Shortround6
Major General
Engines may have been a problem.
Work on the R-4360 started in Nov of 1940 but it took an awful long tome to sort out the engine, one source says the 5th engine was accepted in Nov of 1943 but other books claim P & W used 23 engines and over 15,000 hours of test time to get the engine reliable. The Original 1850hp R-2800 used 3500 hours to get to the type test. The R-4360 is supposed to have cost over 25 million dollars compared to the 8 million for the early R-2800.
Please note that the R-4360 used Cylinder parts from the R-2800 C series so there is no quick and dirty way to speed up development a whole lot.
Work on the R-4360 started in Nov of 1940 but it took an awful long tome to sort out the engine, one source says the 5th engine was accepted in Nov of 1943 but other books claim P & W used 23 engines and over 15,000 hours of test time to get the engine reliable. The Original 1850hp R-2800 used 3500 hours to get to the type test. The R-4360 is supposed to have cost over 25 million dollars compared to the 8 million for the early R-2800.
Please note that the R-4360 used Cylinder parts from the R-2800 C series so there is no quick and dirty way to speed up development a whole lot.