The Beardmore Tornado was an eight-cylinder inline

diesel aircraft engine Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine ...

built in 1927 by

William Beardmore and Company William Beardmore and Company was a British engineering and shipbuilding conglomerate based in Glasgow and the surrounding Clydeside area. It was active from 1886 to the mid-1930s and at its peak employed about 40,000 people. It was founded and ...

of Glasgow, Scotland, and used in the British

R101 R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Mi ...

airship when petrol engines were thought unsafe in the tropics. The model is given as Tornado IIIA or Tornado III C.I. The fuel is described as ''Diesel heavy-oil''.

Design and development

The engine was designed by combining two four-cylinder units used for

railcar A railcar (not to be confused with a railway car) is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coach (carriage, car), with a dri ...

s into the eight-cylinder (MkI) engine. These were intended to give an output of at 1,000 rpm but in practice, had a continuous output rating of only with a maximum of . At 17 tons for the five, they were six tons above design weight. The weight with the power car was over three tons per engine. The

big end Big or BIG may refer to: * Big, of great size or degree Film and television * ''Big'' (film), a 1988 fantasy-comedy film starring Tom Hanks * '' Big!'', a Discovery Channel television show * ''Richard Hammond's Big'', a television show present ...

bearings were also found to be prone to early failure, In addition, there were two critical vibration frequencies which coincided with idling and cruising speeds, resulting in a limitation on the maximum rpm and consequently a reduction in power output. The Tornado had steam cooling; water in the cylinder jackets was allowed to come to boiling point, and then condensed in three small triangular radiators on the hull above the power cars, or for the two midships engines was condensed in a retractable radiator and used to heat the passenger accommodation. Running the engines at a relatively high thermal temperature was expected to improve the specific fuel consumption. The Tornado engines used

Ricardo Ricardo is the Spanish and Portuguese cognate of the name Richard. It derived from Proto-Germanic ''*rīks'' 'king, ruler' + ''*harduz'' 'hard, brave'. It may be a given name, or a surname. People Given name *Ricardo de Araújo Pereira, Portugu ...

petrol starting engines, and there had only been time to replace one with a Beverley heavy-oil starting engine (itself started by compressed air) on one Tornado. The engines were intended to have reversing propellers, but they failed. At one point during development of R101, one engine was used only for astern running at the start and finish of flights, a decision that astonished

Nevil Shute Nevil Shute Norway (17 January 189912 January 1960) was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who spent his later years in Australia. He used his full name in his engineering career and Nevil Shute as his pen name, in order to protect ...

and the other engineers on the

R100 His Majesty's Airship R100 was a privately designed and built British rigid airship made as part of a two-ship competition to develop a commercial airship service for use on British Empire routes as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme. The ot ...

team. Later two engines were made reversible by an adjustment to the camshaft. The R101 had five Tornado engines. The proposed

R102 The R.102 (originally referred to as Project H) was a British airship planned in 1930 but never built. The development of R.102 resulted from the Imperial Airship Scheme, when it became apparent that the R100 and R101 airships then being buil ...

airship was to have seven engines of an improved version of the Tornado, having an output of 850 bhp (630 kW, maximum) or 700 bhp (520 kW, cruising, continuous), but the project was cancelled in 1931 after the crash of the R101 and the end of the

Imperial Airship Scheme The British Imperial Airship Scheme was a 1920s project to improve communication between Britain and the distant countries of the British Empire by establishing air routes using airships. The first phase was the construction of two large and t ...

. The

would have used the Tornado, but petrol engines were chosen to avoid delays.''Flight'' 11 October 1929 p. 1094

Specifications (Tornado III)

References

External links

Beardmore rail rolling stock and Tornado engine
{{Beardmore aeroengines Aircraft diesel engines

Tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

1920s aircraft piston engines Airship engines

Design and development

Specifications (Tornado III)

References

Further reading

External links