engine in the Stearman is a J-5.

Wikimeida Commons - Wright J-4(2) SDASM

1924 Wright J-4 Whirlwind

History

The J-4 Whirlwind was the first successful air cooled stationary radial built in the US and was the predecessor of the famed J–5 that powered Lindberg's historic transatlantic flight. In 1923 the U.S. Navy pressured the Wright Aeronautical Corp. to buy out a small firm owned by Charles L Lawrence that had been developing a promising air cooled 200 hp radial engine. Lawrence's 9 cylinder J–2 radial was further developed by Wright and was introduced as the J–4 Whirlwind in 1924. It was used in a number of civil and military aircraft, most notably in the Ryan M-1 mail plane

Technical Details

The Wright J-4 had cast aluminum cylinder barrels with integral cooling fins in steel cylinder sleeves. The aluminum heads had two pushrod operated valves per cylinder with exposed valve gear. There were two plugs per cylinder fired by reliable Scintilla magnetos. An updraft Stromberg carburetor supplied mixture to the cylinders via pipes without the aid of a blower or supercharger. The crankshaft and master-and-link connecting rods were sturdy enough to allow for additional development.

According to Wright bulletin #16: “all engines with exposed valve gear require complete readjustment and lubrication of the valve gear approximately each five hours.”

In 1926 the J–4 became the J-5 model with the addition of new cylinder heads design with the help of Sam Marian of the Army's powerplant lab in Dayton, Ohio. The new head design had much deeper cooling fins, enclosed valve gear and sodium–cooled exhaust valves set at a wide angle to the inlet valves for better cooling airflow. Both reliability and fuel consumption were greatly improved and the Whirlwind became known as the most reliable aircraft engine built up to that time.

Another set of pictures of a Wright J-4 from the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola.

enginehistory.org - Naval Air Museum

Wikimeida Commons - Wright J-4.jpg

(Wikipedia) - Wright R-790 Whirlwind