Tim writes: I’m not in the slightest impressed by fantasy “could”, “might”, “future”, just do it. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have done just that except the price for this little party trick, I hate to think.
A nice warm day! (Photo: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory) model P-51 [*]
Navies are very interested in technology where that might be a military advantage. Here I see spin as an environmental statement being put onto military interest, creating practical liquid fuel without access to land. The two stroke aero-model engine is running from feedstock extracted from seawater, plus electricity. The former is easy enough, the latter is the rub over real world usage. If you have nuclear power there is plenty of electricity.
The process is not so far from Talkshop Fossil fuels puzzle. It only needs sea-floor calcium carbonate sediment to be subduct and cooked with deep heat in the presence of catalytic iron to produce hydrocarbons, nature’s recycling.
The model appears to be using a single cylinder engine (multi-cylinder are rare). The cylinder head is away from the camera so I can’t see whether this is glow-plug or diesel (less common esp. in the US), with different fuel requirements. The scale propeller probably means the higher revving glow-plug type and the mediocre take-off performance suggests it is underpowered. Perhaps the fuel is marginal. It will be a heavy model.
Diesel (model diesels are not true diesels) is more tolerant of fuel composition. (I’ve used both long time ago and have a water cooled marine diesel here somewhere)
[*] WWII P-51 “Mustang” became very famous as a fighter and bomber escort. The excellent airframe design is American but the original type had poor high altitude performance until re-engined with double supercharger Rolls Royce Merlin. Red Tail was a famous US squadron.
Post by Tim
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
As an expert in this article (linked) points out:
“If you put CO2 and hydrogen together, thermodynamics dictates that it has to go to methane,”
http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/185170/origins_of_methane_on_earth/
See paragraph: Making methane without biology
You are right Tim. Anything is possible with enough energy. IIRC the toll for this liquid fuel was equivalent to $40 per gallon at industrial production with present technology. The lab production to power that model must have cost millions 😎 lol. Still real new science progress! pg
Tynemouth to be one of first locations for £1bn scheme to access deep sea deposits which could power Britain for centuries
A billion-pound plan to reach untapped coal reserves under the North Sea will be under way by the end of the year, as the vast scale of the energy source beneath the North Sea is made clear.
http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/drilling-date-set-north-seas-6896191
The process of in-situ extraction involves the injection of high pressure steam and oxygen, which will combust some of the coal and produce primarily carbon monoxide and hydrogen AKA syngas, which just happens to be the feedstock for the good old Fischer-Tropsch process.
catweazle it is not as easy as described. Tests have been conducted in Australia. They were halted due to green complaints about contamination of the water table above the coal seam. The way it needs to work is something like retreat mining with a long wall. There needs to be a drive along one side of the block to be extracted for the steam pipes, air for combustion and monitoring gear, and a drive on the other side for the gas collection and extraction. The panel starts with a cross drive. It is necessary to put the drives in place with man power and machinery.
I suggest it makes more sense to actually extract the coal with a remotely operated longwall. It will not be long before all underground coal mining will be done with remotely operated equipment and robots to do necessary maintenance and movements of conveyors.
1:04 in the video looks like a glowplug head.
The ‘P’ in P-51 stands for patrol- our fighters start with an ‘F’. Anyway, the P-51 was tasked as bomber support because it was the only aircraft, besides the P-38, that could fly the distance. Thanks to the Brits for fixing our engines and turning them into fighters. Woo-hoo!
My last tour of duty was in Bermuda. During a Bermuda/Navy Day festival a P-51 came over to Bermuda and sold half hour rides around the island. Too pricey for me, but my last photo in the Navy was of all the “mustang” officers around that plane.
Sera, nice when someone who knows turns up adding information. So that is what P stands for, simple when you know.
The American airframe being good hacked off plenty over here, same problem.
I suspect past history played a part with engines. The Brits fought an earlier air war, had an empire needing long range and high altitude, but most of all played competition games, militarily being one over many years.
