A Preliminary Investigation of Supercharging an Air-Cooled Engine in Flight

This report presents the results of preliminary tests made on the effects of supercharging an air-cooled engine under airplane flight conditions. Service training airplanes were used in the investigation equipped with production types of Wright J engines. A N.A.C.A. Roots type supercharger was driven from the rear of the engine. In addition to measuring those quantities that would enable the determination of the climb performance, measurements were made of the cylinder-head temperatures and the carburetor pressures and temperatures. The supercharging equipment was not removed from the airplane when making flights without supercharging, but a by-pass valve, which controlled the amount of supercharging by returning to the atmosphere the surplus air delivered by the supercharger, was left full open. With the supercharger so geared that ground-level pressure could be maintained to 18,500 feet, it was found that the absolute ceiling was increased from 19,400 to 32,600 feet, that the time to climb to 16,00 feet was decreased from 32 to 16 minutes, and that this amount of supercharging apparently did not injure the engine. (author)