The Kneeslider

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Vincent Picador Drone Engine

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Vincent Picador Drone engine
Vincent Picador Drone engine

A few years ago I wrote about motorcycles engines re-purposed for use in aircraft and I wondered why we didn’t see more of them. This morning, an email shows up, from Kim Scholer, my friend over in Denmark, with this photo attached showing a Vincent Picador Drone engine. Though target drones have long been used by the military, in earlier years, they were far from being the sophisticated fliers we have today.

It seems, sometime in WWII, Vincent tried to get a government contract supplying motors for the ML Aviation U120D target drone. The years involved are unclear because all references I found are a bit vague.

The motor had to be capable of passing prolonged full power operation tests. This was called the Picador project. The Vincent motor was upgraded with a better crankshaft, Scintilla magneto, double speed oil pump and fuel injection. They did not get a contract. (Russel Wright’s record breaking bike was fitted with a Picador crank and oil pump, by Vincent, while in England for Earls Court, shortly after the 1955 record attempt.)

I had never heard of this project, but as I scanned the comments on my earlier article, I see one referred to this very setup.

The neat thing about a project like this is all of the reengineered high performance parts developed. When the project fell through, those parts were now available to be used in Vincent motorcycles, probably snapped up by those lucky individuals who knew about them or who were in the right place at the right time.

Although this is new to me, I’m sure some Vincent owners out there are well aware of the details of this story beyond the scant information available on the Internet, and I’m sure many of you would like to hear all about it, I know I would.

There are a few more photos available here.

Thanks for the photo, Kim!

ML Aviation drone
ML Aviation drone

Posted on Filed Under: Motorcycle Power Flight

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Comments

  2. Did the photo get flipped because unless I’m mistaken the exhaust pipes are on the wrong side.

  3. Did You notice that the exhaust pipes are facing towards the front of what would be the motorcycle. So the engine was placed in the plane backwards, compared to a bike engine. I wonder whether the crank rotation was normal or reversed? All that RPM was probably geared down to 2,000 to 3,000 RPM prop speed. I am continually impressed that you can still buy newly manufactured Vincent engine parts. Those guys saved everything from going to the crap yard back in 1955. I think that they still have the original patterns.

  4. The interesting thing for me would be how they mated the final drive to the prop. Also, the prop flange is a very critical area. Keeping the engine aligned like a motorcycle probably allowed for lower thrust endplay in the crank/prop wear. It also probably robbed a lot of torque from the prop to zig-zag the connection.

  5. They probably failed to secure the contract because no one could bring themselves to shoot one of these things down.

    -todd

  6. Tim, you can see the primary case (duplex chain?) runs forward to a bevel gear. This would also keep the width of the fuselage narrow as well as separating the thrust forces away from the crank bearings as you suggested.

    Looks like Vincent could have adapted this into a shaft drive motorcycle…

    -todd

  7. Paul, that is so interesting in many different ways, thanks for bringing this to light and and sharing this with us , not to mention every other topic you post, As a small volume builder, manufacturer, custom parts designer and supplier I find your subjects extremely exciting, keep up the good work.

  8. I loved this article, and I’m with Paul, who said: “They probably failed to secure the contract because no one could bring themselves to shoot one of these things down.”

    NVUH

  9. Suddenly i feel a strong need for more toys.
    A R/C plane with a Vincent should be a human right!
    How can i explain to my wife that i need one of those?

  10. I agree with you Todd — can’t imagine such a lovely piece of engineering riddled with .50 cal bullets and smashing into the ground.

    One might think the exhaust ports would face forward to catch more and cooler air . . . but you would be wrong. Wonder if ducting solved the problem, or what?

    Walt