Sata 4000 RP

When motorcycle enthusiasts say "loud pipes save lives," I don't think are imagining the Red Baron, an insane two-wheel machine powered by an actual aircraft engine. It's a beast. A monster. A crazed marriage of sky and land. It's also incredibly loud.

German tinkerer Frank Ohle spent 18 months bringing the Red Baron from concept to reality. It's not like you can just pull the engine out of a regular bike and pop in an aircraft engine. Just about every part of the motorcycle had to be customized to make room for the Rotec Radial R3600, a 150-horsepower, nine-cylinder engine.

The Rotec R3600 is more commonly used as a replacement engine for World War I-era airplanes. It was even placed into a Sopwith Camel, a vintage biplane first introduced in 1917. One place you wouldn't expect to see an R3600 is revving down the highway with a rider on its back.

The only thing we don't really know is why Ohle created the Red Baron. His Facebook page proves he's into unusual motorcycles, so at least it makes sense that he would want this one-of-a-kind hellion chopper.

The engine makes an almighty noise when it's running. Video evidence shows that Ohle really did manage to make the motorcycle work just fine.

There's even an impressive plume of smoke when he starts it up.

See the bike in action below. The video may be in German, but you can crank up the volume to get an inkling of what this crazy transportation device sounds like.


Sternmotorbike: Frank Ohle baut Motorrad mit Flugzeugmotor - YouTube

mmaviator

FlyJSH

I wonder how centripetal forces affect handling.

rickair7777

The rotating part is actually pretty small, not much bigger than the crank assembly in a regular motorcycle engine. The cylinders and rods go in and out, no centripetal action there.

A BMW boxer engine has an almost identical configuration as far as the rotating stuff goes, and similar horsepower.

I think the prop would generate most of the centripetal force in an airplane engine.

Cubdriver

Well, the pistons, cranks, valves and other hardware form a large mass located near the edges of the face, so I would expect a high degree of gyroscopic precession whenever revving occurs. This is the same unbalanced force on a prop disc magnified and moved 90 degrees ahead of the direction of rotation, which is the same thing we know from tailwheel aircraft and is quite a pain. There is considerable rigidity- in- space with the mass this far from the crankshaft. If you like to ride say The Dragon in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina every year at this time, great thing to do, this would be the bike to leave at home. It's not a very good design for a motorcycle engine. These radials are best at steady-state running. They do not work well for quick-throttle designs.

rotorhead1026

If you really want gyroscopic forces, mount a rotary instead of a radial!

The transmission arrangement would certainly be interesting.

Billy Pilgrim

Neat concept. As Rickair mentioned though a modern motorcycle engine will make similar power. For example my current bike (Honda 929RR) makes 148hp with about a quarter of the displacement and about half as many cylinders - but that's the difference 90 years makes in engine design.

However... since it's making that power at 3,600 RPM that's a lot of low end torque!

A few years back I was cross country through Memphis and ran into a guy downtown that had a Boss Hoss - it's a Chevy V8 powered motorcycle. Completely impractical and equally impressive.

On an aviation note these guys make a turbine powered motorcycle: MTT - Leading Turbine Innovation

Available with a 320 or 420hp Rolls Royce Turbine motor - Jay Leno has one. They had one for display for a few years in the Bellagio.

Sata 4000 RP

Yeah, Miatas would be passing that thing on The Dragon.

Cubdriver

Some more thoughts on this design.

• lots of moving parts here, it suffers from a high cost per unit factor. The engine we see here is probably surplus war equipment paid for by Uncle Sam.

• this is a large engine and even if it was made smaller, it does not fit well on a motorcycle chassis. Square and triangle shapes fit better, and you can see this one hardly has enough space for anything.

• one of the prime selling points of a large radial is how lightweight it is for a given displacement. But weight is not as large an issue for motorcycle engines- while it does matter, it is not worth multiple costs over a 2-4 cylinder engine of the same displacement.

• old radials are out of touch with computer controlled valve and spark timing technologies since they are not manufactured much any more, and while in theory they could be brought up to speed it would be very expensive. It's usually best to use the technology that is current.

• A round engine has a larger face and higher drag factor than necessary. In aircraft designs the trend was toward inline piston configurations to lower drag. This is not as large a factor for motorcycles since they go a lot slower than military aircraft, but drag is drag.

• another benefit of a radial engine is how well they work upside down, an advantage that has little application to surface vehicles.

• water cooling systems allow tighter tolerances for internal parts than air cooled designs, which in turn increases the smoothness and expands the high rpm performance possibilities of an engine. This is turn makes it possible to move the power band upwards to higher rpms which in turn increases combustion pressure. All that makes more power from a smaller engine and greater efficiency. This is a disadvantage to air cooled designs such as this one, although it has less to do with configuration.

Cubdriver

This is a thoroughly stupid idea!

• oil and exhaust leaks are likely to end up on/at the riders.

• getting on and off the bike there is a huge burn hazard.

• most bikes get laid down at some point in their careers, but with this one you also destroy the engine.

• in summer the engine must produce a killer amount of heat for the rider.

• noise would have to be unbearable and there is no practical place to put a muffler.

• that many pistons are pretty hard to balance and the vibration must be terrible for this bike. I doubt you could ride this thing for more than an hour at a time before getting numb hands.

• my guess is water sprays all over the rider and obscures his vision in the rain, so any sort of damp or wet weather riding is out.

• I wonder about the weight distribution with most of the weight on the front wheel.

It's pretty obvious why there has never been a radial motorcycle before this one came along!