No US-built Merlin: plausible developments?

[Glider]

Thanks

Some other questions: in case the RAF is really lacking the engines for their heavy bombers?

If the RAF ran out of Merlin engines for the Lancaster there was the Lancaster II with Hercules.

 

[Shortround6]

If you can stick R-2600s into a Short Stirling you can stick them in a Halifax or even a Lancaster, may not help performance but shouldn't hurt it too bad either.

probably wouldn't do much for the Mosquito though

 

[wuzak]

If you can stick R-2600s into a Short Stirling you can stick them in a Halifax or even a Lancaster, may not help performance but shouldn't hurt it too bad either.

probably wouldn't do much for the Mosquito though

No, it wouldn't.

But for each Lanc or Halifax with Merlins you get 2 Mossies and 4 Spitfires....

 

[tomo pauk]

2 Mossies or 4 Spitfires?
Seem like Packard building the R-2600s (so the British can use those in bombers), and no P-63 (P-51 gets 2 stage V-1710s instead) is 'our' best bet for non-US Merlin scenario

What time frame are you talking?

The Liberator had more range than the British heavies, especially when bomb bay fuel tanks could be used as large bomb loads were not required.

On the other hand it lacked the bomb bay flexibility that the Halifax and Lancaster offered, and could not carry the larger bombs (ie the 4000lb HC "cookie") that BC favoured from 1943.

When would the XB-28 have appeared?

Time frame from Spring of 1943 on.

Do we know what was a possible bomb 'layout' of the B-24s (bomb sizes x bomb count)?

The XB-28 first flew on 26th April 1942, so the B-28 in service maybe from Autumn 1943?

 

[gjs238]

So if Packard ended up building R-2600's, what would the US do with it's 1/3 of the engines?

 

[tomo pauk]

Okay, I'll bite
There would not be any surplus of the R-2600s for the US needs, but the R-3350 will gain more or/and earlier some extra resources, plus manpower to iron out the bugs?

 

[Shortround6]

Wright seemed to have problem sharing responsibility with licensee companies. P&W tended to get along much better with theirs but NONE of the P W licensee plants did ANY development work on the engines. They did come up with new ways of making the parts though. last Packard air cooled radial was the Diesel about 1930-31.
The R-3350 went through almost a total revamp between the early models of the late 30s and even the the ones used in the first B-29s (which still needed a lot of work). Wright also did major redesigns of the R-1820 and the R-2600.

 

[tomo pauk]

Thanks for the response.

In a time frame where the Packard builds R-2800s 'stead of V-1650s: how much of the influence upon the arrival of the C-series R-2800s did have the delivery of the six Sundstrand center-less grinders to the British (to aid on the Centaurus production, IIRC)? With R-2800 seen as the main production effort, maybe those are diverted later/never, so the C-series is built earlier; Hawker's fighters also getting those?

 

[Shortround6]

the time delay I have read about is 6 weeks (?). The Sundstrand center-less grinders were to bail Napiers out on the Sabre. Annoying to P&W and pointing out that machine tools were in limited supply but not so limited that entire programs had to be reshuffled or new versions of planes designed. Even if the Grinders had not been "borrowed" a new batch could have been delivered before an R-2800 powered Typhoon could have been designed, built, test flown, and the retooling done at the Typhoon factories.

The Centaurus was almost 17% bigger than the R-2800. Good as the R-2800 was it was going to be hard pressed to make up that displacement difference in the later Hawker aircraft.

 

[tomo pauk]

Thanks to point me towards the right delivery place.
As good the Centaurus was, it was not in service for the ww2. The 2-stage C-series R-2800 (like the one powering the F4U-4) was every bit as good as the Centaurus of 1945; displacement difference percentage is far lower than at DB-601/605 vs. Merlin, for example.
As for 'designing a Typhoon with R-2800', they already have had something very much like that (Tornado + early Centaurus):

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e68/GTwiner/ALT%20RAN%20FAA/CentTornado.jpg

 

[Shortround6]

True but if they decided to scrape the Sabre (and reassign the engineers and draftsmen) the Centaurus might be as good an alternative as trying to use the R-2800.
From Wiki, take as you will:

"The first Tempest Mk.II, LA602, flew on 28 June 1943 powered by a Centaurus IV (2,520 hp/1,879 kW) driving a four-blade propeller"

" This was followed by the second, LA607, which was completed with the enlarged dorsal fin and first flew on 18 September 1943"

"Orders had been placed as early as September 1942 for 500 Tempest Mk.IIs to be built by Gloster"

At some point it was decided that ALL Tempest IIs would be tropicalized.

"in 1943, because of priority being given to the Typhoon, a production contract of 330 Tempest Mk.IIs was allocated instead to Bristol, while Hawker were to build 1,800. This switch delayed production even more"

"The first Tempest II was rolled off the line on 4 October 1944"

Apparently it didn't enjoy the highest priority

 

[Jugman]

For the sake of discussion, I'd like to throw out the following. The US Congress contracted for the Allison V-1710 and development started in 1929. They anticipated a high-altitude requirement and developed a turbo-supercharger system for the Allison V-1710. It wasn't perfect but was exactly what was contracted for. After the prototype P-39 had some issue, they deleted the turbo-supercharger from the aircraft and all subsequent fighters except the P-38.

So you have a contract number for this very elusive contract. The first contract I know of is BuAer contract No. 17952 for one "GV-1710-2" (Allison model VG1710) dated June 28, 1930. All following contracts are either USN, USAAC/USAAF, or foreign in origin.

WRT turbos. There were two PRODUCTION fighters (P-43 and P-47) and virtually all of the fifty and sixty series fighter, as well as the P-71, did or were to have them. There were several USN fighters with them as well.

Unfortunately, the US Congress owned the design, lock, stock, and barrel. I submit that they should have taken the simple step of appointing an Allison manager for the government and delegating him the authority to oversee improvements to the engine.

Do you have any proof to backup this claim? If this were even remotely true there would be a huge paper trail. Yet all the authoritative sources I have ever seen make no mention of this highly peculiar and rather bizarre arrangement.

We still would have needed the time to sort out the issues we found in Europe with the early P-38 deployment. Those issues were the intake manifolds and running on European fuels, with had a much larger percentage of aromatics than did American fuel. Once these were sorted out, the engine problems "went away" and the P-38 had no more difficulties at high altitudes. Most were transferred to the Pacific where they gave yeoman service and were the mount of our two top-scoring Aces, Bong and McGuire.

Not according to the AAF "Pilot's Information file" or several NACA documents (NACA WR-E-164 for example). The assertion that the various fuel issues (fuel condensing in the intake manifold, poor TEL distribution between cylinders and spark plug fouling) were caused by Eurapean fuel or climate are smiply fales. These issues were noted months before any P-38s were operational in the UK. Furthermore corrective measures (the "Madame Queen" intake pipe being the major one) were introduced about the time the P-38J became operational. Before the P-38J these issues were considered relatively minor nuisances. Existing engine were to be retrofitted only at overhaul and not immediately. Obviously retrofitting aircraft in Europe first would have alleviated much of the in theater difficulties.