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Aviation History
1925
1925 - 0107.PDF
FEBRUARY 26, 1925 THE 60 H.P. "CIRRUS" LIGHT 'PLANE ENGINE New Aircraft Disposal Co. Production SIMPLICITY, robustness and ease of maintenance are the features aimed at in the design of the four-cylinder air- cooled engine recently produced by the Aircraft Disposal Co. at their Waddon works. The engine is scarcely a light 'plane engine in the sense to which we have hitherto been accustomed, but there is a large section which maintains that if we are to make any headway at all with popularising flying the very first essential is cheapness, and that cheapness and very light weight are antagonistic terms. Now whatever one's opinions on the subject of what constitutes a light 'plane, it must, we think, be admitted that it is not possible to build a very light machine, nor fly it with a very low- powered engine unless both engine and machine are very lightly built, which is another way of saying very expen- sively built. If, therefore, it is agreed that cheapness is one of the first considerations (by this we do not, of course, intend to convey the sort of thing described as " cheap and nasty "), it seems almost^inevitablc that weight must be sacrificed in order to attain low cost. That being so, one may not, perhaps, arrive at a very small machine, nor can one fly it with a particularly small engine, and the logical outcome of this reasoning would seem to be that, whatever form the future light 'plane may take, for the present we must rest content with something a little larger and a little more powerful than we should perhaps have liked if the question of cost did not enter so seriously into the argument. So far as we have been able to judge the situation, this is the reasoning that has led up, in the first place, to the pro- duction of the Airdisco " Cirrus " engine about to be described, and in the second to the designing and building of the D.H. 60 " Moth " low-power two-seater which has just been com- pleted at the Stag Lane works of the de Havilland Aircraft Co. In this connection it should be pointed out that Capt. de Havilland originally conceived the idea of producing the " Cirrus " engine, in so far as he suggested the possibility of taking one-half of the Airdisco 120 h.p. engine and making THE AIRDISCO " CIRRUS " ENGINE : Four views of the engine recently produced by the Aircraft Disposal Company for use in low-power aeroplanes. The" Cirrus " has a total cylinder capacity of 4 500 c c and develops 60 b.h.p. at 1,800 r.p.m. and 65 h.p. at 2,000 r.p.m. The weight,all-on,is 260 lbs., or 4 lbs h.p. (on maximum power). The upper left-hand photograph is a front view of the engine, while on the right is the port, or exhaust, side view. The long pipes are crankcase breathers, and are incorporated with the oil-filler cap, which, being outside the cowling, is easily accessible. Below are shown the induction side and, on the right, a rear view. Note the hand-starting gear. 107
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