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I think the basic Vulture concept was sound, they just never had the time to work out the kinks and optimize the design. So yes, a X-24 with Merlin cylinders and blocks could have been viable.One does wonder what a 24 cylinder engine using Merlin cylinders would do though
Sometimes it feels people succumb to nostalgia wrt sleeve valves (not pointing fingers at you here, just as a general observation). Poppet valves are these boring clattering things even my lawn mower has, surely these exotic high end aero engines must use sleeves because they are inherently superior!
Please, do tell.
Thank you.
Agreed, no source is perfect and you and other members with your superior knowledge are more likely to spot errors.
Corsair does not need a 3500-4000 lb engine to make close to 470 mph - the -5 was supposed to do 469 mph (347 kt). Super Corsair was with 1-stage S/C, it will not be as good at high altitudes as the -4, let alone -5.
Check out the Hornet, very fast and nimble, with better power/weight ratio than it should've been possible with the Eagle. There is also a redundancy of having a second engine.
Agreed but they could haul more weight and airframe volume. This translating into more available load appropriate to whatever the assigned tasks. At this point it therefore increased their advantage against short ranged jets. Also they were in the early stages of further development and would likely have produced even more power in due course. In the case of passenger and transport aeroplanes the ICE was still the norm until the 1960s and big ICE engines still had a potential role. For the Mk1 Bristol Brabazon they went to the trouble of combining two Centaurus engines each driving one of the two contra rotating propellers at IIRC 3,500bhp the set. Yes they wanted to then go on to turboprops but the very big ICE engines in the 5,000bhp class would be a simpler alternative. Yes I know the Brabazon was not successful but it worked fine and it's fault was in marketing not engineering. On speed, with the right aerodynamics the Russians got over 900km/hr out of the propellor driven Tu95 so there is no reason not to expect it to be possible with the big ICEs.
What kind of load vs. combat-radius we're talking about?
Just use sixteen 3750hp engines
I don't want to divert the thread to a Brabazon one but it had the ability to change from the high price low number passenger marketing model to a large number low cost one for key long distance routes on the model of the transatlantic Icelandair CL44 service in the 1960s. As Freddy Laker put it, it is a greater achievement to fly people at half the price than in half the time. It was simply a market that was not considered. The airframe was up to the job, with a suitable interior and limited baggage. Pack in the peasants into cattle class. As an airframe it worked fine. The Mk2 would have been even better and there are simpler ways to provide 14,000bhp plus than 8 engines, 8 propellers, 4 gearboxes with with 144 cylinders and, IIRC, 288 spark plugs. However, a separate thread would be a more suitable one to discuss that matter. Working full time 24 hours the time to change all spark plugs will be 3 days with one man permanently on the job. One begins to see why the turbines seemed attractive solutions.
As long as you can produce engines in the same ballpark in terms of power/weight, the bigger engine should be able to result in a faster aircraft, as the frontal area grows slower than the size (=power) of the engine, and various equipment like cockpit and pilot, guns, etc. become a smaller portion of the whole weight. Though it's of course hard to compare, as many of these late prop planes were developed in an era where it was clear that jets were the future for pure fighters emphasizing speed, and thus they had to emphasize other attributes like being able to operate from carriers, or ground attack in general rather than a pure fighter role.
My money would be on liquid cooled radials. Take 9 banks of Griffon cylinders and connect them to a common crankshaft, and you have a 56 cylinder engine making around 9000 hp. Put two of these back-to-back driving contra-rotating props. Or cheat a bit, and have push-pull nacelles with one engine driving a tractor propeller ahead of the wing and the other engine driving a pushed prop behind the wing. But yes, maintenance guys are going to hate it. Or be extremely happy about the job security!
For some reasons all of the multi cylinder engines of over 24 cylinders seemed to run into difficulties. They sounded real good in the sales brochures but............
