Thread: Who has a pilot's licence??

Originally Posted by superquag

"...And, of course, it was made in England,so naturally it leaks oil. It and the SIII live in the same shed, and we love them both..."

- bet they blame each other for the oily puddles....

The Gipsy Major leaks a lot more oil than most Landrovers (although most is spread around the countryside) - the inverted valve gear operates as what is essentially a total loss oil system. Oil gets into the rocker covers via the pushrod tubes, and fills to rocker cover to a level set by a pipe that leads straight outside. Of course, given it has this system, the designers did not concern themselves too much about any other oil leaks!

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

The Gipsy Major leaks a lot more oil than most Landrovers (although most is spread around the countryside) - the inverted valve gear operates as what is essentially a total loss oil system. Oil gets into the rocker covers via the pushrod tubes, and fills to rocker cover to a level set by a pipe that leads straight outside. Of course, given it has this system, the designers did not concern themselves too much about any other oil leaks!

John

interesting the queens have a scavenger pump, i always assumed that the majors did as well

Originally Posted by 85 county

interesting the queens have a scavenger pump, i always assumed that the majors did as well

Possibly later Marks did - my Auster had a Gipsy Major 10 the same as the DH82A, except it had a starter (but no engine driven generator - it relied on a small generator operated by a 12" propeller, set in the leading edge of the starboard wing, just outside the propeller arc). Possibly when later marks introduced an engine driven generator, the also introduced a scavenge pump. On the Auster engine, instead of a scavenge pump, the oil tank was situated well below the crankcase, with scavenging by gravity, but it was not below the rocker cases.

Permissible oil consumption - 1qt to 1 gallon per hour. From memory, tank capacity six gallons. Not much of that got burnt, although starting after standing for a few weeks, after carefully turning by hand to ensure no hydraulic lock, the first two or three minutes saw you enveloped in a smoke screen.

John

sounds the same as the dh89. turn the scavenger pump anti clock wise a couple of times before pulling through. electric start, gen and 12" prop leading edge port side upper. always started port first so a few reves would spin the generator so you could get enough kick to start starboard. these were queen11 queen 1 had the copper heads, the queen "R" IE dh88. higher compression and automatic pitch ( horrible idea.) 9 lts 200 hp. all the way to the supercharged queens in the heron. quite simple motors, no problems once you got rid of the cork floats.

Gipsy major engine was reliable and durable, reaching 1500hrs TBO by 1945, very high for any aero engine at that time. Only in flight engine failure I have had was not one of them, but a Lycoming (dropped a valve) in a Grumman Tiger.

John

cool, i had No2 port part a piston over D'urville Island. with weight and - 200ft a minit at 3500 ft. lucky i had an old school NAC pilot onbord. got some lift over the island then flew from cloud to cloud into nelson. that's when i went bald

Originally Posted by superquag

"...And, of course, it was made in England,so naturally it leaks oil. It and the SIII live in the same shed, and we love them both..."

- bet they blame each other for the oily puddles....

Yep, you could guarantee it...

I've not seen a Tiger with a Gypsy 10, the one we had ran a Gypsy Major, as have all the others I've seen. But some of the Austers have them. Athough I say it leaks oil because it's British, in fact our engine was built at Fisherman's bend by GMH under license from DeHavilland.
The later gypsies had a scavenge system involving a second scavenge pump behind the first, and associated pipework and small sump mounted at the back of the engine.They also had oil coolers.
I once teased a good mate who owned a Dragon that the only difference between his aircraft and mine was that his spread twice as much oil across the countryside in the same time....
Coop

Originally Posted by C00P

Yep, you could guarantee it...

I've not seen a Tiger with a Gypsy 10, the one we had ran a Gypsy Major, as have all the others I've seen. But some of the Austers have them. Athough I say it leaks oil because it's British, in fact our engine was built at Fisherman's bend by GMH under license from DeHavilland.
........
Coop

I could be wrong about the Mark of mine (I assumed that was the Mark, as according to Wikipedia, these were the first with an optional starter - and my Auster definitely had a starter), but it was certainly the same engine as those in the Tiger Moth - and was also made by GMH. I believe there were about 10,000 made in Australia, most by GMH, but some by Tasmanian Railways Workshops. There were over 1,000 DH82As made in Australia, and the engines were intended for them - used intensively in training, they were expected to go through a lot of engines.

But a lot of engines were left over at the end of the war, and Kingsford Smith Aviation in Sydney were the first to fit Gipsy Majors to Austers in the late 1940s.

John