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Would the perennial confusion (as has arisen again recently) between the aircraft-specific types and the generalised non-reciprocating rotary engines since James Watt's day be made clearer if we moved this article to a more specific disambiguated name, and moved the disambig page to Rotary engine? Andy Dingley ( talk) 08:44, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Are all rotary engines (in our sense) even of radial layout? other cylinder layouts are (were) very rare, but they do (did) exist, and are mentioned in the article. Look, assuming that this is a serious question (which I doubt) there are three possible "disambiguation" questions that might arise here.
This remains the only reason that is not totally trivial (why I mention it first). We have discussed this at considerable length in the past, and repeatedly the consensus has come down on the side of the status quo. Wankels do at least have an alternative name, which "our" rotaries do not.
Does anyone seriously want to add a qualifier to Radial engine? Because that's the only way to tackle this particular confusion. Either that or get rid of the Rotary engine article altogether, and merge it (perhaps as a discrete section) with Radial engine? Hasten to add that this strikes me as grossly inappropriate too.
This seems pretty far-fetched - but this topic seems to have been spawned by an example of this kind of thing. It stems from ignorance. Turbines are simply not called rotaries. This may be a problem, but it is NOT a disambiguation problem, which is necessarily caused by ambiguity (two things having the same name).
Excuse me if I am taking a sledgehammer to a walnut - but this particular nut does needs to be cracked (preferably smashed) so we can get onto other things. - Soundofmusicals ( talk) 01:12, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Most people coming "fresh" to this article believe that "rotary engine" means a Wankel and that what we call a "rotary" in this article is a radial. Our initial task here is to explain that no, we are not talking about a Wankel here - and no, in spite of how the picture looks, it is not a radial either. I estimate we actually convince somewhere around 15% or so of readers that this is the case - the rest just shrug their shoulders and say to themselves "Wikipedia is so unreliable!" In view of this we really don't want any tortuous, confusing matter creeping into the lead (lede) - really, we don't. Personally, I have my doubts about that bit about the museum model being in the article at all - with even stronger doubts about it belonging in the lead. If it is not to be moved to a more appropriate place (or simply removed altogether) then it does need to be very carefully worded. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 23:31, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
The pistons and timing are shown correctly but they are NOT moving the cam attached to the center correctly. the motive force should be directed to the cam's other (offset) pin, NOT the center pin directly (the engine can't rotate if pistons are trying to move the center/anchor pin!). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:F151:8E00:5843:398E:7BF7:62EC ( talk) 17:48, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
As of today ( 185.24.186.192 ( talk) 09:40, 23 May 2017 (UTC) ) the gif is correct: it's true that "the motive force should be directed to the cam's other (offset) pin, NOT the center pin directly", but this is the case in current gif. Maybe it was wrong when previous observation was done, it wont show in history of the article but in history of gif, which i didn't check.
(Please sign comments with 4 tilde marks "~")
NOT productive (on the whole) to argue about accuracy of sources or externally acquired illustrative material. Just remarking. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 04:51, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
Our explanation for this was, I believe, pretty good so far as it went, but as another editor insisted, the "two-stroke style" lubrication system was inevitable without a way of circulating oil back into the crankcase. In other words, what remained of the (castor) oil had no way out but the exhaust. The point as we made it, and the point our editor wanted to substitute are not incompatible, if you can get your head around it. (No way in but HERE, no way out but THERE). Comments welcome - but discuss here before making further changes. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 02:20, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
good for me, maybe could be written slightly better, but no editing really needed. Gem fr ( talk) 10:22, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
The Wankel engine is only mentioned here at all to make it clear that it is nothing whatever to do with this article. The Wankel isn't a piston engine - and in no way has anything to do with the case. Any objection to the BR.2 being described as the "ultimate" rotary would have to be based on (say) other very late examples, such as the SSW productions from Germany. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 02:48, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Winged Brick reported by User:Andy Dingley (Result: ) Andy Dingley ( talk) 22:43, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
In History->Millet this appears inline : "...so must be considered ...". This is an encyclopedia, you should not be giving the reader directives, would appreciate if someone rephrases this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.138.224.125 ( talk) 11:50, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
A new editor added the following:
This is potentially very interesting indeed - but the sources mentioned do not appear to be RS - and I am also concerned if this is even an actual example of the subject of this article, or if it is more like a variant on the Wankel theme - in any case we need more details for it to go into THIS article. - Soundofmusicals ( talk) 01:56, 12 July 2020 (UTC):
A Google search will disclose absolute details and that the source is genuine and a rotary aircraft engine is correctly described. Trevshef ( talk) 23:22, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
The opening paragraph seems a little jarring to me as it continually refers to rotary engines in the past tense. Even though the "heyday" of rotary engines was in the past there are still many working rotary engines in operation today, either on rebuilt or replica World War I aircraft, or as noted above in new style rotary type engines such as the Wankel. That being said, even if there were no working rotary engines today the design is still valid and could be built by anyone who was so inclined to do so.
I am new to editing so am not sure if I am allowed to make these changes unilaterally. Rags17 ( talk) 08:36, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Hello English Wikipedia editors! What is the difference between a rotary engine and a wankel engine? After I looked it up on Google, most of the information there states that the two engines are the same. Is this true? Please provide references that support your opinion. Cheers Badak Jawa ( talk) 03:21, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
This information is wrong. These are pictures of radial engines, not rotary engines. Rotary engines don't have cylinders. Someone needs to fix this. Wikipedia must pride itself on misinformation. 50.168.146.202 ( talk) 16:24, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Rotary engine article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
It is requested that a diagram or diagrams of a combustion engine be
included in this article to
improve its quality. Specific illustrations, plots or diagrams can be requested at the
Graphic Lab. For more information, refer to discussion on this page and/or the listing at Wikipedia:Requested images. |
Would the perennial confusion (as has arisen again recently) between the aircraft-specific types and the generalised non-reciprocating rotary engines since James Watt's day be made clearer if we moved this article to a more specific disambiguated name, and moved the disambig page to Rotary engine? Andy Dingley ( talk) 08:44, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Are all rotary engines (in our sense) even of radial layout? other cylinder layouts are (were) very rare, but they do (did) exist, and are mentioned in the article. Look, assuming that this is a serious question (which I doubt) there are three possible "disambiguation" questions that might arise here.
