Hello Folks,
Just want to share something that I learnt today. May be its already know to many over here. The early WW1 radial engines were in fact out-runners. I saw an avro 504 WW1 engine in the science museum. To my surprise the engine did not have a separate prop shaft. The cylinders, crank case and the prop shaft are made as a single mold. When the engine runs, the cylinders were also spinning along with the propeller like the out-runner motor. That must have generated some serious torque!...
I thought that these WW1 multicylinder engines should have been spinning a propeller drive shaft like the modern radial engines..
Here is a youtube link on a similar WW1 out-runner.. They are rightly named as rotary engines!