Control terminology

[LCharnes]

Very obscure and possibly unanswerable. In blueprints and diagrams of 1910s-1920s British aircraft, what we Yanks would call the "choke" is usually marked as the "mixture adjuster" or something similar.

Question: what would a 1920s-30s British pilot call that control in everyday language? "Choke," "mixture," or something else?

This isn't something I can solve by looking at the corpus since both terms have so many other meanings. Thanks in advance.

 

[pbehn]

Well not all mixture enrichment devices are chokes, motorcycles used to have a type of button that depressed the float to flood the inlet.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Some definitions first -

A choke valve/cable is designed to restrict the flow of air in the carburetor of an engine. This helps enrich the fuel-air mixture, improving the ability to start an engine in low temperature conditions.

The "mixture control" sets the amount of fuel added to the intake airflow and can be hand adjusted.

A primer valve will squirt fuel into an aircraft engine (cylinders) to enrich the mixture for better starting.

If the aircraft had a "choke" lever, IMO it would probably be called a "choke." Be advised that by the 1920s/ 30s, I don't think too many aircraft engines used "chokes." Today Rotax powered aircraft may have a choke.

Hope this helps

 

[Shortround6]

Some of this may depend on the type of engine?

The rotary engines engines often had a "mixture control valve" as they didn't have carburetors as we know them.

There was an air flap that controlled the inlet of air (somewhat) but often there was just a nozzle for the gasoline to spray the fuel into the passage or tube. See

http://www.pilotfriend.com/aero_engines/images/gnome_5.jpg

Pilot would adjust the air flap/control and would adjust the fuel jet/nozzle to he got the engine running to suit him (her?) and from take-off to landing the flight would be pretty much at full throttle. Pilot would make adjustments from time to time. but there was no real cruising flight or throttling up to climb quickly.
remember, power control for landing was either by a blip switch (kill the ignition momentarily) if you had a simple set up or if the engine installation was fancy the electric circuit you allow to cut out pairs of cylinders so you could run on 7 or 5 cylinders out of 9.

However since any cylinder that did not fire was dumping it's fuel/air mixture into the slip stream or cowling the display of fire when landing (especially at night) could be pretty impressive if you used the ignition cut out very much.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Some of this may depend on the type of engine?

The rotary engines engines often had a "mixture control valve" as they didn't have carburetors as we know them.

There was an air flap that controlled the inlet of air (somewhat) but often there was just a nozzle for the gasoline to spray the fuel into the passage or tube. See

http://www.pilotfriend.com/aero_engines/images/gnome_5.jpg

Pilot would adjust the air flap/control and would adjust the fuel jet/nozzle to he got the engine running to suit him (her?) and from take-off to landing the flight would be pretty much at full throttle. Pilot would make adjustments from time to time. but there was no real cruising flight or throttling up to climb quickly.
remember, power control for landing was either by a blip switch (kill the ignition momentarily) if you had a simple set up or if the engine installation was fancy the electric circuit you allow to cut out pairs of cylinders so you could run on 7 or 5 cylinders out of 9.

However since any cylinder that did not fire was dumping it's fuel/air mixture into the slip stream or cowling the display of fire when landing (especially at night) could be pretty impressive if you used the ignition cut out very much.

Bringing back memories, of sought!

When I was in A&P school we had one and got it running on a test stand. Threw oil all over the place!

I think after WW1, this set up went away with the rotary (reasons obvious).

 

[LCharnes]

The engine immediately in question is the Hispano-Suiza 8Fb, a V8. I'll assume "mixture" is the right reference unless someone has other info to the contrary. Thanks so far for your help!

 

[nuuumannn]

The engine immediately in question is the Hispano-Suiza 8Fb, a V8. I'll assume "mixture" is the right reference unless someone has other info to the contrary. Thanks so far for your help!

If it's British it's likely to be a mixture lever. This is a cockpit of a restored S.E.5a, which had a Wolseley Viper, which was essentially a licence built Hisso V8, which was mounted in the earliest S.E.5s. Note the two levers next to each other to the left, these are the power and mixture levers, both placarded. The large lever to the left is for opening and closing the radiator louvres.

DSC_0842