Besler: Steam Powered Airplane

Over the Oakland, CA Airport, a few days ago, a silent planet slanted across the sky trailing a thin ribbon of white vapor. Spectators heard the pilot shout a greeting from the air. They saw him flash past, skimming the ground at 100 miles an hour. They watched him bank into a turn, slide to a landing, and, with the propeller spinning backward, roll to a stop in less than 100 feet. They had seen, for the first time in history, a man fly on wings powered by steam!

Two brothers, George and William Besler, the former a geologist 31 years old, and the latter a mechanical engineer, two years younger, have achieved the dream of Maxim, Langley, and other pioneers of flight. Through their work, the steam-driven airplane, long talked about, long planned, has become a reality.

This spectacular development in the field of aeronautics is the result of three years of secret experiment. The inventors began their work in 1930, in a machine shop at Emeryville CA. A few weeks ago, they brought the product of their researches, a 180-pound engine developing 150 horsepower, to the Oakland Airport and installed it at the nose of a conventional Travel Air biplane.

This blue machine, with William Besler at the controls, sped down the runway and climbed into the air without a sound except the low whine of the propeller and the hum of wind through the wires. Swinging back over the field at 200 feet, the pilot shouted ‘Hello!’ and heard the answering calls from spectators below. Conversation in the craft, the two inventors told me when I interviewed them a few hours after their historic demonstrations, was as easy as conversation in an open automobile.

Three times, the blue plane blazed a steam trail into the air, taking off, landing, circling about, remaining aloft for 5 minutes at a time. The constant, wearing vibration of the gas engine was gone; the smooth push and pull of steam power had supplanted it. Each time, as the machine swooped down and the wheels touched, Besler pulled back a small lever at the side of the cockpit and the steam engine at the nose of the ship instantly raced in reverse, whirling the propeller backward to act as a powerful brake and reduce the landing run to a minimum.

This method of slowing down, possible only with steam power plants, applies the braking effect above the center of gravity and thus prevents nosing over in a quick stop. When wheel brakes are jammed on suddenly, a plane nose over or somersaults in a ground crash. Coming in at 50 miles an hour, the Beslers told me, the new steam plane can sit down and come to a stop in a field hardly 100 feet square.

The engine is a 2-cylinder, compound, double-acting, V-type power plant. Its high-pressure cylinder has a 3-inch bore and a 3-inch stroke; its low-pressure cylinder has 5 and a quarter inch bore and a 3-inch stroke.

Just behind the engine, the inventors showed me the barrel-shaped metal boiler which, with its super-efficient burner, explains why they have succeeded where others have failed in attempting to drive planes with a steam engine.

Using vaporized fuel oil, the patented burner releases as much as 3 million BTU per cubic foot of firebox space. This, they told me, is far in excess of anything hitherto attained. An electric blower drives this tremendous heat down among the flat spirals of a single 500-foot pipe coiled within the boiler. Three-eights of an inch thick, inside measurement, at the bottom, the pipe gradually increases in size until it has an inside diameter of five-eights of an inch at the top. The water supply to the coiled pipe is thermostatically controlled to keep the temperature constant regardless of pressure.

Under the fuselage nose is the condenser which looks like an ordinary radiator for a water-cooled motor and which is said to recover more than 90 percent of the water from the used steam. By using a steam-fed water pump, the inventors employ the exhaust vapor to preheat the feed water entering the boiler and thus decrease the time required to build up pressure within the coils.

The operation of the power plant, once it is started, is practically automatic. At the start of a flight, William Besler climbs into the cockpit and flips over a small switch. Instantly the electric blower goes into action, driving air mixed with oil spray through the burner. Here, an electric spark ignites the mixture and send a blowtorch of flame roaring downward around the coils of pipe. A few minutes later, steam pressure is high enough for the take-off. All the pilot has to do, from then on, is to operate the throttle and reverse lever.

At 800 degrees F, the steam pressure built up within the coils reaches 1500 lbs. With a 1200 lb pressure, the engine will deliver 150 horsepower, whirling the propeller at 1625 rpm. Tests have shown that 10 gallons of water is sufficient for a flight of 400 miles. By increasing the size and efficiency of the condenser, the experimenters told me, they believe they can make this amount of water last indefinitely.

As news of their sensational flights flashed to all parts of the country, eager interest was aroused among aeronautical authorities. The prospect of steam planes on the skyways opens up fascinating possibilities.

Burning fuel oil so non-explosive that it merely smolders if struck by the flame of a blowtorch, the new power plant eliminates the menace of fire. In addition, the Beslers told me, enough fuel oil for a 100-mile trip can be bought for 40 cents.

Because, above 1000 feet, steam-driven planes would be as silent as soaring birds, they would have particular value in military work. Noiseless warplanes have long been sought. But muffling gasoline engines reduces their power to such an extent that the plan is impractical. The new power plant, silent by nature, would permit long-distance raids above the clouds by ghost ships giving off no telltale drone of motors to warn the enemy or to aid in directing anti-aircraft fire.

Most spectacular of all are the possibilities of steam on the airways of the stratosphere. In the thin atmosphere of this region, 10 miles or more above the surface of the earth, experts agree, the high-speed transport ships of the future will fly. Here there are no clouds, no storms, and the steady trade winds of the upper blue will increase the speed of long distance passenger, mail, and freight machines…