US interest in the Napier Sabre

[wuzak]

Does anybody know if any of the US aircarft manufacturers showed any interest in the Napier Sabre engine?

I know that Mead of Pratt&Whitney was impressed, leading him to design the liquid cooled sleeve valve H-24 X-1800/XH-2600/XH-3130/XH-3730, versions of which were chosen as the preferred engines for development aircraft (eg XP-54 and XP-56)

But was any interest shown toward the Sabre?

 

[Shortround6]

I don't think there was ever an 'official' proposal to use the Sabre, that doesn't mean that one or more designers didn't do a quick sketch or doodle of an aircraft with the Sabre. Many companies had a number of designs that never went any further than preliminary sketches and estimates. The is a picture of a number of possible configurations of the P-38 including engines in the fuselage driving propellers out on the wings with extension shafts. In some cases it was just to explore alternatives to make sure they actual chosen configurations was the right one.
US aircraft makers might have had a mild interest but problems of supply (leaving out the problems of the Sabre itself) might have kept interest low.

 

[Trilisser]

US production of the Sabre might have benefitted the engine itself as it can be gathered that Napier had perhaps too few resources to fully develop it...

 

[Shortround6]

Neither Wright or P&W were interested in the Sabre. Wright was futzing about with the Tornado and P&W had their own designs for sleeve valve engines and a number of patents which means that licencing the Sabre was less attractive. Allison was overloaded with work as it was. Manufacturing an existing design and trouble shooting an engine in the middle of development are two different things. The US was running out of companies that could "develop" a troubled engine.

 

[wuzak]

P&W deliberately avoided solutions used in the Sabre for which they would need a licence to replicate. Outside of P&W I'm not sure that any US company had the ability and resources to "sort" the Sabre.

 

[wuzak]

I don't think there was ever an 'official' proposal to use the Sabre, that doesn't mean that one or more designers didn't do a quick sketch or doodle of an aircraft with the Sabre. Many companies had a number of designs that never went any further than preliminary sketches and estimates. The is a picture of a number of possible configurations of the P-38 including engines in the fuselage driving propellers out on the wings with extension shafts. In some cases it was just to explore alternatives to make sure they actual chosen configurations was the right one.
US aircraft makers might have had a mild interest but problems of supply (leaving out the problems of the Sabre itself) might have kept interest low.

I suppose before the war there was little interest in using foreign engines. Interest in using the Merlin only came about because of the requirement that 1/3 of Packard's production be reserved for US aircraft.

And when the US entered the war the Sabre was at its most difficult period with reliability and production problems. So that would kill off interest.

 

[wuzak]

I don't think there was ever an 'official' proposal to use the Sabre, that doesn't mean that one or more designers didn't do a quick sketch or doodle of an aircraft with the Sabre. Many companies had a number of designs that never went any further than preliminary sketches and estimates. The is a picture of a number of possible configurations of the P-38 including engines in the fuselage driving propellers out on the wings with extension shafts. In some cases it was just to explore alternatives to make sure they actual chosen configurations was the right one.
US aircraft makers might have had a mild interest but problems of supply (leaving out the problems of the Sabre itself) might have kept interest low.

I suppose before the war there was little interest in using foreign engines. Interest in using the Merlin only came about because of the requirement that 1/3 of Packard's production be reserved for US aircraft.

And when the US entered the war the Sabre was at its most difficult period with reliability and production problems. So that would kill off interest.

 

[johnbr]

I have always thought the Saber with a 2 stage would have been great on the P.75a and the B-32.