The Schneider Trophy played a part, racing seaplanes, remove floats and what is left is more or less a fighter with a little space capacity to carry a weapon load… often the Achilles heel of fighting aircraft, sure it is fast or long range… when not carrying anything.
This includes fuel load so whilst I don’t know it is possible the Mustang had more tankage space.
A background not often pointed out is that a small number of individuals foresaw WWII, the great risk of allowing military and industrial capability to fall below a point where there was any response to German assertive buildup. During the 1930s there are tales to be told.
The following link does not make clear the technical side of things, which I will explain now, then some of the text will make more sense.
Engine thermal efficiency is critical not only to userful power output vs. fuel used but also the vast amount of waste heat had to do somewhere or things melt. A lot exits via exhaust gas[1], the rest as heat into the engine structure, removed by air scour and in many cases via a remote heat exchanger: liquid cooling system aka. radiator, where air scour does it’s work.
Trouble here is we are dealing with square and cube law to do with vehicle speed. Cooling air through ducts or whatever leads to extra power needed for a particular speed, a significant problem. One solution, rarely used because it is very hard to get it to work is use a “surface” radiator, the vehicle outer skin is the air scour surface removing heat, there is no discrete radiator as such. So as fast as possible in this case trades for great cooling complexity.
Not even that simple because a surface radiator system weighs more, bad in aircraft. Lots of compromises.
This history might add some insight including to several of the problems
http://www.rjmitchell-spitfire.co.uk/schneidertrophy/1931.asp?sectionID=2
Wikipedia carries a long item on the Rolls-Royce R including discussion on how this is placed in relation to later engines. All are supercharged V12, share sodium cooled valve heads and so on.
I’m amused sometimes when youngsters start to “get” how often today for all the assistive technology has not led to brilliant innovation. That comes from elsewhere. Nor does it come from school on the usual kind, part knowledge, part ability, part circumstances. Compromise again.
(get ’em out of university, we are not going anywhere as things are today)
Mentioning P51, re-engine with the larger Rolls Royce Griffon was possible but torque reaction becomes so severe it is on the limit of needing contra-rotating propellers, as did in fact exist from mid-WWII. In the US racing until recent times just that combination was retrofitted, leading to about 500 mph, no floats.
A further aside the Germans did re-engine a captured Spitfire with (I think) an ME109 engine and this gave better performance. Leads to wondering what a Mustang would have done.
High altitude, the highest kills were at >50,000 feet against the few German diesel engined “airliners” turned to bombing or photo usage. High up has always been a challenge.
Don’t know the scene today but cold war the EE Lightning (best troposphere climb ~Mach 0.8, 2 minutes to Stratosphere) did test interception of U2 at normal operational height and later U2 even at it’s limit, AFAICR near 90,000ft, classic ballistic flight to flutter limit in dive from Mach 2+ and pull back)
Tales recounted too of using Concorde as intercept target, just possible with a tiny window on takeoff time.
1. After WWII there were attempts at power turbine power takeoff, either using the “engine” as a gas generator or as compounding with power output taken from both. For aircraft it worked but the better size to power output of gas turbines won out. Even today this is not yet exploited in land vehicles other than as turbosuperchargers. (the proper name)
Jaguar made an attempt at a gas turbine hybrid within the last few years but scrapped the project in the financial crisis. The turbines were used to charge the batteries – probably far too expensive for mass production.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_C-X75
[…] oldbrew on P-51 Mustang, Fly Navy, Fly… […]
I find it strange that that the Navy wishes to make methane this way as it will alway be very expensive. Why not explore a cost-effective method of using the methane hydrates that are on the sea floor.
@ TC:
Found a list of aircraft designations from back when-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1922_United_States_Navy_aircraft_designation_system
We have five different services in our military: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard (everyone forgets the CG). Each service has their own designations, so ‘P’ could mean either Patrol or Pursuit. Sorry for the confusion.
The most valuable/useful patrol plane ever produced was (probably) the PBY.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_PBY_Catalina
Sera, that’s a very famous design, a workhorse with a remarkable service longevity. The name has turned up often over the years in England.