Curtiss-Wright: Loss of Don Berlin and downfall

GregP · Sep 19, 2023

Stock, I don't know how they compare. In practice, NOBODY builds one to stock specs today. Almost everyone in the business uses late-parts for any Allison that will actually fly, and the early parts and possible serviceable-but-unairworthy parts for boat or tractor engines. So ANY allison flying will likely have 90 - 100 series parts in it and will run pretty well.

Most flying Allisons have 12-counterweight crankshafts, intakes with turbulators in them, late valve lifters, and late wrist pins. All that come from Joe Yancey are balanced much better than stock from the original factory. I'd bet Vintage V-12s also builds a good Allison and balances it better than stock, too. Not too sure about anyone else. There was good shop in Washington state, but he retired ... doesn't have the specialty tools anymore. Got have the knowledge AND the specialty tools to get it done.

The old carb-overhaul guys also mostly retired, and their children mostly don't know how to overhaul a WWII carb. So, we're looking at a time when flyable WWII airplanes may start to taper off some from current levels of participation, largely due to losing the expertise in continuing to maintain and overhaul the flyable aircraft.

Peter Gunn · Sep 21, 2023

GregP said:
When the Reno Air Race Association (RARA) took over the event, they had a chance to make a world-class event out of it.

Instead, they were almost 100% focused on profit from it. It went from a really fun thing to a major expense, particularly for the participants. You used to be able to back a camper up against the airport fence and watch the race. RARA started charging a lot of money per day just to park, never mind actually get in the gate. It went from a fun event to many hundreds if not thousands of dollars to attend / participate.

Many people, including Lefty Gardner, Mira Slovak, Steve Hinton, etc. told them not to push the crowd farther than the grandstands were out onto the airport ramp, for safety reasons. They didn't listen (there's a shocker!), and started adding more seats every year, pushing them farther and farther out onto the ramp. Around 2010 they had a warning when they had a very high wind day. The sport class was running and a Thunder Mustang had an engine failure. He was fast and he put the Thunder Mustang down into a berm, cartwheeling it, rather than hit the jets that had been pushed out near the runway by the extra seats. RARA STILL didn't heed any warnings and, when Jimmy Leeward crashed in 2011, people in the outermost seats were killed. The crash claimed Jimmy Leeward, 10 people on the ground, and a further 69 people injured. That sort of sealed it.

After that, the insurance pushed the costs up to the point that most people opted not to participate. Once the profits hit a plateau and race entrants started to drop off, RARA decided to fold house. it didn't help that people had started to move in around the outer edges of the race course, either.

Letting RARA get into power was the worst thing the organizers ever did. After that, it was only a matter of time. Now, their cash cow is gone for good.

The racing community awaits someone who owns enough land to organize an event. I'm thinking someone like Rod Lewis or Tom Freidkin, but it may simply never happen again. We can hope, can't we?

Thanks Greg, I appreciate the explanation. I always wanted to get to Reno but never fit it into my schedule, guess I never will now. Damn.

GregP · Sep 22, 2023

My second to the last time was 2011. I was in section 3 when Jimmy Leeward crashed. Parts were 100 feet in the air going over our heads. Thye year before that, they cancelled the last race due to high winds and an incident in the SportClass when a Thunder Mustang with an engine failure cartwheel in the high winds rather than hit the jets that were parked where they shouldn't have been parked because of extra seats sold on the ramp.

I wanted to go this year, but it wasn't in the cards. I am thankful because I would have felt rather cheated when they cancelled Silver and Gold for the Unlimited class. That class is what I went to the races to see in the first place. I would have hated to spend the money for airline tickets, rent-a-car, hotel, event tickets, parking, food and entertainment just have it cancelled.

There was no safety hazard and the two T-6s were not on the race course or interfering with it.

But, they cancelled anyway and likely had what they considered good reasons to do so. Out of respect, I agree it was warranted.

That doesn't mean I would have liked it, though.

MIflyer · Sep 24, 2023

Shortround6 said:
1. The plane went faster with the nose radiator.
2. It took Berlin almost 3 years to leave after the radiator change was made.

tomo pauk said:
Let's not engage in hear-say.

