Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
ROTARY ENGINE
ROTARY ENGINE. Revolutionary advancement in automotive engineering. The rotary engine was an early type of internal-combustion engine in which the crankshaft remained stationary and the entire cylinder block rotated around it. The design was used mostly in the years shortly before and during WORLD WAR I to power aircraft and also saw use in a few early motorcycle races or in off-road conditions.
The ADAMS COMPANY built a successful rotary engine. The design was originated by Fay Oliver FARWELL in 1896. The Adams-Farwell rotary engine was being manufactured for use in automobiles by 1901. An Adams-Farwell car was reported to have been demonstrated to the French Army in 1904.
The engine was extremely light and was ideal for vertical flight. Designed and built by the Adams Company of Dubuque, Iowa, in 1907, this engine powered three, man-lifting experimental helicopters. Two of these helicopters were designed by Emile Berliner and flown in 1909 and 1910. The third was designed by J. Newton Williams and flown in 1909.
Adams-Farwell engines powered fixed-wing aircraft in the United States after 1910. It has been claimed that the Gnôme design of the French was patterned from the Adams-Farwell. Unlike the later Gnôme engines, the Adams-Farwell rotaries had exhaust and inlet valves mounted in the cylinder heads.
By the early 1930s the rotary aircraft engine was becoming obsolete, mainly because of a limit to its possible output torque which was a consequence of the way the engine worked.