From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Notes on engine weights, inertia starters, generators, and thermostatic hot spots on cars.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 179b\3\ img081 | |
| Date | 30th January 1933 guessed | |
| -2- from Langley Field where I am going on Wednesday. The weight of the 500 HP. model is 147 lbs. and the weight of the normal fixed pitch metal prop. is 97 lbs - i.e. it adds 50 lbs. weight. The weight for a 700 HP. engine is 172 lbs. You might let me know by telegram if you are sufficiently interested for me to follow up. The scheme appears to me to be simpler than the majority. It also automatically limits the R.P.M. of engine in the 'power dives' they use here for bombing. I understand from the president - Mr. Marcus - that -they are trying to get most of the variable prop. jobs and are negotiating to take over Smith's. The other feature I saw were starters (inertia) and various forms of generators and drives. They have had a lot of trouble with generator drives and have got a damped spring drive on their generators. I have got particulars of their generators. Inertia starters are universally used here both on military and civil machines. Cars. Thermostatic Hot Spots. Nearly all the General Motors products have thermostatic controlled hot spots. They look rather fragile to me to be working in the exhaust manifold. Chevrolet have a good example - see enclosed cutting. The baffle is very thin - just like shewn in diagram - and offset so that the gas pressure tends to open. Its normal position, engine cold, is as shewn, and the bi-metal strip on the outside of the pipe opens it when the engine warms up. I could not find out particulars of the bearing material, and material of the baffle at the Show, but will do so when at Detroit. Strombergs have a thermostatic choke valve, if I think it useful will obtain one when at South Bend. A.{Mr Adams} C. Lovesy. | ||