Book: "P-40 Hawks at War" by Joe Christy and Jeff Ethell

Page 12: "The production aircraft had the radiator mounted forward under the nose because, Don Berlin says, C-W management thought it looked better that way."

The hear-say was said by Don Berlin.

Snautzer01 · Sep 24, 2023

GregP said:
When the Reno Air Race Association (RARA) took over the event, they had a chance to make a world-class event out of it.

Instead, they were almost 100% focused on profit from it. It went from a really fun thing to a major expense, particularly for the participants. You used to be able to back a camper up against the airport fence and watch the race. RARA started charging a lot of money per day just to park, never mind actually get in the gate. It went from a fun event to many hundreds if not thousands of dollars to attend / participate.

Many people, including Lefty Gardner, Mira Slovak, Steve Hinton, etc. told them not to push the crowd farther than the grandstands were out onto the airport ramp, for safety reasons. They didn't listen (there's a shocker!), and started adding more seats every year, pushing them farther and farther out onto the ramp. Around 2010 they had a warning when they had a very high wind day. The sport class was running and a Thunder Mustang had an engine failure. He was fast and he put the Thunder Mustang down into a berm, cartwheeling it, rather than hit the jets that had been pushed out near the runway by the extra seats. RARA STILL didn't heed any warnings and, when Jimmy Leeward crashed in 2011, people in the outermost seats were killed. The crash claimed Jimmy Leeward, 10 people on the ground, and a further 69 people injured. That sort of sealed it.

After that, the insurance pushed the costs up to the point that most people opted not to participate. Once the profits hit a plateau and race entrants started to drop off, RARA decided to fold house. it didn't help that people had started to move in around the outer edges of the race course, either.

Letting RARA get into power was the worst thing the organizers ever did. After that, it was only a matter of time. Now, their cash cow is gone for good.

The racing community awaits someone who owns enough land to organize an event. I'm thinking someone like Rod Lewis or Tom Freidkin, but it may simply never happen again. We can hope, can't we?

How about over sea, or over a lake?

GregP · Sep 24, 2023

Snautzer01 said:
How about over sea, or over a lake?

I don't think you'd get many participants. The nature of air racing and, indeed, racing in general, means there WILL be engine failures since you're pushing them to the limits.

At Reno, almost all, but not quite all, of the engine failures traded speed for altitude and landed safely. If they were away from the airsptrip and over water, they'd essentially be gambling that they would not have an engine failure or else they'd lose the entire airplane and maybe die in the ditching.

Who'd sign up for that? I surely wouldn't. When I fly over water, I am usually at a height where, if something goes wrong, I can glide at least to the beach.

Shortround6 · Sep 24, 2023

MIflyer said:
Page 12: "The production aircraft had the radiator mounted forward under the nose because, Don Berlin says, C-W management thought it looked better that way."

Somehow this ignores the two months of testing of testing (or more) that was done from Oct 1938 through Dec 1938 before the 1939 fighter trials.
It ignores later testing and it ignores the time spent in the Langley wind tunnel.

Now there maybe a possible point of confusion because the production aircraft did not use the same under nose radiator as the modified prototype did.

From Langley Field | This Day in Aviation
In the early testing, the XP-40 was much slower than expected, reaching only 315 miles per hour (507 kilometers per hour). (The P-36A Hawk had a maximum speed of 313 miles per hour). Engineers experimented with different placement for the coolant radiator, oil coolers and the engine air intake. The Air Corps project officer, Lieutenant Benjamin Scovill Kelsey, had the prototype sent to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Research Center at Langley Field, Virginia, where the full-size airplane was placed inside a wind tunnel.

Over a two-month period, NACA engineers made a number of improvements. The radiator was moved forward under the engine and the oil coolers utilized the same air scoop. The exhaust manifolds were improved as were the landing gear doors.

When they had finished, Lieutenant Kelsey flew the modified XP-40 back to Curtiss. Its speed had been increased to 354 miles per hour (570 kilometers per hour), a 12% improvement.

