enginehistory.org

[dpennings]

Hi there,

Sporty classic cars are often equipped with fined oil pans, despite their effectivity is questionable at low speeds. For air craft engines, it seems to be a more practical solution to keep the engine oil temperature down, since there is always plenty of air, but don’t now a single example of a finned oil pan in air craft engines. It is a disadvantage, that the temperature of the oil can’t be regulated as on oil coolers (despite it could be realized by a controlled cooling air supply) and cooling air distribution in a fully covered engine might be more complicate than with conventional oil cooling, but it is much simpler and, I guess, also lighter and cheaper.

I don’t remember having seen a single aircraft engine with that type of oil cooling, but I’m certain, there must be some engines with that approach out there.

Dominik

[kmccutcheon]

The Aeronca E-113 comes to mind.
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Kimble D. McCutcheon