Three Morton M1 engines, developed by Dennis Fadden and Bruce Satra, sit on a wooden display stand. Mr. Fadden, of Canada, designed several model engines that used Mr. Satra’s Morton castings. They worked together on many Morton variations including this single cylinder model. Dennis machined his first M1 from aluminum bar stock and later made castings of the crankcase. When finished, he sent the M1 (left) to Bruce for his consideration and testing. Bruce was impressed with the power output and began to develop his own version for production. He produced new castings and sent a set to Dennis to prove the design and build an engine for testing (center). It was easy to build and a good runner, so Bruce offered it to the model engine community in kit form.
Later, Bruce customized one of his M1 crankcases with a rear belt drive so he could experiment with a new rotary valve design (right). His business of selling castings for the Morton M5 and the Pratt Whitney R-985 and R-1340 didn’t allow much time to experiment with the rotary valve engine so he shelved the project; and he never got back to it. It is near completion needing only a carburetor and exhaust pipe and some time to get it running. Unlike his usual spark ignition engines this engine is designed to burn methanol on glow ignition.
