Editing Motorjet (section)

== Design ==

At the heart the motorjet is an ordinary piston engine (hence, the term ''motor''), but instead of (or sometimes, as well as) driving a [[propeller (aircraft)|propeller]], it drives a [[Gas compressor|compressor]]. The compressed air is channeled into a [[combustion chamber]], where [[fuel]] is injected and ignited. The high temperatures generated by the combustion cause the gases in the chamber to expand and escape at high velocity from the [[exhaust gas|exhaust]], creating a thermal reactive force that provides useful thrust.

Motorjet engines provide greater thrust than a propeller alone mounted on a piston engine; this has been successfully demonstrated in a number of different aircraft. A [[jet engine]] also can provide thrust at higher speeds where a propeller becomes less efficient or even ineffective; in fact, a jet engine gains efficiency as speed rises, while a propeller loses it (outside of a certain design range). This gives better efficiency in either operating range than an aircraft powered by just a propeller or a jet. The same is true of the dual-powerplant aircraft experimented with after the [[turbojet]] became practicable, which were equipped with both a piston-driven propeller and a turbojet engine.