Douglas Skyraider....

[Cromwell]

Crommwell, your rite about the SR-71. I've seen one in my lifetime at Langley Airforce Base and if had several 5 gallon buckets under it catching fuel.

Imagine climbing into one of those - half way up the steps - hang on - its leaking buckets of kerosene ! oh well lets just light em up, I am sure it will be OK - Ho hum another day at the office !

Wow - I have a diesel car, so, wait, if I worked in USAAF maintenance I could just tip the buckets into my car and never pay for fuel again !

BTW the SR71 engines I believe would gradually change from being 'classic' Turbojets to Ram-jets at higher speed ?

I mean there is no way an ordinary jet would chomp along at Mach 3.6 without stalling

Or am I talking rubbish again ? (NOBODY answer that one or even agree thank you - Joking of course, I am a big softy at heart)

 

[Cromwell]

Different animal Crom. The Blackbird had fuel cells that were specifically engineered to be under "sealing" tolerance at static operating (fueling) temperatures. When operating at Mach 3.4 to 3.6 (yes not 3.2 as common quoted, I meant to say that), areas of the fuselage would often encounter up to 900F temps and internally the fuel cells would expand and seal.

They also used a proprietary low flash point fuel.

But back to the Spad... I have read that they often went through 32gals of oil in a single mission. I suspect that was a tradeoff of huge horsepower vs minimizing maintenance. The tolerances necessary to prevent oil loss on such a powerful radial engine would likely result in VERY short MTBO figures.

When I read your posts, I think that the designers in both cases had to make a major Trade-Off !!

As in "Does it leak ? - Yep bucket-loads - does it work ? - Yep sure does - OK good enough, lets start production rolling"

32 Gallons - that is er, 32 Fricking GALLONS man !!!!

Lord save the planet

 

[Cromwell]

The one I seen had a glass nose and the cremember crawled into the area through a small hatch on the side of the fuselage. I would say chances of getting out are slim and none durng an emergency.



The Rolls Royce Viper is a lost oil engine. The L-29 I crewed at Reno with the Viper engine burned about a pint every flight, but that included being operated at 103% for 6 minutes.