Little Champion

Aeronautical engineers have long experimented with the two-cycle engine for airplanes. In such an engine the four strokes of the pistons--1) intake, 2) compression, 3) explosion, 4) exhaust-- are reduced to 1) compression 2) explosion. Fuel is forced into and out of the cylinders by a pump. Complex lubrication is dispensed with by mixing oil with the gasoline. That advantage largely accounted for the failure of most experiments to date: the burned oil left heavy carbon deposits. Last week a new, light two-cycle engine was described by Dick Roberts, plump aviation editor of the Toledo Blade. It had just been flown for Army & Navy observers by a Toledoan, Bert Naseef, cousin of Chicago's Mayor Anton Joseph Cermak. Invented by one B. J. Augustine, built by Champion Rotary Motors Co. of Buffalo for which Bert Naseef is test pilot, the engine has but 20 moving parts, all enclosed; only 241 parts in all, compared with about 4,000 in the average airplane engine. Eliminated are valves, springs, push rods, timing gears, oil pumps, oil lines, etc., etc. Of the ordinary causes of engine trouble, 87% are said to be eliminated.

The 6-cylinder type is said to weigh 125 lb., and to develop 90 h.p., 180 m.p.h. Pilot Naseef said he had taken the air 48 sec. after starting the motor, after it had stood idle for five hours. Pilot Naseef won local fame when he landed his light plane in front of a hospital, flew home with his wife and 13-day-old daughter.

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