Why so few single engine Hercules applications?

[glennasher]

MIflyer said "There was a TV commercial a while back featuring a man saying that when he went to his first job, in Scotland, he borrowed a car from his parents. During the trip there he refilled the gas tank once and the oil tank twice. "

When we were kids, my stepbrother had a '67 Chevy Nova that got 20 mpg, and 12 mpquart, it blew blue smoke everywhere it went, but it went everywhere. I can well remember passing by 4x4 trucks stuck in deep snow, where the lightweight Chevy puttered right around them and kept on chugging. When we DID get stuck, we just got out and pushed it back into the roadway. We had great fun in that heap of crap.........................................

 

[SaparotRob]

When the snows came and friends cars died, it was my '72 Dodge Dart that came to the rescue. I loved that slant six.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Dont underestimate personal hostility and petty bitterness. Just about the entire Air Ministry absolutely hated Fedden on a personal basis, he was very rude, stubborn and abrasive and loathed administrators. It wasnt enough that the firm sacked him, the Ministry then got him out the country by sending him off to America on the "Fedden Mission" to look at US industrial practises, which, whilst useful - is hardly a realistic use for one of Britains greatest aero engine designers. They wanted rid of him, and would do almost anything to ensure he was out of their hair.

They should have sent him to Malaya.

Was the Centaurus better?

 

[bdefen]

Where did Sir Frank Whittle go to live after the war? And von Ohain came to live about 20 miles from where I am now.

For that matter. Martin quit building airplanes because after the B-51 was rejected in favor of the Canberra he was told there was no way they would ever buy one of his designs.

I am told that Harley Davidson now builds reliable motorcycles. For years, Bike Week in Daytona Beach was known as "Trailer Week" because of the preponderance of Harlys and how they got there.

Google "Harley Davidson oil sumping issues" and "Harley Davidson Oil Transfer issues". Both in recent engine developments.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Well, let's face it, folks. When the first PBY purchased by the British arrived in the U.K. a reporter attending the event said that it could not have flown very far because the nacelles were not covered with oil.

It's noteworthy how today there are many P&W and Curtiss radial powered DC-3 and DC-4 still flying commercially, and still commercially maintained, and yet outside of some museums and Reno racers there are no Bristol-powered aircraft flying. It's no wonder the Australians opted to equip their licensed-built Bristol Beauforts with the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp.

 

[buffnut453]

It's noteworthy how today there are many P&W and Curtiss radial powered DC-3 and DC-4 still flying commercially, and still commercially maintained, and yet outside of some museums and Reno racers there are no Bristol-powered aircraft flying. It's no wonder the Australians opted to equip their licensed-built Bristol Beauforts with the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp.

Well, let's add a dose of context here, shall we? Exactly how many Bristol-engined, purpose-designed transport aircraft were ever flown? I can't think of a single Bristol-engined transport aircraft...and, let's face it, no US aircraft manufacturer or airline would use anything other than a US-produced engine during peacetime. Also, there was such a surfeit of DC-3s at the end of WW2 that no converted bomber type (like the Lancastrian or Halifax) would ever make a dent on the market.

 

[pbehn]

The Hawker Typhoon and Tornado were designed around 2000BHP engines with work starting in 1936/37. The Hercules offered nothing that a Merlin couldn't do as far as a S/E design goes.

 

[Koopernic]

It's noteworthy how today there are many P&W and Curtiss radial powered DC-3 and DC-4 still flying commercially, and still commercially maintained, and yet outside of some museums and Reno racers there are no Bristol-powered aircraft flying. It's no wonder the Australians opted to equip their licensed-built Bristol Beauforts with the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp.

The decision to use Twin Wasp's probably has more to do with the fact that CAC 'commonwealth aircraft corporation' was licence producing P+W Engines which began with the North American NA-16 with its R-1340 back to 1935. Going back to 1935 there was concern in Australia that Britain would not be able to supply in war time so manufacturing was set up using American sources in Australia. CAC turned out to be one of the few companies able to make a complete engine, including propeller, without outside help. The R-1830 twin wasp was one engine they produced. The R-1830 is the most produced aviation engine in history.

 

[MikeMeech]

Well, let's add a dose of context here, shall we? Exactly how many Bristol-engined, purpose-designed transport aircraft were ever flown? I can't think of a single Bristol-engined transport aircraft...and, let's face it, no US aircraft manufacturer or airline would use anything other than a US-produced engine during peacetime. Also, there was such a surfeit of DC-3s at the end of WW2 that no converted bomber type (like the Lancastrian or Halifax) would ever make a dent on the market.

