h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The article distorts in several ways the facts about "non-revolving" radials. The classics of this type were the Bristol Aeroplane Co's engines, designed originally by Sir Roy Fedden, & culminating in the 2-row Hercules (14 cylinder) & Centaurus (18 cylinder) sleeve-valve series.
The "slats" mentioned are the cooling fins, integral with the cylinders; air entered the engine cowling from the front, behind the propellor, & was guided past these by cunningly-shaped baffles.

The sleeve-valve required the cylinder to have a recessed head, or "junk-head", and the main cooling problem was to keep theis cool. The sleeve-valves provided superb swirl characteristics in a sym- metrical cylindrical combustion chamber (the upper part of the cylinder), and enormously simplified the problems of valve operation and timing.

The propeller was attached to the engine by an epicyclic reduction gear, designed by the great French engineer Henry (NOT Henri) Farman*,
giving a propeller speed of 0.400 or 0.444 times engine speed.

On all but the earliest marques of these series, carburation was by Hobson Injection Carburettors, which metered the fuel flow according to engine speed, induction manifold (boost) pressure, exhaust back pressure and power condition (cruise, climb, takeoff). Fuel was sprayed into the induction system at high pressure, giving fine dispersion and complete independence of the 'plane's orientation.
(The control mechanism for all this was,in fact, a mechanical realisation of a nomogram).

*Farman was the first person to cross the English Channel by air with a passenger (Bleriot did it alone). His god-daughter described to me how the passenger (Mme Farman) had told her of keeping the pilot awake by prodding him with her hat-pin. Quantum mutatis ab illo!