That was probably the Adrian Duncan review of the engine? That sounds like an answer that was just pulled out of thin air!! I've flown my share of models with no landing gear and when either landing on dirt ball fields or grass, there is as much stuff ends up on top of the airplane and there is on the bottom and you still probably have the fuselage bottom to keep it actually out of the dirt. With the exhaust pointing up, what gets in there, stays in there! With it pointing down, what goes up must come down!! A slightly better change of not getting anything in the engine. Either way, it's gonna happen. Now, with that having been said, if they would have mentioned that this position was used to keep fuel and oil in the cylinder to help with compression and cold starting, I would have found that to be more likely. That would be more practical for a diesel, but doesn't explain why the Green Heads and Torpedoes were like that. Like I mentioned before, there were a lot of sparkers that had left handed exhausts, or they were side ports or has slits around the cylinder. And most of those were aimed at free flight use. I looked a little bit but didn't find any other contemporary engines with left hand exhausts. Another old modeling mystery!
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee