Radial? Hell, Yes!
RADIAL? HELL, YES!
The sound of pistons in the round
JESSE JAMES
The question I get asked the most about Radial Hell? “What’s it sound like?” When people first see it, they just stand there knowing it’s a motorcycle but not really sure why. Or how. But they all have to hear the sound.
I’ve always thought the radial engine was a thing of beauty. It’s perfect...it has no beginning and no end, the visual definition of infinity in the form of an engine.
I did a little homework on radiais while building this bike and realized just how significant they are. Can you imagine in 1917 what spike-helmeted Germans and U.S. Doughboys thought when Fokker Triplanes were buzzing overhead with straight pipes rapping the air as their leather-clad pilots dropped bombs by hand! World War I was the real dawn of the mechanized era. Flying machines used for war! And with radial engines! Imagine the sounds!
But there were no hot-rodders back then, no guys like me fascinated by a piston going up-and-down and the great sound it makes when an exhaust valve opens. Those in the trenches were probably pretty freaked out just by the sight of these Maltese-cross-laden things, never mind the noise.
My grandpa Jesse James III fought in WWI, and I’ve read his diaries and he never makes any mention of the “totally bitchin’ loud planes that were flying around us every day.
Bummer! Maybe I’m projecting? Or maybe he kept his head down like he was trained to do.
World War II brought on a new era of high-performance Vshaped engines like the supercharged Rolls-Royce Merlin 12-cylinder. But quite literally it was the radial that did the heavy lifting. The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress ran four 1200-hp Wright Cyclone radiais (3000 of the Flying Forts were made in Long Beach, I might add). Can you imagine what it must have been like on the ground with 200 B-17s howling full throttle at nearly 300 mph on a bombing run over Germany? That’s 800 screaming radial engines! The sound!
Throw 200 or so Messerschmitts and P-51 Mustangs dog-fight ing into the mix. All with straight pipes! It must have been a thing of beauty to witness and hear. Too bad there were no camera phones or YouTube back then.
Anyway, back to this bike. I took a pic of it during the build and sent it to a friend of mine in Burbank who has a pretty big collection of oddball cars and motorcycles. He takes one look at the photo and immediately asks, “What’s it sound like?” Then
he tells me about a bike he has, a Megola, built in the 1920s with a small five-cylinder radial engine mounted inside the front wheel that spins with the wheel as it runs (same as the Fokker Dr.1). Crazy!
Of course, most V-Twin motorcycle engines at least look like they have connections to the radial engine. First and
foremost is everyone’s coveted Vincent Black Shadow. I mean, look at the engine! It’s so obvious; it looks like its twin cylinders were bandsawed right out of a radial and plunked into a motorcycle frame. Maybe that is what makes it so cool! Subliminal radial. And we all know Vincents sound bitchin’!
Is my bike the last gasp of the radial engine? Somehow I doubt it. Some geek somewhere will see this and figure out a fuel-cell radial or something like that. But it will probably sound like a Prius or Singer sewing machine. Kinda makes me sad.
Not sure if this will give any of you insight on why I built this bike, but it should let you know what’s been running around in my head while I built it. The simple fact that I took an engine that was pretty much ignored for a half-century and hooked it to a frame and two wheels and rode the sucker, that makes me happy! And I could hear what it sounded like!