Hi

I take it you have not heard of the civil aviation Bristol 170 Freighter, Vickers Viking, Handley Page Hermes, Avro Tudor, or military transports HP Hastings, Vickers Valetta (military version of Viking) and Varsity crew trainer version? Safe Air of New Zealand operated their Bristol 170s until 1986. Their time between overhauls on the Hercules engines had reached 3,000 hours in 1978 (reported at the time as the highest engine TBO in the world) and by March 1985 one of Safe Air's Hercules had achieved total running hours since new of 20,987 hours (reported at the time as the longest running piston engine in the world).

However, compared with the cheap war surplus C-47s and others they never sold in massive numbers, but Bristol engined transports certainly existed. I can still remember the smell of the Bristol 170's Hercules as they taxied past me when aeroplane spotting at Southampton (Eastleigh) Airport in the 1960s.

Mike

 

[Admiral Beez]

Well, let's add a dose of context here, shall we? Exactly how many Bristol-engined, purpose-designed transport aircraft were ever flown?

Exactly? Now you're going to make me work. If we can rely on Wikipedia and look exclusively at the sleeve valve engines, here are exactly the number of Bristol-engined, purpose-designed transport aircraft, excluding prototypes and short runs like the Bréguet 890, Brabazon and BZ.308:

Bristol Perseus (56 aircraft)
42 x Short Empire
14 x de Havilland Flamingo

Bristol Hercules (1,538 aircraft)
425 x Nord Noratlas (using French licensed Hercules, total approx. as some prototyping of other engines)
262 x Vickers Valetta
258 x Avro York
214 x Bristol Freighter (incl. Super Freighter)
163 x Vickers Viking (incl. the Vickers Varsity)
151 x Handley Page Hastings
29 x Handley Page Hermes
20 x CASA C-207 Azor
16 x Short Solent

Bristol Centaurus (72 aircraft)
49 x Blackburn Beverley
23 x Airspeed Ambassador

Total, exactly, or as close as we can get it.... 1,666 Bristol-engined, purpose-designed transport aircraft. Note that most of them were postwar, so presumably Bristol saw sufficient future or opportunity to amortize its tooling to keep producing the Hercules when into the 1950s. And yet, back to my original point, almost all of these aircraft were withdrawn well before P&W and Curtiss powered transports, many of which soldier on to today in commercial service. Here in Canada we had an entire TV series about them.

 

[MIflyer]

The Hawker Typhoon and Tornado were designed around 2000BHP engines with work starting in 1936/37. The Hercules offered nothing that a Merlin couldn't do as far as a S/E design goes.

Yes, the Hercules 1 was 1290 HP at 2364 cu in at 1680 lb. The early R-2600 was 1500 HP at 1850 lb. The Merlin I was 1030 HP, 1650 cu in at 1320 Lb

lb.

 

[buffnut453]

Total, exactly, or as close as we can get it.... 1,666 Bristol-engined, purpose-designed transport aircraft. Note that most of them were postwar, so presumably Bristol saw sufficient future or opportunity to amortize its tooling to keep producing the Hercules when into the 1950s. And yet, back to my original point, almost all of these aircraft were withdrawn well before P&W and Curtiss powered transports, many of which soldier on to today in commercial service. Here in Canada we had an entire TV series about them.

So 1.600 Bristol-powered types...compared to over 16,000 DC-3s. The DC-3 was, and remains, an all-time great aircraft and it was built in such huge quantities that there was always a plentiful spares supply. Economies of scale likely had a much greater impact on what so many DC-3s survived compared to other types, and hence why Curtiss and P&W engines were around a lot longer than Bristols. It's a lot easier to keep a type airborne if it's one of a production run of 16,000 compared to a production run of 425 for the most-produced of the types you listed. Again, you're not going to fit Bristols to a DC-3 if you have a plentiful supply of Curtiss or P&W alternatives...and there was that plentiful supply. Quantity has a quality all its own.

 

[buffnut453]

Hi

I take it you have not heard of the civil aviation Bristol 170 Freighter, Vickers Viking, Handley Page Hermes, Avro Tudor, or military transports HP Hastings, Vickers Valetta (military version of Viking) and Varsity crew trainer version? Safe Air of New Zealand operated their Bristol 170s until 1986. Their time between overhauls on the Hercules engines had reached 3,000 hours in 1978 (reported at the time as the highest engine TBO in the world) and by March 1985 one of Safe Air's Hercules had achieved total running hours since new of 20,987 hours (reported at the time as the longest running piston engine in the world).

