The International Cessna^® 170 Association

I am sure that this is not an original idea. I just can't be the only one.

I read the post about making you own fuel . At any rate when they began to talk about the condenser on the cracking tower I remembered the Stanley twins. Steam Engine.

Just a few years ago a petroleum engineer updated his Stanley and drove coast to coast for total fuel outlay of 4.35 . WE are talking nearly 3,000 miles on 4.00 fuel.

A Steam engine retro fit on a Cessna 170 may possible w modern computer controls to take the cussedness out of operating the boiler.

What do you think?

regards

The guy that ran his steam powered vehicle from coast to coast for $4.00 fuel must be the guy thast developed the carburetor for all automobiles that got 400 MPG but had it suppressed by the oil companies.

Best I ever heard of was Clessie L Cummins of Cummins Diesel fame. Back in the late 1920s or early 30s he ran a big sedan converted to one of his "Oil Engines" across the US on a very small amount of fuel which in those days sold forabout seven cents a gallon. Seems like his fuel cost was something like seven dollars coast to coast.

I've got a magnet that clamps around your fuel-delivery pipe I'll sell you for $4. (and alternatively, can be used \double-duty to magnetize/de-magnetize a screwdriver!)

Thirty years ago I worked for some MIT engineers who had a company called Steam Engine Systems. They converted an outboard motor to steam power. The steam was condensed and recirculated again and again. The boiler was the size of a fist and superheated the water (it was not really water but a nonfreezing liquid). The little motor was powerful enough to run a car. It was installed and working when Mobile Oil came along and wanted to invest to develop the motor.Mobile bought half the company for $1,000,000, and that was when that was really money. The day after Mobile took control the company was shut down.

The problems steam power has to overcome generally are efficiency, an adverse power-to-weight ratio, and the time required to boil water. You generally can't just turn a key and drive away a second or two later. Internal combustion wins on power-to-weight because the fuel is consumed directly in the cylinder. In a steam engine, there is an apparatus (usually a heavy one, because of the pressures involved) between where the fuel is consumed and where the motive power is produced. And another apparatus to recover the water for reuse, if you don't have the luxury of towing a tank full of it.

Internal combustion engines (including turbine engines) just can't be beat. I believe our long-term energy future consists of electric power from a variety of non-polluting sources like nuclear, hydro, wind and solar; plug-in hybrid vehicles; and a yet-to-be invented process that uses sunlight to convert atmospheric CO2 to hydrocarbon fuels that can be used in internal combustion engines -- just what plants have done for millions of years, but in real-time. Genetic engineering may be the key. (And the battery problem has to be solved, too.)

What about torpedo motors? Since well-before WW-2, torpedos used steam to propel 2,000 lb. underwater missles using steam generators. They were light-weight, instant-start and high-output/high-speed.

Back in the thirty's there were people who put a steam engine in a airplane. It had a coil in the boiler and would make enough steam to fly the plane within a minute or two. They claim it was so silent that you could yell to people on the ground and talk to them. Another claim was that when landing you could reverse the prop and slow the plane down for a short landing. with new products available, these boilers could be used in planes. I will still ride with Boeing and there new hydrogen airplane, I think this is the future.
Look on the net for (Steam Powered airplanes)

Bill

George,

How did they generate the steam to drive the torpodoes?

blueldr wrote:George,

How did they generate the steam to drive the torpodoes?

The Navy uses cold steam. I know, because in boot camp they sent me looking for one cubic foot of it. I got sent around to a lot of shops and supply rooms, but I never could find it and I finally just gave up looking. But I know they use it, because my Company Commander never would have sent me for it otherwise!

John, isn't that cold steam kept near the cans of compression?

Brad Brady wrote:John, isn't that cold steam kept near the cans of compression?

Darn! You know, I never thought to look there!

The steam was created instantaneously by a "steam generator", using alcohol for fuel. (Hmmmmn.... ethanol anybody????) Torpedos also have air tanks of course, to support the combustion. Water was not a problem.
The drawback to steam torpedos is the trail of bubbles they leave.... highly visible. The better torpedos were German and Japanese electrics. (The Japanese "Long Lance" torpedo was much greater ranging and more dependable than the U.S. torpedos until hardheads at the Navy finally were overcome with evidence in late '43, early 44. Several U.S. sub commanders made fairly blunt complaints about torpedos that would not maintain proper depth and about "bumping" the enemy with torpedos that wouldn't explode due to bad pistol designs. Hitting an enemy with a torpedo that fails to explode is a double-hazard because now he knows you're there, and the trail tells him where you are. No telling how many subs on permanent patrol due to the sorry torpedos we entered the war with.)

I imagine a steam airplane is not feasible because twice as much heavy liquid would have to be carried.... water to make the steam and fuel to heat it with.

Bill Lear died in 1978 and I have to wonder if modern steam engine technology research stalled.

I had heard that he had made some kind of technology break through but perhaps that was not the case.

He made a steam bus and converted a chevy monte carlo to steam. Engine s OK but every thing else broke or wore rapidly.

Are you thinking that if Bill had lived and the steam bus bus panned out he would have thought about applying steam to aviation. Don't you think?

In 1933 the Besler Steam plane was first flown in Oakland California. The boiler was designed by a man named Besler and he put his boiler in a Travel Air 2000 plane.
The plane had a two cylinder steam boiler that put out 150 h.p. It could go backwards on the ground by reversing the boiler. If you want to see it fly get on the web. and look under Steam Powered Airplanes and scroll down to U-tube.

While in the Navy in 1966, it was common to send someone after a bucket of steam, thats where it was kept, in a bucket. I was stationed at the Navel Torpedo Station in Keyport Washington. We tested alot of different torpedoes in Washington and Canada. The new ones (then in 1966) would run about 6- 800 feet deep and hit the bottom of ships to sink them. On every torpedo was stamped " Reward $50.00 for anyone finding and reporting this Torpedo" like any machine they would sometime screw up and we would loose control of them. We have seen them jump out of the water 75' or more. Thats one of the reason that we would run all boats out of the target range when we were ready to fire a torpedo, they could pick up the sound of a boat motor five miles away and if we couldn,t turn it off it would go find it. A boat making S curves or circles couldn't get away. There are no explosives on the torpedo but the speed of it would go right through the boat. We sunk our own dive boat once.

Check out the Steam Plane, its pretty neat.

Boiler Bill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw6NFmcnW-8

Here's the link - it is pretty cool!

Paul