By December 1939 the airplane had been further improved and was capable of 366 miles per hour (589 kilometers per hour).

At what point the XP-40 was modified from this

to this

I don't know.

We have 3 different radiator set ups.
3 different air intakes,
3 different oil cooler set ups.
3 different exhaust set ups.
2 different landing gear door set ups.

And we are to believe that C-W management ignored the report/s from Langley?
What did they know, they are the same guys that crippled the P-39

drgondog · Sep 24, 2023

GregP said:
I don't think you'd get many participants. The nature of air racing and, indeed, racing in general, means there WILL be engine failures since you're pushing them to the limits.

At Reno, almost all, but not quite all, of the engine failures traded speed for altitude and landed safely. If they were away from the airsptrip and over water, they'd essentially be gambling that they would not have an engine failure or else they'd lose the entire airplane and maybe die in the ditching.

Who'd sign up for that? I surely wouldn't. When I fly over water, I am usually at a height where, if something goes wrong, I can glide at least to the beach.

Not to mention deadly ditching issues with Mustang.

tomo pauk · Sep 24, 2023

MIflyer said:
Book: "P-40 Hawks at War" by Joe Christy and Jeff Ethell

Page 12: "The production aircraft had the radiator mounted forward under the nose because, Don Berlin says, C-W management thought it looked better that way."

The hear-say was said by Don Berlin.

Thank you for the quote.

GregP · Sep 24, 2023

drgondog said:
Not to mention deadly ditching issues with Mustang.

Yes.

The North American P-51 Mustang, while very good at being what it is, is much less than stellar as a boat or a raft.

I believe a Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire is similarly at a disadvantage as a boat or a raft.

There may be others ...

special ed · Sep 24, 2023

The only air race that comes to mind flown over water was the 1929 race over Lake Ponchartrain (New Orleans) to celebrate the opening of the Shushan airport, now Lakefront Airport. Without looking it up, I think it was not great. The 1957 movie with Rock Hudson was from the idea.

MIflyer · Sep 24, 2023

By the way, Don Berlin said that Curtiss screwed up with the long tail Warhawks. He said that the problem was not that the greater power produced a need for more rudder arm moment but that the cooling intake in the nose was too large and as a result hot air was spilling back out the front of the cowl and flowing down the fuselage, a problem they misinterpreted as needing more rudder.

Another quote from Don Berlin:
"By this time, near the end of 1941, it seemed to me that I had outlived my usefulness at C-W. I did not have the authority to match my responsibilities. I was frustrated with the engine situation with the P-40; the P-46 obviously wasn't going anywhere and I lacked confidence in the engineering staff that we possessed. Therefore I resigned and went with General Motors where I did some other interesting things for the remainder of the war; but that's another story."

So Don Berlin, Chief Designer, told them to put the radiator aft of the wing in the P-40 and they did not for cosmetics reasons. Then he told them the cowl was wrong for cooling flow on the P-40D and subsequent production and they ignored him there, too. Who would not leave under those circumstances?

Tale a look at the "new" P-46. The P-40 had the excuse that it was a modified radial-engined aircraft; that made it "fat." The P-46 had no such excuse but it was just as fat. Compare them to the new Mustang, which was in production when Berlin left C-W at the end of December 1941. The pilot is basically sitting atop the wing, his seat bolted right to it, with none of that extra stuff that is below the P-40 cockpit. Straight, sleek, clean, and gorgeous! Now THAT is how you build a fighter plane! Berlin was right; compared to NAA, the engineers at C-W did not have The Right Stuff.

Shortround6 · Sep 24, 2023

MIflyer said:
Tale a look at the "new" P-46. The P-40 had the excuse that it was a modified radial-engined aircraft; that made it "fat." The P-46 had no such excuse but it was just as fat. Compare them to the new Mustang, which was in production when Berlin left C-W at the end of December 1941. The pilot is basically sitting atop the wing, his seat bolted right to it, with none of that extra stuff that is below the P-40 cockpit. Straight, sleek, clean, and gorgeous! Now THAT is how you build a fighter plane! Berlin was right; compared to NAA, the engineers at C-W did not have The Right Stuff.

