Also, it’s worth noting that the debate in all honesty only has merit in the context of horsepower per weight, or horsepower per displacement unit. If neither weight nor displacement are a critical issue, then a large capacity air cooled engine is infinitely more reliable and more bulletproof - which, when you’re driving a bloody B-26, then these things are very, VERY important.
It’s worth noting too that the P-47 apparently had a fueslage mounted turbo-supercharger fitted into the inlet air process. I’m very sure that the exhaust piping ran under the cockpit to the rear of the fuselage which is where the turbocharger was and then the boosted air ran back through an intercooler forwards into the inlet manifold. Obviously, RPM was pretty constant so it was a pretty easy thing to tune I’m guessing. Also, I understand that the turbocharge on a P-47 was suprisingly bulletproof - literally!
By the way David? I’ve seen footage of those incredible 30mm cannon on the ME262 just blowing the living bejesus out of B26 engines. The pilots would simply line up from behind and fire a few bursts and kaboom - the entire engine would just explode from just one or two bullets. Then the pilot would move onto the next engine. Amazing footage.
No. Our group was attacked once by two Me-262’s but I was in the squadron lounge, probably playing checkers, at the time. A 30 mm. shell is pretty good sized and if it blows up in something that is rotating at 2200 rpm the effect could well be spectacular.
By the time I arrived in the ETO a 262 wouldn’t have had much leisure time in making an attack. If the groups were unescorted there was a little feature called area fighter cover. You just called on a certain frequency and requested help, which was what was done in the case of our group, and the sky was suddenly full of airplanes. A friend of mine who was on the mission said that the 262’s made one pass from ahead, shot at the window flight, passed over the group and were not seen by our people again. By that time help had arrived.
I checked on power/displacement. For the R-2800 it is 2000/2800 = 0.71 hp/in[sup]3[/sup]. For the Merlin V-1650 (Packard) it is 1695/1650 = 1.03 hp/in[sup]3[/sup]
Sometime in the very near future, I intend to take the Mustang Car up to the local Warbird Museum and take a 30 minute flight in their 1945 Mustang. I hope to get some really cool photos of the car and the plane posing together. I’ve already contacted the proprietors and they’ve told me they think it’s a way cool idea.
Not cheap though - $1650 AUS for a 30 minute flight. I guess the maintenance and all that bloody avgas that a Merlin chews up costs a pretty penny.
South of me by about 25 miles is another airport which offers joyflights in an Avril Lancaster believe it or not! But not very often I’m told. It’s way expensive. I saw that Lancaster and a whole bunch of other warbirds do a flyby my home about a year ago - geez they were loud. But yummy sounding too.
It’s to allow even firing of the cylinders. Remember that each cylinder fires every other stroke. With a 9 cylinder bank they might fire 1-3-5-7-9-2-4-6-8 with 80º between each firing cylinder. Nice and smooth.
An even number of cylinders could not be made to fire evenly. If you had an eight cylinder bank and you’d have uneven intervals as you jumped from odd ot even. 1 - 90º - 3 - 90º - 5 - 90º - 7 - 135º - 2 - 90º - 4 - 90º - 6 - 90º - 8 - 45º - 1.
If you made the cylinders fire completlely sequentially you’d have 45º intervals until you got to eight then there would be a 405° dead interval while all the cylinders went through and exhaust/intake stroke before 1 fires again.
I think that the timing of firing in a radial engine is uniform at regular intervals.
I’ve read that some automobile engines are intentionally made to fire slightly unevenly in order to avoid exciting possible mechanical resonances with a uniform, cyclic input.
There are only two flyable Lancasters left in the world, which would explain the cost and infrequency of the flights. Also, rebuilds on Merlins (and other WWII aircraft engines) are not cheap. :eek:
Note that Rare Bear has the same Wright R-3350 as the B-29, and lists oil consumption as “high”. The R-3350 was notorious for its horrendous oil leakage; the sortie length of A-1 Skyraiders in Vietnam was limited by the size of the oil tank, rather than fuel capacity.
[sub]Hee. “Small Thermonuclear Device”.[/sub]
Gunslinger? Forgive my mistake please. I did some websurfing this morning and the bomber at the airport south of me is NOT a Lancaster, but rather a 4 Merlin Baufort Bomber. Rather similiar in appearance to a Lancaster, but definitely not the same beast. Impressive aricraft though nonetheless.
Heh. You confused me a bit, since the only two Lancs are in Canada and the UK, and you quoted the price in AUS$ (didn’t notice your location before, and it’s not shown on the reply screen), but I didn’t think too much about it.
Pratt & Whitney notes that the R-4360 was used by 25 different aircraft. Although some were only prototypes that never made it into production, many were in fairly long and widespread service. The early versions used in the B-29 during the war were very prone to overheating, but this was eventually dealt with.
Well, I suppose that there is just the barest possibility that I was too hard on the R-4360. Use on the Stratocruiser and B-36 is impressive and indicates that the engine was probably useable without excessive special handling.
couldnt let this one slide. The main reasons that motorcycles went waterpumper is that air cooled tend to overheat at stop lights, and they are noisey as hell. There are plenty of air cooled motorcycles still made. (and no, not just harley)
Someone commented on the P-51’s “draggy belly scoop.” I remember reading that clever design of that scoop, and the radiator behind it, actually accounted for some 30% of the airplane’s thrust(yeah, I was astonished at the number, too). The radiator heated air passing through it and it became a sort of proto-jet-engine.
I beg to differ kind sir. In 1973, the legendary Kawasaki 900Z (which was air cooled) produced 72 horsepower. By 1985, Suzuki introduced the oil-cooled GSXR-750 - and it produced 115 hp. In 1988, Honda introduced the water-cooled V4 750cc R30 which produced 135 hp. In 2003, the water-cooled GSXR-1100 produces some 160hp. THAT is the reason they went water-cooled. None other.
