Hi Buddy,
What she said goes even further than that. Cyclone, according to their earlier press releases, was set to reinvent engines as we know them. Established companies have vastly greater R and D budget;s and yet, Cyclone figured they could get by on a much smaller amount. With this money then planned on doing something never before successfully achieved, lubricate with water....along with a bunch of other stuff. Now they realize they were drastically undercapitalized... and they expect kudos for this.
What this tells us is that:
1. They had no idea what it costs to do product development at this level.
2. They had no idea what challenges they faced when they set their goals.
3. They didn't undertake the kind of background research needed to determine 1 and 2.
4. They didn't consult with knowledgeable people in the field to learn what they were facing regarding points 1 and 2.
What we can take away is that Cyclone R and D is managed by the worst sort of amateurs who not only doesn't comprehend the difficulties of the task they face, but they are also arrogantly assume they don't need to educate themselves before committing other people's money to the task.
I'd bet dollars to donuts that not one of their advisory board would have approved of water lubricating an engine. A radial engine and vertical crankshaft would have prompted a bit less vigorous resistance, but certainly little or no enthusiasm. Someone would have done some mathematical analysis of the spider bearing and estimated the material fatigue produced by the constant slamming of the connecting rod; they would have also looked at the drastic discontinuity of the piston motion and calculated the primary, secondary and tertiary acceleration forces to see the effect on stress and smoothness … oh yeah, let's not forget engine balance.
And that's where things bog down entirely. There is no evidence that detailed calculations occurred at any point in the process. Cyclone "engineers" seem to work on the "it looks good to me" principle. When someone quotes a peak torque of 1600 ft-lbs and displays light weight connecting rods it is a sure sign that they never even compared their parts against those in a stock V-8 engine producing only 300 ft-lbs, let alone calculated the dimensions of the necessary part.
The condenser was another case in point. Even WITHOUT math you could tell it would never work. Taking their assumption that they could get somewhere between gasoline and Diesel engine efficiency, it automatically follows that the condenser has to get rid of about the same amount of heat as those engines. Since they dispel heat through the radiator, you merely need to look at the surface area of an engine having comparable horsepower.... you'll note there is no math in sight at this point. Anyone could simply see that the Cyclone condenser had only a small fraction of the area and, by calculation, could have determined how much less. The idea was never workable. And Frankie thinks they needed more money! Nonsense, they needed to do a lot of critical analysis rather than simply conclude that Harry was a genius and that his brilliant inventions could never fail.
And that's why her latest posting is so scary. THEY STILL DON'T GET IT!
