The International Cessna^® 170 Association

How'd you like to BACK into a tiedown space?

http://www.aircraftowner.com/videos/vie ... e_658.html

With a steam boiler, we wouldn't have to worry about 100LL going away, heck, you could probably use waste french fry oil or used motor oil for fuel.

It would be a nightmare on a freezing winter day. Can you imagine the icing problems with all that condensation?

gahorn wrote:It would be a nightmare on a freezing winter day. Can you imagine the icing problems with all that condensation?

Probably one MANY reasons it wasn't a commercial success. Was that a problem on steam locomotives? Maybe solve that problem by adding a condenser and making it a closed system?

Miles

It had a condenser.

So how do you keep a condenser from freezing up at altitude and in cold wx? (Ans: Lots and lots of inefficiencies and dead weight.)

Speaking of dead weight...let's consider the fact that not only would the thing have to carry FUEL to heat the boiler to make the steam (presumeably at 6.7 lbs per gallon or so...) but it would also have to carry an additional amount of WATER at approx 6 lbs per gallon as well. Hmmmm.....

I can see the incident -report now: "Well...he didn't run out of fuel..... he ran out of WATER!"

Here are some other links for the Besler Steam Plane:

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/T ... mplane.htm

http://www.things-with-wings.com/ThingsWings/Besler.htm

http://www.rexresearch.com/besler/beslerst.htm