[alfa] SU Carb..Attitude Problems!(Off Topic..but short)

["Tim Hancock" <timhancock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Fielding says of SU carbs in Aero engines " The aero version had a
swivelling float chamber that always
kept the fuel the right way up, irrespective of the planes attitude."

In the Rolls Royce Merlin engine in Spitfires and Hurricanes the problem was
that German aircraft could just push the nose down and dive with their fuel
injection. The SU equipped Merlin had to do a half roll first to keep enough
fuel available,as the negative G would slosh the fuel in the float chamber
away from the outlet and the engine would falter, and thus could not catch the
escaping aircraft. The brilliantly elegant solution was worked out by a lady
engineer at Rolls Royce  whose name was Gertrude Shilling. She came up with a
washer with a hole in the middle that was inserted into the float chamber.
This ensured that under sudden negative G, enough fuel was retained in the
float chamber to complete the transition to dive under full power.

This device soon came to be known as "Miss Shilling's orifice".

Oh yes..."G".... is a very very very short acronym....Gravity


Tim Hancock    Boston UK

164TS
164Super
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