MiTasol
1st Lieutenant
Kerosine burners? Don't you mean suck and blow tin cans?
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Well, you could put it that way, I suppose. These guys never made it to the BAC 1-11 with its "tin can" Speys. They were still on the "whistlepig" FH227s with their screaming RR Darts and pining for their beloved R2800s when the airline collapsed around them and "Agony Airways" took over. Allegheny tried to avoid a culture clash by offering ex Mohawk employees jobs, but dispersing them to the far reaches of their system and filling all the central NY jobs with their own transplants and new hires. Presented with far away jobs and no relocation allowance, many Utica - Syracuse Mohawk employees quit and left the industry, only to come back a decade later when Utica spawned yet another wildfire growth airline, Empire, which became part of Piedmont, then USAir, and finally, American. One of my former students started on Navajos with Valley Air Service, which became Empire, and retired last year from American, after being typed in every jet that series of airlines flew. His license had two pages to list all his ratings.Kerosine burners? Don't you mean suck and blow tin cans?
Some actually hung the tank engines on airplanes. A friend of mime found out that a outfit in Southeast Florida had an R-670 available at an attractive price. He drove down in his pickup and bought it. On the way at home, he started thinking and realized that the engine's crankshaft looked suspiciously short. He turned around, went back, and confirmed it was a tank engine, got his money back.We had one of those "resurrected" tank engines at mech school.
There was a guy in Amish PA who bought a wharehouse full of the tank version and put aircraft splined shafts and surplus aircraft cylinders on and advertised in Trade-a-Plane and Sport Aviation (EAA) "Every biplane deserves a radial!". An acquaintance of mine wanted to re-engine his PT23 and got all excited until he discovered those PA engines could only be used in Experimental Category aircraft.Some actually hung the tank engines on airplanes. A friend of mime found out that a outfit in Southeast Florida had an R-670 available at an attractive price.
The R-670 tank engines had two different type pistons, one of which could be used on aircraft. Stoltzfus would x-ray one cylinder on each engine to determine which piston was installed as he could sell an engine with aircraft pistons for more money. A Curtiss-Wright employee told me that they couldn't just scrap their sodium filled exhaust valves since the sodium would burn/explode when dumped in a smelter. They were mounting them on plaques noting that they were from the engines used on B-17 bombers and giving them away to customers. When they lost their last military customer for engine parts, they scrapped a warehouse full of engine parts as their wholesale value wasn't worth the liability exposure.Well, no, and in some cases parts have been getting scarce for some time.
I recall that around 1979 I read that a company was dealing with the shortage of replacement cylinders for R-1340 engines used in crop dusters and T-6's by taking the much more plentiful R-2800 cylinders and converting them for use in R-1340's. They shortened the cylinders and did what else was needed for the R-1340 use. Note that the R-2800 literally was based on a double stack of R-1340 cylinders, an engine that already had been in use in various applications for almost a decade. Aside from being able to use cylinders that had not been rebuilt over and over, the R-2800 cylinders were based on more advanced technology than the R-1340, giving a more robust engine.
The R-670 is one of the more popular radials still in use, in Stearman and Waco biplanes. Versions of that engine were also used in M3 Stuart tanks and various landing craft. A man I knew rebuilt R-670 engines by taking the cylinders from the non-aeronautical engines. He could not use the non-aeronautical pistons because they were not suitable; one type was forged and the other was cast. Too late, I realized that he had been hauling the pistons down to the scrapyard and selling them for the value of the aluminum. It suddenly struck me that I could have given him $1.00 each for them, far more than he actually received, mounted them on a suitable wood base, added a plaque describing them as a genuine Stuart tank engine part, and sold them to history buffs for, say, $19.95.
They could prioritize whatever they wanted.
Without the needed engines they were stuck.
The Ki-44 started with a 1260hp engine at 12,149ft with a single speed supercharger, repeat, single speed.
The two speed engine using the same cylinders didn't show up until the summer of 1942 in prototypes. In the fall of 1942 in pre production and in Nov 1942 in actual production.
The two speed engine 1440hp at 7,000ft and 1320hp at 17,220ft.
But until you have the improved engine with the 2 speed supercharger you are stuck.
Late to the party, but anyway
A 1260 HP engine at 12150 ft is perhaps not that big amount of power, but it still means a 30+% increase over the Ha-25 installed on the Ki-43. Single speed S/C on a fighter in 1941-42 is not a bugaboo.
And strangely enough the last two used the same engines.Three twin engined ground attack aircraft I'd put forward in need of improving….
Breda Ba.88 Lince
Bréguet 693
Henschel Hs 129
Three twin engined ground attack aircraft I'd put forward in need of improving….
It was improved - by making it a target decoy.Breda Ba.88 Lince
PotentialBréguet 693
Hard to improve an aircraft that was designed to be shot atHenschel Hs 129
And this:And strangely enough the last two used the same engines.
Better engines may have saved (or at least made it so it didn't suck as much) the Ba.88
Isn't that a claim all three could make?the Hs129 was one of the first, purpose-built ground attack aircraft made.
The Ba.88 started life as a "heavy fighter bomber".Isn't that a claim all three could make?