However, compared with the cheap war surplus C-47s and others they never sold in massive numbers, but Bristol engined transports certainly existed. I can still remember the smell of the Bristol 170's Hercules as they taxied past me when aeroplane spotting at Southampton (Eastleigh) Airport in the 1960s.

Mike

Yeah, Mike, you're right. Mea culpa. I was overly-focused on WW2-built aircraft ('cos that's where the DC-3 got it's head start). However, there was no way Bristol would ever compete with the economies of scale that resulted from the massive WW2 orders for DC-3s and its engines. The plentiful availability of cheap spares alone would guarantee some use would be found for these old warbirds for decades to come.

 

[Shortround6]

258 x Avro York

Actually one Avro York, the rest had Melrins.

The Hercules was sketched on paper for a number of single engine aircraft in the late 30s. Manufacturers often offered several different engines (or the air ministry requested possible alternatives).
Unfortunately the Hercules suffered from sort of a triple whammy at a critical time. The difficulty in mass producing it has been mentioned many times and that got sorted out just in the nick of time. However power development seem to have stalled out about the same time. The Merlin was having no such difficulties and became the engine of choice in a big way. Yes 2000hp engines were planned but something was needed in the meantime, the 2000hp engines being several years away from production.
Cooling at higher powers became a problem with much research put into new heads with more fin area.
3rd hit. The rapidly improving fuels allowed much higher boost pressures to be used in some engines but the Hercules was not able to take advantage of the full potential, inpart due the already mentioned heat and in part because the sleeves would not withstand the increased cylinder pressure as the ports began to open on the exhaust stroke/cycle. The unsupported edges of the openings in the sleeves would crack or distort at high pressures. More work solved this problem (somewhat) but even the 100 series engines only ran around 8-9lbs max boost.

Post war use (or low use) of the Sleeve valve engines may not prove much. Britain and the British Commonwealth had a huge cash problem (they didn't have any) and imports of much of anything was severely restricted. Some of our British members may have stories of how long rationing of certain items lasted (into the 50s I believe???) in any case there was no money to pay for American engines in 1946-48 or later. It was British engines only (or commonwealth engines) to help with this balance of trade/cash problem.

As noted some of the last British sleeve valves could sometimes post tremendous times between overhauls but airline use is pretty hard nosed when it comes to cost.
American engines may have been cheaper for the rest of the world and parts easier to get. Commercial R-2800 engines had pretty good overhaul life. A plane sitting at an airport in Africa or asia waiting for engine parts wasn't making any money so replacement engines and parts were part of the overall calculation.
Unfortunately for the British their share of the market was too small to justify very many non British commonwealth airlines from signing up.
Cheap C-47s, C-46s and C-54s pretty much killed the airliner market for France and Italy except for a few prototypes or flag waving small production runs. Same of any French or Italian commercial piston engines. Immediately post war there was a flurry of activity that lend to not much, French were even trying to sell brand new Jumo 213s since the Germans had left behind a production line. It didn't go far. The French powered about 2 dozen twin engine flying boats with them. How much of this was to provide employment or try to use french resources while recovering from WW II I don't know.
It was a strange time economically and lots of decisions were based on these trade balance issues and not on which was the best engine or aircraft (unless something was a real turd).

P & W post war production of R-2800s helps explain the longevity/dominance of American engine engines in the commercial market.
1946-472
1947-1172
1948-956
1949-478
1950-546
1951-817
1952-1056
1953-2522
1954-2086
1955-764
1956-583
1957-691
1958-384
1959-3
1960-7

over 12,500 R-2800 engines.

Granted a lot of these are military engines but there was a very large market for engines, used engines, spare parts and overhaul services.
The sheer quantity ensured a longer working life than most other engines, regardless of individual merit.

 

[MIflyer]

The DC-3's first flight was on Dec 17 1935, so it had been around for a while by the time the war started. After the war began they did start a C-47 production line at the Midwest Air Depot, in the same building where I used to work in the 1970's.

Probably the war surplus C-54's had even a larger impact on the postwar market than than the C-47's. And of course given the huge number of B-24's built and their limited use after teh war, that was an enormous supply of surplus R-1830's.

And there are still a few DC-3's flying with R-1820's too.

 

[pbehn]

Actually one Avro York, the rest had Melrins.