Trouble was that the P-46 was slower than the P-40D/E using the same engine.

And then we have the XP-60

First flown Sept 18th 1941. Photo is dated Nov 19, 1941.
Contract was from Oct 28th 1940 but that was with the Continental engine which had to be changed for flight.

Don Berlin also thought that the Front air scoop was too big on this one and was destabilizing requiring ever larger vertical fins in the back.
Berlin was long gone by the time Curtiss shoved a Packard Merlin V-1650-3 (same as a P-51B) into this thing in late 1942 and managed to get the plane up to 390mph.

edit;
Berlin was not gone when they canned (delayed) the Continental and stuck the Packard Merlin V-1650-1 (same as a P-40F) in the plane as in the photo.
I have no idea who was responsible for the XP-37

Maybe the guys in advertising thought the rear cockpit made it look faster? Who needs to see while taxiing?

tomo pauk · Sep 24, 2023

I am yet to read an autobiography where the author says: 'I've messed up this one'.
Didn't happened wrt. the Fw 167, didn't happened wrt. the Me 210 or 309, didn't happened wrt the Welkin, and certainly nobody bragged about the 20% thick wing on the Supermarine type 327.

MIflyer · Sep 25, 2023

Shortround6 said:
And then we have the XP-60

Well, it wasn't so bad when they turned it into a P-47. But we had P-47's, although Curtiss was doing a pretty piss-poor job of building them.

As for the P-40F and V-1650-1 , that came because they feared that there would not be enough V-1710's, what with the P-40, P-39, P-38, B-38.

drgondog · Sep 25, 2023

MIflyer said:
Well, it wasn't so bad when they turned it into a P-47. But we had P-47's, although Curtiss was doing a pretty piss-poor job of building them.

View attachment 738617
As for the P-40F and V-1650-1 , that came because they feared that there would not be enough V-1710's, what with the P-40, P-39, P-38, B-38.

I respect your stuff - do you have a source that pins it down, that 1650-1 was suggested to relieve Allison pressure, or was for better critical altitude performance?

IIRC Oliver Echols was AAF representative on the War Production Board - any link?

Bretoal2 · Sep 25, 2023

MIflyer said:
The production aircraft had the radiator mounted forward under the nose because, Don Berlin says, C-W management thought it looked better that way.

Yes, but don't forget that the Whitcomb area rule is also efficient in subsonic domain - less than transsonic or supersonic, but efficient by the way.

Shortround6 said:
Maybe the guys in advertising thought the rear cockpit made it look faster? Who needs to see while taxiing?

Idem !

So, no radiator or cockpit in the wingspan area....

pbehn · Sep 25, 2023

Bretoal2 said:
Yes, but don't forget that the Whitcomb area rule is also efficient in subsonic domain - less than transsonic or supersonic, but efficient by the way.

Did anyone know about the Whitcomb area rule in 1940? As I understand things, they were starting to run into problems in 1939-41 that were in part solved by such rules. Whitcomb didnt graduate until 1943.

special ed · Sep 25, 2023

Whitcomb's area rule formula became well known by 1958 when proposed for solution to F-102 & F11F (AKA F9F-9) problems.

drgondog · Sep 25, 2023

No whitcomb rule for 1940.

That said, Edgar Schmued philosophically embraced the science of projective geometry and appliied the second order conical sections with increasing area/no bumps or bulges. Before coming to NAA he already had a reputation for 'seeing' good fuselage design - without having the engineering background to quantify.

NAA developed a course taught by Weebe and co-developed with Roy Liming, head of Engineering and Loft Mathematics group at NAA. Weebe went to NAA Dallas and also taught Projective Geometry across the street from the Grand Prairie plant but also at Univ Texas.

Fundamentally, the salient point of the fuselage design was a steady, but slight, increase in area along the fusleage, minimizing the velocity gradient - with no disruptions.

The F-86 and F-100 (and B-45, etc) were also designed using same applied conics.

Curtiss-Wright: Loss of Don Berlin and downfall

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