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For extreme Arctic conditions some extraneous preliminary heating may still be required with any starter, but the liquid-cooled engine has shown itself in practice to be peculiarly adapted to these circumstances by reason of its closed cowling and coolant system. MATERIALS The history of the development of the liquid-cooled aero engine is largely the history of the development of new or improved materials which have been needed to enable full use to be made of each step up in fuel octane value as it has become available. There is no reason to suppose that future engine development, involving, as it will, increased specific output will not be equally dependent on the development of new and improved materials, particularly for those parts whose loading, whether due to thermal or mechanical stresses, is broadly proportional to specific output. Of these the exhaust valve, which, in relation to its size, has probably had more time and money spent on its development than any other single component, is undergoing continuous improvement, and future development is directed towards further improvements in cooling coupled with the development of materials which will resist the corrosion of leaded fuel and maintain good mechanical properties up to higher operating temperature. There is a distinct possibility that such a material may be a non-ferrous alloy. Even with liquid-cooling the specific heat flow through the combustion chamber walls is likely to be such that aluminium casting alloys with increased strength at moderate temperatures will be required. Research into light alloys with the maximum strength at elevated temperatures is being strenuously pursued, and the possibility of the development of cast pistons in order to make use of alloys which are not suitable for forging must not be overlooked. Increased specific output means greater specific bearing loads, and the need for improved bearing materials able to operate satisfactorily at the increased loadings without the need to increase bearing areas, and consequently engine length and weight will be felt. In this respect silver lead and also a light alloy material are both in competition with lead bronze future development. The scope for the application of plastic mouldings to an engine is limited, but, owing to their light weight and ease of fabrication, they will probably be developed in the future for covers, and possibly lightly loaded gears. The investigation of magnesium alloys is still in its early stages, and there is reason to hope that the future will bring forth a magnesium casting alloy with increased strength at moderate temperatures which would be suitable for crankcases. FUTURE DEVELOPMENT Nothing stands still. The front-line fighter of to-day is the advanced trainer of to-morrow. Relentless increase in engine output and aircraft performance with time continues always. The largest present-day power units are up to the 2,000 h.p. mark. It is well known that the Americans have developed engines of both liquidand air-cooled types operating at this power. For both civil and military requirements there are demands in some quarters for still larger outputs combined, of course, with other necessary requirements. There would be no difficulty in the liquid-cooled type of engine attached to designing and building a much higher-output engine immediately based on known and successful development, if the need were sufficient. There would, of course, arise the question of developing an airscrew to absorb this power. The practice that

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has grown up with engine makers is to concentrate on and develop a very limited number of cylinder siz^s and to use different numbers of such cylinders in appropriate geometrical arrangements to produce a suitable range of engine sizes. This practice has distinct advantages since there is far more work as a rule attached to developing the cylinder and its essential parts than there is to dealing with the problems of any individual grouping, and it rather follows that for still larger outputs the tendency will be to increase the number of cylinders. Such development, however, must go hand in hand with a correlated and definite need on the aircraft side, as past experience has shown the uselessness of anticipating requirements in this direction. For restoring engine power at higher altitude likely to be required in the future, the exhaust turbo-driven blower should be the natural solution but will require some mechanical assistance for providing take-off boost, while the higher compression ratio of the blower will call for multi-stage and inter-cooler development. Still further off, but according with the universal tendency to substitute continuous for intermittent and reciprocating motion, is the development of the internal-combustion turbine itself, wherein the metallurgist is the Hamlet of the play, for without him the play cannot be. The exhaust-gas driven turbine, however, is acting as the fore-runner for the I.C. unit and will be a useful stalking horse for the materials development required. Undoubtedly an I.C. turbine could be built and run to-day but only at a wasteful expenditure of fuel due to the limit on the maximum temperature of operation imposed by the materials available.

RESEARCH
Future development of materials has already been mentioned, but in this connection it is of great importance to the progress of the work to ensure the full collaboration of the engineering side with the metallurgist, the chemist and the physicist, so that research is on the right lines for engine requirements. It is difficult to think of progress without considering the suppression of noise. Useful work has already been accomplished and put into practice for absorbing and damping out this unpleasant form of energy, but military and civil interests alike would be served by the reduction of noise emission from exhaust and airscrew, if this is done without undue loss or addition of much weight. There is a ray of hope that may at least point the way towards the former object. It is greatly to be desired when normal development is resumed that far greater attention will be directed towards eliminating the fire risk. Such an issue is rather obscured at the present time necessarily by the state of emergency in which we are working, but there is reason to suppose that these risks would not have been accepted so casually in the past, and would not be in the future for civil and even for military flying, were it generally known that development in certain directions promises, if not complete immunity, some substantial improvement. Compression ignition and fuel injection with safety fuels are referred to in this connection. Light engine construction demands the minimum range between mean and maximum gas pressure in the working cycle, and this has always been one qf the biggest factors retarding the development of the compression-ignition engine. This disadvantage may be overcome in an indirect way in future development. Fuel injection per se cannot be said to have received much attention in this country, due perhaps to some extent to lack of urge resulting from comparative satisfaction with existing (Continued on next page.)