Is This a Thornson Drive or PIE? Yes, It’s Both.
Let’s address the differences, and the similarities.
I want to state for the record that the basis of this drive (or “engine”, as Roy Thornson called it) is the planetary gear design, including the planet weight, which was originated by Brandson “Roy” Thornson. I also want to state that I have carefully studied copies of original notes, some of which are signed by Roy Thornson. I originally studied these things to relate his discoveries to an earlier project of my own but decided I should put that design on hold to pursue this project.
The most significant difference between the PIE and Roy’s drive has to do with the handling of the weight, and what Roy called inner & outer “planet traps”. That was designed to hold the weight until a specific point in the planet gear’s rotation, then release the weight for propulsion effect. He also had the weight hitting the sun gear’s axle hard enough to be a significant addition to the propulsion effect. Neither of these are the case in the PIE.
The weight does contact the sun gear’s axle. As it was stated by Roy, the weight should never cross the centerline. In the PIE it does not hit it hard enough to be considered a portion of the propulsion, so the timing of this contact (inner stop) can be considered “less important” than other timing components of operation.
There is no “outer planet trap”, as was envisioned by Roy, being used. Instead, there is a stop fastened to the planet gear. A huge portion of the propulsion effect is created using this “outer stop”. When the weight forcefully contacts the stop, the forward pulse is propagated and then as the weight is held in position by the stop, the forward pulse is completed. Without the “outer stop”, this would not work as presented here!
The final difference is simply that Roy started building a business around his inertial drive engine.
He wanted to supply inertial drives to the world. That is an admirable goal, for sure. Part of that was to keep trade secrets, hold patents, and utilize a sales force. The result, he was turned down & then blackballed by businesses, and governments globally.
I am not doing this as a business venture. I am selling nothing. There are no secrets. I am making this an open source project to freely get this tech to the world. The result is…
A Grassroots Mechanic Movement is born.