Yeah, You're Lucky To Have That! Was It Used As A Backup? For What It's Worth, Women Kept The Lathes Turning While The Men Were Away. Foyle's War - 'Bleak Midwinter' Thank You.
I think the Mosquito had 2 of the same engine that powered the Spitfire. The Spitfire had a port on one side where the ground crew would insert a crank handle to start the engine, as an alternative means to the electric start.
The is the gearbox that was mounted above the electric starter on some Merlins. It provided an alternative, hand start capability. Hand starting was achieved by using the gearbox to spin up a heavy mass to high speed and then use it's inertia to turn the engine over, via a clutch mechanism. The smooth, turned 'knob' on the end of the shaft isn't original. It should have a part with a transverse pin for a removeable handle to attach to. Shame about the blatent mysogyny
So how did the thing work? Planetary and complex and clever, compact, didn't weigh much, all very impressive. Large reduction ratio ~ 80 or something to one. Now how do you start a 27 litre supercharged engine with that? By 'hand'?
I don't think the fact that women made that made is it any less functional than if it was made by men. The whole idea of mass production was to make make endless replicas of something of which all parts were interchangeable with the next. Unlike conventional British manufacturing at the time where gears planetary sets were made for a single unit and we're not interchangeable.
Let me say this. I don’t think I could build that or come up with the idea. So I would consider myself unskilled, and I’m a guy. But it is pretty ingenious. Furthermore I have been taught mechanics and have never witnessed anything like it. I guess I have something to learn yet.
The production method was used in the automotive industry for at least 15 years before WW2. It was applied to war time production because the volume was just like automotive manufacturing. The gear set is an epicyclic gear train that was used for many applications even then but later in the 1950's it formed the main gear sets for the majority of automatic transmissions and is still used today for that.
It probably has a Sprague clutch, or similar "one-way" mechanism, otherwise it would be spinning thousands of RPM when the engine was running, and, to prevent the starting handle from killing the mechanic when the engine turned over!!
"and women, at that..". God, man, I'm an old fart, too, but I'd never say that! Women can do anything that men can do, unless it's a brawn over brain "thing", and certainly did all sorts during WW II !
@ 1:38 made by unskilled workers. Couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't speak, had no thumbs and fingers, ate cockroaches and thought there was a god. Pharq there's some bullshit here on the toooob.
That would not start any engine! That's 80 hand cranks for just 1 turn of the engine! I've just timed myself simulating that and I managed about 22 turns in 5 seconds. So that equates to about 20 seconds for one revolution. Way too slow to start ANY ENGINE!
I've got a weird ww11 airplane part, USA made that has about a 40-1 ratio, one side has a speedo square type cable maybe and the other a bnc type tube connection. 20+ years back when I got it the internet only showed one thing about it and I haven't looked since then
Fine piece of engineering. 80:1 reduction gearing in a very small unit and congratulations to the women who made it. So how did it start a Merlin? The spindle looks to small to wrap a pull cord to start a 27 V12 like a lawnmower.
This narrative was included in the official historical documentarys from then and being repeated so often to praise the ingeniuity of the masterminds behind the planning that everybody soon began to repeat it without noticing the massive insult included. The greatest skill of the workers was their flexibility in any way!
If this was made by an unskilled woman, think what a skilled woman can do. Ww2 victory was possible because of the production capacity of US arms factories. Damn good thing, they were mostly women. Never get a woman pissed. It can come to no good.
