Burmese Bandit
Senior Airman
- 474
- Dec 5, 2008
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It would be like a poor man's Turbo-Compound engine. The Russians tried some late war planes with auxilliary jet engines as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_I-250_(N)Here is a suggestion.
Very well. Let us say that the rotary WAS theoretically possible to design and build cheaply during WWII. Let us also accept, as Charles has said, that it was an oil and gas guzzler and the tips wore out quickly.
WHY NOT USE IT AS AN AUXILIARY ENGINE???
Let's look at the G model of the Me 109.
It had a Nitrous Oxide pack behind the pilot that could boost engine power by 20% for 5-10 minutes at a time. And said pack could work well only above 20,000 feet. And said pack, with gas, tank, and insulation, weighed 300 kg - 660 lbs.
So...why not replace said pack with a wankel?
The wankel would power the new 109 like the 335: through a propeller in the tail like the Do 335. It would easily fit in the rear fuselage. It would give at least 600 hp (wankels inherently have 150% the power to weight ratio of pistons).
And it would be used only twice in a sortie: for five minutes at take off and climb, and for 5-20 minutes in combat. Total, 25 minutes per sortie. All other times it would be switched off.
Result: a 109 with 1400 hp in normal mode and 2000 hp for emergencies. And unlike the NO2 system, it works at any altitude. It also doesn't strain the main engine. And we know that the wankel has a very fast throttle response.
What do you think?