Many early aircraft engines ( and a few in other applications ) had the crankshaft fixed to the airframe and instead the cylinders rotated, known as a rotary engine design.

Rotary engines such as the Wankel engine are referred to as pistonless rotary engines.

First introduced at AirVenture 2008, the Switchblade is to utilize a single Wankel rotary engine and ducted fan to keep the propeller out of harm's way on the ground.

As a result of GM's toying with the Wankel rotary engine, as used by Mazda of Japan, an export agreement was initiated in 1975.

Mazda then fitted these cars with the 13B rotary engine and three-speed automatic transmission.

The term internal combustion engine usually refers to an engine in which combustion is intermittent, such as the more familiar four-stroke and two-stroke piston engines, along with variants, such as the six-stroke piston engine and the Wankel rotary engine.

The Wankel engine ( rotary engine ) does not have piston strokes.

However by 1783 the more economical Watt steam engine had been fully developed into a double-acting rotative type, which meant that it could be used to directly drive the rotary machinery of a factory or mill.

Eventually he adapted his engine to produce rotary motion, greatly broadening its use beyond pumping water.

Beginning in the 1960s, Mazda put a major engineering effort into development of the Wankel rotary engine as a way of differentiating itself from other Japanese auto companies.

Mazda refocused its efforts and made the rotary engine a choice for the sporting motorist rather than a mainstream powerplant.

* Wankel engine ( an internal combustion engine with a rotary ' piston ')

* For a contrasting approach using no pistons, see the pistonless rotary engine.

* Rotary engine ( disambiguation ), other engines called " rotary "

The rotary engine was an early type of internal-combustion engine, usually designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial configuration, in which the crankshaft remained stationary and the entire cylinder block rotated around it.

Another factor in the demise of the rotary was the fundamentally inefficient use of fuel and lubricating oil caused in part by the need for the fuel / air mixture to be aspirated through the hollow crankshaft and crankcase, as in a two-stroke engine.

A rotary engine is essentially a standard Otto cycle engine, but instead of having a fixed cylinder block with rotating crankshaft as with a conventional radial engine, the crankshaft remains stationary and the entire cylinder block rotates around it.

The rotary models quickly became popular for their combination of good power and light weight when compared to piston-engined competitors that required heavier V6 or V8 engines to produce the same power.

The most notable pistonless rotary engine, the Wankel rotary engine has also been used in cars ( notably by NSU in the Ro80 and by Mazda in a variety of cars such as the RX-series which includes the popular RX-7 and RX-8 ), as well as in some experimental aviation applications.

The Vasilantone patent was licensed by multiple manufacturers, the resulting production and boom in printed t-shirts made the rotary garment screen printing machine the most popular device for screen printing in the industry.

Picayune Municipal Airport ( KMJD ) has a runway and is a popular destination for private fixed wing and rotary aircraft visiting the New Orleans area.

The Rotolactor was the first rotary milking parlor and a popular tourist attraction.

More popular modern and contemporary methods include etching, pantograph engraving, and engraving using electric or air-powered rotary tools.

The automobile dashboard, the iconic Fender Stratocaster electrical guitar, and popular telephones from the Western Electric Model 302 rotary dial to the Apple iPhone multi-touch screen are examples of effective control panels.

Ikari Warriors was the first popular video game to use rotary joysticks: those which could be rotated in addition to being pushed in eight directions ( TNK III, released in 1985, also from SNK, was the first to use such joysticks ).

Of all the pre-RX-7 rotary vehicles Mazda built ( 930, 000 in total ), the RX-3 was by far the most popular.

Higher-end versions of rotary paper cutters are used for precision paper cutting and are popular for cutting down photographs.

By the end of the war the rotary engine had reached the limits of the design, particularly in regard to the amount of fuel and air that could be drawn into the cylinders during the intake stroke due to the rotary motion, while advances in both metallurgy and cylinder cooling finally allowed stationary radial engines to supersede rotary engines.

* Microdebrider: The microdebrider is a powered rotary shaving device with continuous suction often used during sinus surgery.

Sharp-Hughes Rock Bit found virtually all the oil discovered during the initial years of rotary drilling, and Hughes Jr. became the wealthiest person in the world.

The rotary dryers have a cylindrical reservoir that is rotated during drying to achieve a more uniform drying throughout the substance.

This practice became standard for the Southern Pacific Railroad on Donner Pass following the January 1952 stranding of the City of San Francisco ; during attempts to clear the avalanches that had trapped the train, two rotary plows were themselves trapped by further avalanches, and the crew of a third was killed when their plow was directly hit by an avalanche.

Kawasaki and others have also used rotary valves in two-stroke motorcycle engines, where the arrangement helps to prevent reverse flow back into the intake port during the compression stroke.

Leather quickly became the preferred material due to its durability and the protection it offered against flying debris such as insect strikes during climb-outs and landings, and oil thrown off by the simple rotary and inline motors of the time.

If there is no engine power available during a forced landing, a fixed-wing aircraft glides, while a rotary winged aircraft ( helicopter ) autorotates to the ground by trading altitude for airspeed to maintain control.

Cinematography uses a rotary disc shutter in movie cameras, a continuously spinning disc which conceals the image with a reflex mirror during the intermittent motion between frame exposure.

This award is given by the American Helicopter Society ( AHS ) International for the greatest achievement in practical application or operation of rotary wing aircraft, the value of which has been demonstrated by actual service during the preceding calendar year.

In World War I, many French and other Allied aircraft flew with Gnome, Le Rhône, Clerget and Bentley rotary engines, the ultimate examples of which reached.

By 1918, the potential advantages of air-cooled radials over the water-cooled inline engine and air-cooled rotary engine that had powered World War I aircraft were appreciated but remained unrealized.

The first known radial-configuration engine to ever use a twin-row design was the 160 hp Gnôme " Double Lambda " rotary engine of 1912, designed as a 14-cylinder twin-row version of the firm's 80 hp Lambda single-row seven-cylinder rotary, with only the German Oberursel U. III clone of the Double Lambda reproducing the Gnome Double Lambda's twin-row design before the end of World War I.

Powered by two M-2 powerplants, up-rated copies of the Gnome Monosoupape rotary radial engine of World War I, the TsAGI 1-EA made several successful low altitude flights.

The Hispano-Suiza 8 — a V8 engine, designed by Marc Birkigt in the Allied camp, and the series of Mercedes inline-six aviation engines, culminating in the Mercedes D. III for the German Empire, both used rotary shaft-driven single overhead camshaft valvetrain systems, and were among the most prominent aviation powerplants of the First World War era.

The livery would return again in 1995, when a rotary powered Kudzu, which was competing in IMSA ’ s WSC ( World Sport Car ), a category with different regulations than the FIA.

During World War I it supplied a major 100 hp-class rotary engine that was used in a number of early-war fighter aircraft designs.

When World War I started the following year the Oberursel U. I of 100 hp, a clone of the Gnome Monosoupape 100 hp rotary, had the best power-to-weight ratio of any German engine.

Clerget was the name given to a series of early rotary aircraft engine types of the World War I era that were designed by Pierre Clerget.

The company experimented with a range of novel engines such as variable stroke, sleeve valve, and " Avalve " rotary types and at the beginning of World War I, offered a wide range of cars.