[ARC5] zero

[Bruce Long]

sakae engine copy of Pratt Whitney

Does not surprise me.  I had read about a US designed and manufactured  late 1920's perhaps 1930s locomotive steam engine that was 
purchased by the Japanese and then copied.  There was some sort of design flaw or manufacturing flaw that required the boiler on that particular engine to be cut lengthwise in half, the flaw repaired and the boiler welded back together.  The Japanese copy faithfully copied that cut and weld.  I believe I read of a japanese copy of the venerable National HRO5 receiver as well with similar "attention to detail".

With respect to the Zero I see and hear flying here in central Pennsylvania it might well have a Pratt-Whitney engine in it for all I know.

There is also a Mitchel B25 bomber flying in the mid-state area and it also makes the forth of july flyby.  This has a distinctive sound as well--  a drop what you are doing and pick up the kids and run to the back yard to see what is going on- distinctive sound.  But somehow to my ear that sound lacks the threating snarl that I associate with the mid-state zero.


While we are talking about technology copies about 15 years ago at the bringing of the internet boom I was designing precision quartz crystal oscillators.  A large portion of the oscillators went into Cisco routers.

One day we received a request for quote for an absolutely huge quantity of precision oscillators from Wai-Wa  the multi-billion dollar electronics company "owned" by the government of the Peoples Republic of China.  The mechanical drawing of the oscillator design we where supposed to bid on was a poor photocopy apparently of a fax of a Cisco internal drawing with the Cisco sign off table at the bottom right side of the drawing and the bold letter marking "Cisco Propitiatory" still intact.  They had not even bothered to white that stuff out.

At present I am working at a small technology start up.  Our office computer system is reguarly snooped from a small number of IP address we have been able to trace back to Bejing and we have had PR Chinese Nationals, mostly students at the local business school contact us on various premises to arrange a visit.




________________________________
 From: Kenneth G. Gordon <kgordon2006 at frontier.com>
To: Bruce Long <coolbrucelong at yahoo.com> 
Cc: Arc5 at mailman.qth.net 
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 8:35 AM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] zero
 
On 16 Aug 2012 at 7:27, Bruce Long wrote:

> The sound of the engine is
> both unique and manificent but I must admit every time I hear it- even
> before I knew there was a Zero in the region- it sends a tremor of
> fear up my spine.  It just sounds dangerous and threatening.  Maybe I
> watched too many WW2 propaganda films as a boy.

Hee hee! Possibly, that last is correct. :-)

However, the Zero's original engine, the Sakae 12, 14 cylinder two-row
radial, was an almost exact copy of the very similar Pratt and Whitney
engine of the same design. Recently, on a Zero that was being restored,
there was discovered the exact same plaque that P&W put on each of their
engines, "Performance with Reliability" in English!

Ken W7EKB