The Hercules was sketched on paper for a number of single engine aircraft in the late 30s. Manufacturers often offered several different engines (or the air ministry requested possible alternatives).
Unfortunately the Hercules suffered from sort of a triple whammy at a critical time. The difficulty in mass producing it has been mentioned many times and that got sorted out just in the nick of time. However power development seem to have stalled out about the same time. The Merlin was having no such difficulties and became the engine of choice in a big way. Yes 2000hp engines were planned but something was needed in the meantime, the 2000hp engines being several years away from production.
.

There were two choices for designers, design around proven engine which has the risk of being rendered obsolete by new more powerful engines, or design around new engines on the drawing board which has the risk of them not working. The Hercules fell between the two for many designers, it didn't offer a big increase in power and wasn't actually sorted and reliable.

 

[Koopernic]

If you read up on the failures of the British automobile and motorcycle industries you'll see a repeated claim that there were too many MBAs (sorry there) and business school graduates in upper management and not enough engineers. The Germans had the inverse experience, with their industrial giants being run by engineers. Perhaps that's part of the difference. I wonder if Bristol's engineers were hobbled by management directives on cost, resources or company direction.

There's also the issue of The City, where much of British industry was run or beholden to financiers in London who didn't care about industry, just profits. At Honda, almost every dime of profit was reinvested into engineering, production, process and product improvements, while profits in Britain went almost entirely to divideds to the shareholders, resulting in WW2 equipment and methods languishing into the 1970s. Even today, the inverse to Britain in Italy can be seen in motorcycles. In Britain today Triumph motorcycles have moved all production to Thailand in order to chase profits for its City financeers, meanwhile in Italy, Moto Guzzi produces all its bikes domestically, because the company is owned by the very industrialists that supply the parts, rather than banks in Milan.

The origin of the MBA predates the British motor cycle industries woes with Japanese competition and the MBA wasn't really popular then. Initially MBA's were studied by experienced executive managers, often at board level or in senior management with years of experience if some were or engineers it was ones who had risen to senior level. I myself studied mine after 12 years of being in the workforce and it certainly helped me read a balance sheet and understand quality control. An Executive with $250,000 backing might do a compressed course at Harvard. Fellow students had real experience and an analytic nature and could share real problems. They gravitated down to students who often undertook them with little work experience, often recruits into consultancies. The lack of work experience can be a real problem once the student percentage exceeds 50%

Britains problems with stagflation was actually a global phenomeno.

A few more MBA's in Britain at the time in the British motorcycle industry would have ensured that they
1 Undertook proper quality control. I remember jaguar blamed Lucas electrics for their jag reliability issues but couldn't bring itself to write proper supplier agreements for Lucas to adhere to nor could they undertake to help Lucas improve its QC.
2 Surveyed the market to find out things like the fact that people wanted electric starters on their bikes and to understand the perception that people thought the bikes were unreliable.

 

[Koopernic]

I always associate the Fedden Mission as a investigation of aero engines in occupied Germany. Fedden wrote an article on Flight Global on these engines of enormous value to historians and non of his abrasiveness came through.

 

[Admiral Beez]

So 1.600 Bristol-powered types...compared to over 16,000 DC-3s.

You asked for the exact number, and I've done my best to provide it. The rest is up to you.

 

[pbehn]

If you read up on the failures of the British automobile and motorcycle industries you'll see a repeated claim that there were too many MBAs (sorry there) and business school graduates in upper management and not enough engineers. The Germans had the inverse experience, with their industrial giants being run by engineers. Perhaps that's part of the difference. I wonder if Bristol's engineers were hobbled by management directives on cost, resources or company direction.

There's also the issue of The City, where much of British industry was run or beholden to financiers in London who didn't care about industry, just profits. At Honda, almost every dime of profit was reinvested into engineering, production, process and product improvements, while profits in Britain went almost entirely to divideds to the shareholders, resulting in WW2 equipment and methods languishing into the 1970s. Even today, the inverse to Britain in Italy can be seen in motorcycles. In Britain today Triumph motorcycles have moved all production to Thailand in order to chase profits for its City financeers, meanwhile in Italy, Moto Guzzi produces all its bikes domestically, because the company is owned by the very industrialists that supply the parts, rather than banks in Milan.

The Japanese steel plant I worked at in 1986 and 1999 was started in 1955, though it is built on reclaimed land so work obviously started sooner. By 1986 it had an output almost equal the whole of Western Europe. The part of the plant I worked in made the same product as I was trained in making but produced between 6 and 8 times more per person (depending on how you measure) purely because of the investment in technology.