Radial

[Skeeve]

No, it's definitely a radial engine, it's got pistons!

Steve

 

Before Mazda licensed the rights to the Wankel and trademarked it as the Rotory ['cause it's got rotors instead of pistons, don'tcha know... ], about 40 or so years prior there had been "rotary" engines pinned to the front of biplanes to provide power. IIRC, the "monosoupape?" ('one valve') was one of them. They were briefly popular, because back in the days of cast iron everything, cooling air flow for the mofos was problematic: everything was fine up in the air flying, of course, but on the ground taxiing the engines would melt! What to do, what to do... I've got it! We'll bolt the prop to the engine cases, and the end of the crank to the fuselage, and the engine will create its own cooling airflow! Little bit of a redesign, run the fuel in thru a hollow crank, hey, it's a two-stroke we'll just mix oil w/ the fuel, bada bing, ipso facto, cogito ergo sum: we've got a rotary 'cause the entire engine rotates hanging out there on the front of the airplane!

 

Made barrel rolls to the left easy-peasy, but slower'n molasses in winter trying to go in the same direction the engine rotates...

 

That's it for today's lecture: further research is left up to the reader...

 

Anyway, the Megola is definitely a rotary, as Mike said, it's just not a Wankel [which has a longer history in motorcycling than you might suspect: the DWM? forced-induction two-strokes of the '30s used Wankel superchargers...