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Small Multiengine Designs--Cheap engines, your own TriMotor or Mini- Connie

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Vigilant1

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Okay, so this idea has been rattling around the old brain housing unit for a few years: These small industrial engines are not expensive and are capable of putting out some reliable horsepower (commonly 40 HP, 60HP with some tuning or maybe a PSRU). So, how would they work in a "standoff scale" airplane with 3 or 4 of them and actual utility (say, seating 2-3 people with room for some bags)?
Aside from the novelty/"cool factor" (see below), such a plane would offer 120-240 HP on tap, redundancy (no matter how much we love and trust our single engine, when over that solid canopy of trees or rocks, my thoughts turn to that lone crankshaft and those valves opening and closing thousands of times per minute.). Loss of one engine would not be a huge deal in a well-designed 3 or 4 motor plane. And maybe there are ways to optimize for cruise (outboard engines with the cruise props, inboard with the climb props throttled back a bit at cruise? 2 engines turbo-normalized?).

Negatives:
1) Fuel consumption: 3 or 4 small engines making 120-240 HP will burn more fuel than a bigger engine making the same power. It's just the thermodynamics of heat loss and volume vs area as things scale up. This will be compensated a small bit by the improved efficiency of engines mounted on wing nacelles compared to a single prop blowing directly into the front of the fuselage
2) Weight: Same as above. 3-4 small engines will weigh more than one large engine making the same power.
3) Pilot training: So, I'd need a multiengine rating to fly this thing. And emergency procedure training becomes a lot more complicated.

Ideas solicited. There's no particular reason to make a multi-engine plane of this kind resemble a real (bigger) airplane, but, since we're just kicking ideas around . . . mine are below.

There are no new ideas under the sun and I'm sure a variation of this has been done, but I've never seen such a beast.

Ford Trimotor



220px-Southern_cross.jpg

Fokker F.VII





Four engine candidates that come to mind include the Constellation or perhaps the C-130 (back ramp=load in the camping gear!).




94thogroup-c130-2.jpg

(A gunship version would be a crowdpleaser!) Or, deliver supplies to your friends via Low Altitude Parachute Extraction (LAPES)
c130lapes.jpg









 

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