Hi Tom. The licensees not only had to litigate any possible infringements on behalf of Cyclone, but they also had to develop the technology itself to create working engines. And if you have that capability already, why on earth pay money to Cyclone when it is so easy to get around Cyclone's patent?
The outfits that fell for that like Revgine with lawnmower engines, that first green energy outfit, the solar power company, Great Wall of China and so on were all startups by people with no relevant technical skills. They bought into Harry's bs about market-ready products. All they got were the generic blueprints of the envisioned Cyclone engine and it was up to them to make it work.
Cyclone exhibited at a Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) engine trade show in 2006 and 2008 and got those awards for innovation, but got zero interest from real engine companies. I imagine the first question from every engineer who stopped by was "where is the test data?". And Harry would have to admit everything on display was painted kitchenware stuck together.
Remember Topline, the "global" autoparts maker that was going to mass produce WHE engines? I once looked them up. They had a place in Michigan with about 20 employees making aftermarket valvetrain parts, a place in Argentina with about 20 people rebuilding alternators, and were getting into the warehouse and distribution business. They were also going to engineer Cyclone engines for mass production. The last word was Topline supplied parts for four engines that Cyclone never produced pictures of and that are not known to have been run.
In addition to selling licenses for unproven technology, Cyclone's business plan was to sell engine development services to companies. No, really. Remember the picture of the Mark 5 test stand with all the cheap Harbor Freight multimeters duct-taped on as the data acquisition system? Cyclone builds looked like stuff done on Junkyard Wars.
Yep, big companies were going to throw money at Cyclone to bask in the glow of Harry Schoell's brilliance.
Raytheon had a very specific requirement of a small steam engine for the pet project of that one engineering manager. I believe Raytheon's objective was to learn everything Cyclone knew about steam engines to help them design their own. The two engines they bought were incidental. Raytheon had embedded engineers at Cyclone and someone anticipating just buying engines would never do that.
Agreed, any rational evaluation of the market for engines would show some niches where a good steam engine could sell, but nothing like the "one world one engine" delusion.
Of course, the whole trajectory of Cyclone has been nothing but an ego trip for Harry. What company would set a goal of building a marketable steam engine then spend the next twelve years and every penny they could raise on a water-lubricated six-cylinder radial configuration that has never been able to survive for more than minutes? How many unsuccessful tweaks to the same engine can you do and still not investigate alternate configurations that are known to work?
No, creating a viable business and creating value for customers and shareholders was never a priority for Cyclone. Pumping up the image of Harry Schoell, genius, is all it has ever been about.
