fastmongrel
1st Sergeant
They come out of the toolbox occasionally but they are mostly for sentimental purposes.
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(1) It is often said that this was because Packard Merlins were built to metric standards and required a completely different set of spares. However, those that restore and repair Merlins say that parts are interchangeable.
I would dispute this. It depends on which variation of each engine you talk about. No R-R Merlin placed in service in any mass produced aircraft made more than 2080 HP and that figure had to be backed down to 2030 HP for longevity reasons. The Packard V-1650-9 in the P-51H on the other hand made 2,218, or 2,220 HP, ( Depending on the info source!) with a TBO more than twice that demonstrated in the Hornet.in service RR ones were found to be more powerful yet packard were found to have slightly better fuel economy.........
Porsche claimed that >90% of all wear on the engine happened in the first 10 seconds after starting. At the Frankfurt Auto Show in 1972, they showed a car they claimed would last for 1,000,000 miles ( Km?) it had an electric oil pump that filled the galleries with oil before starting.That's interesting, in smaller recips, cars, bikes the key is to graduly vary thr rpms to avoid "setting" an engine in a particular rpm range. I had a guy bring me an old Honda bike for a tune-up, I found it would not rev beyond 4,500rpm because the owner never reved it beyond that, compression and tune were right on the numbers. The owner confirmed it was never reved higher and was very happy with the job said "It never ran better".
Break in time varies with the pistion ring type but I'll bow to your expertise - I'm ASE certified not A&P. Your much more familiar with aircraft.
wmaxt
I guess it's all a mater of scale and how you define reliability. Durability?So which are you claiming, that the Merlin wasn't reliable in 1941, or that is wasn't being mass produced?
The answer is that it was relaible and in mass production, so the argument that it was Packards input that made that possible falls down.
No, the simple statement above misses the point. During the entire war, R-R only built about 32,000 engines in their original plant. In about half that time, Packard built ~56,000. So no R-R did not learn how to build the Merlin at the same rate Packard did.
Then there is the quality argument. R-R Merlins were expected to last ~100-125 hours in a Spit, or Hurry and 2-300 hours in a bomber. Power ratings were 1350 in fighters, but the bombers only made 1280. The Packard was required to last 3-400 hours in fighters, but often went twice to three times that long in Lancs. later in the war when the Fw-190 was such a shock, they used 115/150 Octane gas and more boost to give the 66 Series Merlins 1,710-1,720 HP. Longevity went down to where some in "diver patrol squadrons did not last 25 hours! We flew some 1,595 HP Packard's for 800 hours in Mustangs and P-40s sent to Russia. No R-R Merlin, even those built post war went that long.
There's no doubt of that. But it's a huge stretch to go from that to claiming that Packard was required to productionise the Merlin, and to improve it's reliability, when both had been done long before Packard became involved. The myth of Rolls Royce craftsmen hand building, and hand fitting, Merlins until Packard came along is just that, a myth.
Well, no it is not. The post war Merlins used in civil transports still had "Hand file to fit." in their erection manual! That phrase never appears in the Packard manual.
It's also true that the British motor industry carried out the same functions. For example, it was largely the car inductry that mass produced the Bristol Hercules, turning out close to 60,000 of them before the end of the war. Morris cars created the Castle Bromwich Spitfire plant, that produced more than 15,000 Spitfires during the war.
Don't forget, Britain, with just over half the population of Germany, produced more aircraft, and far more in terms of weight, and far more aero engines, whilst employing less workers in the aircraft industry than Germany.
All true!
Of course not, America was a much larger country, with far more people, and far more cars. But it's a huge, and unwarranted, jump to go from saying America produced more cars than anyone else to saying only America could mass produce with quality. The historical record is that in the late 30s Rolls Royce developed the Merlin for mass production and sorted out the quality.
I would ask why if they were so good, did they have half the TBOs of Packard built engines?
If you want to claim Packard was responsible for this, you have to show that the Merlin was either unreliable before Packard became involved (ie in 1940 and 1941) or not being mass produced. Neither is true.
My Grandfather's next door neighbor was a Government QC Inspector for Piston engines. He would routinely pick one and run it flat out for the entire 150 hours it was supposed go at varied throttle openings. They hated him at the engine plants, but he did not care. he said our boys are going to fight in those planes and they better be the best we can make them.Twithch, do you have a source for where I can find more info on how the Packard engines were made and tested, etc.? I have books that mention the production figures and outputs and the normal statistics, but not anything about how the motors were assembled/tested. Actually, does anyone have information on other engines as well, i.e. Jumo, Allison, BMW, etc?
Not true. We introduced MW-50 ADI!This Twitch fellow is unfortunately a typical American, i.e. a brainwashed idiot. First, by comparing American war production to the pre-war production, it was no better than that of the UK or Germany. That is according to a recent study published by University Press of Kansas. Second, Packard intruduced NO improvements on the Merlin, not a single one. Third, Packard had to change the blueprints for their workforce was composed of typical Amis as described above whereas RR had SKILLED workforce who could think with their own brains.
Your edit seems to confuse planes in the fw190 "shock" era 1941 with diver (anti V1) patrols 1944.I guess it's all a mater of scale and how you define reliability. Durability?
Yep, the red color is near sure tell tale.Yay!
Shooter is back.
Yep, the red color is near sure tell tale.