the World War I years, when such engines as the Hispano-Suiza 8 and Mercedes D.III, and even rotary engines as the later Gnome Monosoupape model 9N versions featured twin spark plugs per cylinder. The Hewland AE75, an inline three cylinder aero-engine created for the ARV Super2, had three ignition circuits, each circuit serving a plug in two different cylinders. If just one of the three circuits failed, all three cylinders still received sparks, and even if two circuits were to fail, the remaining circuit would keep the engine running on two cylinders. Partial dual ignition While true dual ignition uses completely separate and redundant systems, some certified engines, such as the Lycoming O-320-H2AD use a single engine magneto drive-shaft turning two separate magnetos. Whilst saving weight, this creates a single point of failure in mechanical terms, that could cause both ignition systems to cease working. A simple form of partial dual ignition on some amateur-built aircraft uses a single spark plug, but duplicates the coil and pick-up for better redundancy than traditional single ignition. A further form of partial dual ignition (such as on the Honda VT500) is for each cylinder to have a single HT coil which sends the current to one plug and completes the circuit via the second plug, rather than via the earth. This system requires a voltage sufficient to jump both plug gaps, but an advantage is that if one plug fouls, the fouled plug may burn itself clean while the engine continues running. Wankel engines Wankel engines have such an elongated combustion chamber that even non-aero wankel engines may adopt dual ignition to promote better combustion. The MidWest AE series Wankel aero-engine has twin plugs per chamber, but these are placed side-by-side, not sequentially, so their main purpose is to give redundancy rather than improved combustion. Distillate fuel Richard W. Dilworth of the Electo-Motive Corporation devised a system, using four spark plugs and one carburettor per cylinder, in order to burn "distillate" fuel in train car engines. Because such heavy, but cheap, fuel was hard to ignite, a quadruple system of ignition was used in order to burn fuel roughly equivalent to kerosene or home heating fuel. By using this distillate fuel, that cost as little as one-fifth the price of gasoline before the Great Depression, a railroad could save substantially on fuel costs. However, this patented ignition system saw little commercial use. References