This remains the only reason that is not totally trivial (why I mention it first). We have discussed this at considerable length in the past, and repeatedly the consensus has come down on the side of the status quo. Wankels do at least have an alternative name, which "our" rotaries do not.
Does anyone seriously want to add a qualifier to Radial engine? Because that's the only way to tackle this particular confusion. Either that or get rid of the Rotary engine article altogether, and merge it (perhaps as a discrete section) with Radial engine? Hasten to add that this strikes me as grossly inappropriate too.
This seems pretty far-fetched - but this topic seems to have been spawned by an example of this kind of thing. It stems from ignorance. Turbines are simply not called rotaries. This may be a problem, but it is NOT a disambiguation problem, which is necessarily caused by ambiguity (two things having the same name).
Excuse me if I am taking a sledgehammer to a walnut - but this particular nut does needs to be cracked (preferably smashed) so we can get onto other things. - Soundofmusicals ( talk) 01:12, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Most people coming "fresh" to this article believe that "rotary engine" means a Wankel and that what we call a "rotary" in this article is a radial. Our initial task here is to explain that no, we are not talking about a Wankel here - and no, in spite of how the picture looks, it is not a radial either. I estimate we actually convince somewhere around 15% or so of readers that this is the case - the rest just shrug their shoulders and say to themselves "Wikipedia is so unreliable!" In view of this we really don't want any tortuous, confusing matter creeping into the lead (lede) - really, we don't. Personally, I have my doubts about that bit about the museum model being in the article at all - with even stronger doubts about it belonging in the lead. If it is not to be moved to a more appropriate place (or simply removed altogether) then it does need to be very carefully worded. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 23:31, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
The pistons and timing are shown correctly but they are NOT moving the cam attached to the center correctly. the motive force should be directed to the cam's other (offset) pin, NOT the center pin directly (the engine can't rotate if pistons are trying to move the center/anchor pin!). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:F151:8E00:5843:398E:7BF7:62EC ( talk) 17:48, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
As of today ( 185.24.186.192 ( talk) 09:40, 23 May 2017 (UTC) ) the gif is correct: it's true that "the motive force should be directed to the cam's other (offset) pin, NOT the center pin directly", but this is the case in current gif. Maybe it was wrong when previous observation was done, it wont show in history of the article but in history of gif, which i didn't check.
(Please sign comments with 4 tilde marks "~")
NOT productive (on the whole) to argue about accuracy of sources or externally acquired illustrative material. Just remarking. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 04:51, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
Our explanation for this was, I believe, pretty good so far as it went, but as another editor insisted, the "two-stroke style" lubrication system was inevitable without a way of circulating oil back into the crankcase. In other words, what remained of the (castor) oil had no way out but the exhaust. The point as we made it, and the point our editor wanted to substitute are not incompatible, if you can get your head around it. (No way in but HERE, no way out but THERE). Comments welcome - but discuss here before making further changes. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 02:20, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
good for me, maybe could be written slightly better, but no editing really needed. Gem fr ( talk) 10:22, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
The Wankel engine is only mentioned here at all to make it clear that it is nothing whatever to do with this article. The Wankel isn't a piston engine - and in no way has anything to do with the case. Any objection to the BR.2 being described as the "ultimate" rotary would have to be based on (say) other very late examples, such as the SSW productions from Germany. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 02:48, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Winged Brick reported by User:Andy Dingley (Result: ) Andy Dingley ( talk) 22:43, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
In History->Millet this appears inline : "...so must be considered ...". This is an encyclopedia, you should not be giving the reader directives, would appreciate if someone rephrases this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.138.224.125 ( talk) 11:50, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
A new editor added the following:
This is potentially very interesting indeed - but the sources mentioned do not appear to be RS - and I am also concerned if this is even an actual example of the subject of this article, or if it is more like a variant on the Wankel theme - in any case we need more details for it to go into THIS article. - Soundofmusicals ( talk) 01:56, 12 July 2020 (UTC):
A Google search will disclose absolute details and that the source is genuine and a rotary aircraft engine is correctly described. Trevshef ( talk) 23:22, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
The opening paragraph seems a little jarring to me as it continually refers to rotary engines in the past tense. Even though the "heyday" of rotary engines was in the past there are still many working rotary engines in operation today, either on rebuilt or replica World War I aircraft, or as noted above in new style rotary type engines such as the Wankel. That being said, even if there were no working rotary engines today the design is still valid and could be built by anyone who was so inclined to do so.
I am new to editing so am not sure if I am allowed to make these changes unilaterally. Rags17 ( talk) 08:36, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Hello English Wikipedia editors! What is the difference between a rotary engine and a wankel engine? After I looked it up on Google, most of the information there states that the two engines are the same. Is this true? Please provide references that support your opinion. Cheers Badak Jawa ( talk) 03:21, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
This information is wrong. These are pictures of radial engines, not rotary engines. Rotary engines don't have cylinders. Someone needs to fix this. Wikipedia must pride itself on misinformation. 50.168.146.202 ( talk) 16:24, 4 April 2024 (UTC)