Nova 1 (oz13716)

About this Plan

Nova 1. Model aero diesel engine.

CAD drawings by Ron Chernich. Article by Roger Schroeder.

Quote: "The Nova 1, by Roger Schroeder.

A Nova is an astronomical event, larger than life, a liquid fueled rocket that is larger than life and a model diesel engine that is larger than life. The following pages present the Motor Boys drawings with both English and metric dimensions.

The Nova 1 has a displacement of 4.5cc (.275 cu. in.) and was designed and built by a Dutchman named I J v.Leeuwen in December of 1943. His plans and a short history of the engine appeared in the Dutch model magazine 'De Modelbouwer' (The model Builder) which continued to be published during the German occupation of World War II. As such, they were the first drawings of an auto-ignition engine to be published in Holland. The title block of v.Leeuwen's drawings had the words, 'voor Modelvliegtuigen, Ontwerp,' which may mean it was done originally for a Belgian publication.

Piet de Klerk, Jr., writing about the Nova in the May 1946 issue of the English magazine, Model Aircraft, pointed out that during the German occupation, the Dutch modelers could not obtain petrol engines and thus turned to building their own. The Swiss had developed a compression ignition engine, the Dyno 1, in 1941 and word of its existence spread among model builders and no doubt also reached v.Leeuwen in Holland. Thus, in 1943, v.Leeuwen designed and constructed his own compression ignition engine and called it Nova 1. According to de Klerk, he later followed it with a design called the Nelri of 5cc capacity. We assume that other Dutch modelers built v.Leeuwen designs. The Nova drawing also appeared in the 1946 issue of Model Aircraft.

De Modelbouwer is still published, 10 times a year, in Holland by the Nederlandse Vereniging van Modelbouwers (Dutch Model Engineers Society). They have a web page and their e-mail address is: modeller@knoware.nl

After looking at the historical information, some of the Motor Boys indicated an interest in building a reproduction of the Nova. Novas have been completed by Bert Striegler, Don McClusky, Ron Chernich, Ken Croft and Roger Schroeder. All of the Motor Boys Novas run! They do 6000 rpm on a 14 in diameter prop. Don has flown his in a Comet Clipper.

The Nova is not an easy engine to build. It is big. It measures about 5-3/8 inches from top to bottom. It is the largest .27 cu in engine you will ever see."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Also see http://modelenginenews.org/nova/rs_nova.html for more notes.

Note this plan (and article) is an extract from the MBI (Motor Boys International) Model Engine Plan Book, 2nd Edition. This was originally published through the MEN site run by Ron Chernich, see http://www.modelenginenews.org/. Also see Mary's page on RCLibrary https://rclibrary.co.uk/title_details.asp?ID=2122 which hosts a copy of the book as submitted from MBI by Ken Croft, in accordance with Ron Chernich's wish that from 2013 onwards the book should be available, freely, to everyone as a PDF download.

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