Shortround6
Major General
The coolant storage thing is vastly over rated.
The Liquid cooled (water) vs air cooled in the US Navy started with a few of the around world tours and the transatlantic fights.
1919
and the 1924 round the world flight.
In the 1920s the US used quite a few Liberty V-12 engines and the experiences were not happy ones.
It took a while for radiators and hoses/piping to become reliable for long over water flights. Many flights used the ability of the flying boats/float planes to land and for the crew to repair minor water leaks.
Things changed rather quickly in 1930s but most of the senior officers had come up through the ranks in WW I and the 1920s.
A young Major Henry Arnold with the first Liberty V-12 engine in 1917.
The 1930s had seen the change from water (leaked bad enough in the old engines/radiators) to pure Prestone, which leaked in systems that were 100% water tight and in 1939-40 the British and Americans were changing back to a 30/70 mixture which didn't leak any worse that plain water.
Radiators were better and the knowledge of how to fit the pipes (vibration loops) got better. But some air forces (navies) had already made decisions on which types of engines they wanted to deal with.
The over rated part is the the coolant was supposed to stay inside the cooling system. There shouldn't have been any bulk storage of prestone on an aircraft carrier.
Unlike oil which was a consumable (engine was going to use up a certain number of pints or quarts every hour in cruise) the engine should land with the same amount of coolant that it took off with. If coolant disappeared in flight from a sealed system then either the engine had been overheated and vented or there was a leak (or more than one).
A carrier needed a small store Prestone to top things off, to make up for leaks when taking thing apart for maintenance and similar occasions. You were not supposed to putting gallons of Prestone in every plane before every flight.
The amount of Prestone that needed to be stored was a fraction of the amount of engine oil that needed to stored and "might" have been less than stored paint, especially the ships paint.
If a liquid cooled aircraft had demonstrated good enough performance over the aircooled aircraft (and Performance includes take-off and landing) the US Navy would not have stuck with the aircooled engines as was seen by the XFL-1. By they time they modified it meet carrier take-off and landing requirements the XF4U was well in hand. Granted in took a bit longer to sort out
The Liquid cooled (water) vs air cooled in the US Navy started with a few of the around world tours and the transatlantic fights.
1919
and the 1924 round the world flight.
In the 1920s the US used quite a few Liberty V-12 engines and the experiences were not happy ones.
It took a while for radiators and hoses/piping to become reliable for long over water flights. Many flights used the ability of the flying boats/float planes to land and for the crew to repair minor water leaks.
Things changed rather quickly in 1930s but most of the senior officers had come up through the ranks in WW I and the 1920s.
A young Major Henry Arnold with the first Liberty V-12 engine in 1917.
The 1930s had seen the change from water (leaked bad enough in the old engines/radiators) to pure Prestone, which leaked in systems that were 100% water tight and in 1939-40 the British and Americans were changing back to a 30/70 mixture which didn't leak any worse that plain water.
Radiators were better and the knowledge of how to fit the pipes (vibration loops) got better. But some air forces (navies) had already made decisions on which types of engines they wanted to deal with.
The over rated part is the the coolant was supposed to stay inside the cooling system. There shouldn't have been any bulk storage of prestone on an aircraft carrier.
Unlike oil which was a consumable (engine was going to use up a certain number of pints or quarts every hour in cruise) the engine should land with the same amount of coolant that it took off with. If coolant disappeared in flight from a sealed system then either the engine had been overheated and vented or there was a leak (or more than one).
A carrier needed a small store Prestone to top things off, to make up for leaks when taking thing apart for maintenance and similar occasions. You were not supposed to putting gallons of Prestone in every plane before every flight.
The amount of Prestone that needed to be stored was a fraction of the amount of engine oil that needed to stored and "might" have been less than stored paint, especially the ships paint.
If a liquid cooled aircraft had demonstrated good enough performance over the aircooled aircraft (and Performance includes take-off and landing) the US Navy would not have stuck with the aircooled engines as was seen by the XFL-1. By they time they modified it meet carrier take-off and landing requirements the XF4U was well in hand. Granted in took a bit longer to sort out