Gas Turbine Engines for Model Aircraft
Posted by on Monday, January 17, 2011
Gas Turbine Engines for Model Aircraft By Kurt Schreckling
Publisher: Traplet Publications Ltd 2003 | 88 Pages | ISBN: 1951058916 | DJVU | 5 MB
Aturbo-jet engine for model aircraft? What's a turbo-jet, anyway? "What sort of engine have you got in there, then?" These are the questions I have heard so often, even from experienced power modellers. Sometimes a little more knowledge was betrayed by the question: "How many turbine wheels has it got?" Occasionally — very occasionally - I would be asked a question on the compression ratio. Then I knew that J was in the presence of a real expert! But all my interrogators had one thing in common: they all wanted to know exactly how this jet turbine device worked.
A turbo-jet, also known as a jet turbine engine, exploits a gas turbine to produce thrust. It is called a gas turbine because the working medium - air - is in a gaseous form. Please note that this has nothing to do with the possibility of using fuel in a gaseous state. In its simplest constructional form this type of heat engine makes a high-performance power source for an aircraft. The gas turbine becomes a jet turbine, or turbo-jet, when the usable energy in the exhaust gas from the turbine is concentrated using a nozzle, or jet. However, this is not essential in principle.
The first aircraft propelled by a jet turbine was the He 178, which flew for the first time on 22.8.1939. It was The first experimental design, ai built in the Heinkel factory constructed using simple means and the pilot was Erich completed in April 1989 and ran Warsitz. This revolutionary engine was the creation of Dr. Papst von Ohain. On its very first flight this aircraft - the first ever to be powered by a turbo-jet engine - reached a speed of 600 km/hr, faster than any other series-produced airscrew-driven aircraft of the time. In the truest sense of the phrase the engine was simple and ingenious: a single compressor wheel sucked the air in and compressed it in the combustion chamber.