WWII AIRCRAFT ENGINE CARBURETOR TRAINING FILM 1940 78384

This restricted War Department “official training film” was produced in 1940 by the United States Army Signal Corps in collaboration with the Chief of the Air Corps. The purpose is made clear within the first 30 seconds of the black-and-white picture, thanks to a title card: “This film presents some elementary principles of carburetor functioning, the understanding of which will assist the pilot in making proper use of the carburetor and effecting good engine performance. Improper handling of carburetors is conductive to engine failure.” With that, the decidedly mundane and straightforward film launches into “Aircraft Engines - Part 3 - Carburetion” and an engine diagram, accompanied by a voiceover describing the operation and function of a carburetor in painstaking detail. The announcer also explains the function of such pieces as intake pipes, the intake manifold, and the exhaust manifold, all of which are accompanied by illustrated diagrams. At mark 03:40, the viewer is told the correct pound mixture (Gasoline 1 Air 15) for the combustion of gasoline, along with a discussion on the rate of burning and imperfect distribution of fuel to the various cylinders (caused by excess oxygen), which is illustrated beginning at mark 05:18. Mark 06:27 offers the viewer a graph along with a discussion of an aircraft’s potential horsepower based on its fuel mixture ratio. “Maximum power is obtained with a mixture of 12 to 14 parts of air to one of fuel,” it is noted. “Too lean a mixture makes an engine too hot.” By mark 10:15, the presentation continues with a discussion of various systems including main metering, idling, accelerating, economizer, and mixture control. What follows, starting at mark 11:00, is a detailed discussion of the main metering system, and continues with in-depth discussion on the other systems previously introduced in the film and continues through the end of the film.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFilm.com

[@deankay4434]

The pilot had to make 832 adjustments to the fuel system from heating, cooling, mixture, consumption, tanks equalized, power, cruising, altitude and what not. Then they had a plane to fly!

[@jrmcferren]

Some aircraft had a flight engineer who operated most of the engine control to maintain a lot of this with the pilot doing most of the controlling needed to fly the plane. These controls overlapped a bit, but the flight engineer did a lot of the fuel mixture, fuel pumping/equalizing and other duties. This film about the flight engineer on the B-29 explains it a bit kzbin.info/www/bejne/jnyVhHhvdsmWl7M

[@Holocaustica]

When the director says, “That was good but do it again and try to sound like you’re suicidally bored.”

[@oraculox]

the phisics awareness by the body in those conditions make a connection with the working machine, the adrenaline and serotonin levels are funny working in favor of that focus. Its not a state everyone can be in but yeah, boredom or amusement become unreal not existing things

[@PintaoLoko]

Lots complicated than vehicle carburator, but even amazing.

[@kristjanbirnirivansson528]

You got to wonder who animated these diagrams.

[@lineshaftrestorations7903]

I wonder if strong coffee was issued to students prior to viewing this film to offset the sedative effects of the narrator?

[@jerryhablitzel3333]

You had to understand this just to keep your machine flying. Ignore it at your peril. Charles Lindbergh taught pilots in the pacific to lean the engines out properly to gain fuel efficiency. The mechanics had a fit but Lindbergh knew his stuff. Not much was automatic. you had know how to operate it.

[@CarminesRCTipsandTricks]

..... Now Pilots just look at a Screen while a number of Computers fly the Plane. They could NEVER Fly an old Aircraft!!

[@davecrupel2817]

And if this stuff matters ANYWHERE, it matters above the big giant vast and fuel-empty Pacific Ocean.

[@sheeplord4976]

@@CarminesRCTipsandTricks to be fair, unless you are spending half a million on the plane, it is probably gonna be manual fuel mixture control.

[@CarminesRCTipsandTricks]

@@sheeplord4976 I completely agree with you. I was just saying that Pilots TODAY would be completely perplexed by the complex and sensitive manual controls of classic Aircraft...

[@shakeydavesr]

Lindbergh's input gave them a substantial increase in range. (I wanted to emphasize substantial, but I didn't want to use all caps and look like I was screaming. Lol)

[@oraculox]

I love how they made this really indepth explaining of chemistry and particle phisics while at the same time enforcing censorship of the same concepts in the education system...oh well.....🤦‍♂... I wonder how the pilots delt with this unholy knowledge as a tool in battle hahahah

[@leoj4023]

what a terrible narrator

[@sheeplord4976]

A lot of old microphones sucked at getting large frequency ranges, and judging from the amount of static, I assume that the narrator was trying to stay within that vocal range by use of being extremely monotone.