Jay Leno's Garage - the Merlin engine

What an awesome video by Leno. I've often thought about how cool it would be to hang out with Leno for the day and see all of his stuff. Seeing this Merlin engine would be the icing on the cake!!!

How much of a petrol head do you have to be to have this working Merlin engine on a stand...amazing. I'd love to see a video of Jay giving the engine some more RPMs, although I doubt he could go much above idle speed even with the engine solidly tied down.

 

Fifth AF was screaming for more P-38s, which worked great in the Pacific Theater. They were on the bottom of the totem pole, though, and Kenney never got as many as he wanted. Most of the P-38 problems, except the really cold cockpit, had been fixed by the introduction of the late P-38Js and P-38Ls. With maneuvering flaps, the P-38 could out-turn just about anything and the P-38L could easily out-climb a P-51D. Biggest disadvantage was a very slow roll rate, especially initial roll rate. If a German fighter saw a P-38 behind it, a quick split-S could not be followed by the P-38.

 

Really interesting... never thought about the cold cockpit; no engine in front of you.

 

Yep they said the p38 problems were literaly solved 2 months after they were withdrwan from europe.

A Kelley Johnson classic, sequentialy followed by the p80 U2 and SR 71.

 

I think I read that the Constellation had the same wing as the Lightning...
Another gorgeous airplane from my yout...

 

Probably the most beautiful propliner if not airliner ever produced.
Fortunatly there are a few still flying.

 

Brietling has a fabulous 'Super G' flying... only one or two others airworthy.

Remember TWA flying their Super G's when I was a kid in Albuquerque. Got to fly in one from there to Chicago when I was a kid.

 

They were more expensive to build... almost every fuselage section is different on the Connie.

With the DC-7 the sections are all the same from the rear of the cockpit to almost back to the tail. Just an ugly tube by comparison.

 

There is an EC-121T in Helena, MT that is for the most part intact that was sold to Evergreen. The plan was to get it into flying condition to move it out of Montana. But now looks like they are going to disassemble her, then truck it over to Evergreen.

 

That's very true re the fuselage shape on the Connie was expensive to build and probably didn't improve drag enough to warrant it. I remember being told that the fuselage profile was that of an NACA 23012 section with circumferential frames put around it. All the skins were stretch formed, all the frames were different. Not a prudent or cost effective way to produce a fuselage but it was a beautiful airplane.

 

I remember when TWA took out a half page ad in the Albuquerque Journal announcing the start of their "Super G Constellation service".
Dad and I got in the car and drove out to see the plane. Good stuff.

 

I used to watch Lefty Gardner fly and race his P-38 White Lightning at Reno, he never finished high but respectful the straights he would lose time on the corners make up some time..White Lightning is now flying in Austria for Red Bull..always one of my favorite planes to watch and listen to, very unique sound...along with the other unlimited planes...

 

Arthur Herman's fantastic book 'Freedoms Forge,' which describes US industry's lightening fast pivot to wartime production, has a great anecdote describing Packard's involvement with the Merlin. Bill Knudson, the ex GE CEO, traveled to Detroit to ask Ford to mass produce Merlins just as Lend/Lease was ramping up. He met with Edsel, who shook hands on the deal, and got on the train back to DC. When he arrived, there was a cable waiting. Seems when Henry got back to the office and heard about the deal, he hit the roof and nixed it. Maybe he thought we shouldn't be going to war, or maybe he thought we were backing the wrong side...
Anyhow, Knudson got on the phone with Packard, and they took the deal. There is more about the sorry state of the blueprints smuggled out of England, which Packard basically had to re-draft to conform to US standards of mass-production.

 

Both... Henry was a fan of Hitler, met with him before the war. (Ditto Charles Lindbergh).

 

When I was a kid I could not understand Charles Lindberg and the republican senator , I'm sorry but I can't pull up his name. who supported Isolationism when Hitler was running rampant . I hate getting to the point where I can't remember names when I want them...WENDELL WILKE! It came up finally! Lindberg, who I saw at the old Washington Airport in 1933 was a huge disappointment to me. I guess that he woke up when he was an advisor in P-38s in the Pacific but it never fully shined up his tarnished his glow.

 

Nazi sympathy was everywhere. Kristina Urbach's great book 'go betweens for hitler' catalogs Edward VIII behavior; you have to conclude he was outright treasonous. One charitable hypothesis i've indulged: were American and European industrialists so rattled by the early success and sweeping threat of communism, that they saw in Hitler and Facism a strongman alternative that would stem the tide?

Back the thread themes: I spent a couple hours with Jay and toured his shop just before Leno's garage launched and can attest that yes a genuine car guy, with great antennae for fellow travellers!

 

I assumed long ago that it was no accident the Lindbergh was active in the Pacific Theater and not Europe during WW2...

 

You mentioned the poor intake manifold design of the Allison and that triggered a comment that I seem to have retained from some time ago. The Merlin didn't have a "bunch of sausage" type of manifold . It had a plenum the length of the engine that the supercharger fed. So, there was no duct loss.

 

The P-51D all had Merlins... the P-51A and B had the Allisons.
Read above; it was a supercharger issue mostly. Was not a range issue.

 

Only the Mustang I, P-51A, and A-36 had the Allison. The P-51B was the first production model with the Merlin.

 

The engine did more then power our war machines. The reason most farms that grow crops have wind mills. Its to prevent crop damage during frost season. Circulate the air over the crops. Less chance of frost damage. The surplus engines gave farmers a powerful engine to turn larger blades on their windmills. That gave more reliable frost protection...... I think remembering reading Bob Hoovers biography book in the 1980's. That tells a story he fixed his Air Show demo P-51 in the 1950's by "buying" parts from a farmer in the middle of nowhere. Too get going again. My grade seven teacher had a book supply. We picked a book we might like. We then had 10 minutes every morning too read it. When we finished the book and did a book report on the book. We got too keep the book. He knew my families hobby was general aviation. I went too the Reno Air Races most years as a kid. So he always had a book on aviation hero's for me. So that was 1984, when I read and got the book...... I also like unlimited hydro boat racing. They too used the surplus engines well into the 1990's and turbines became more available surplus.............. Its fine to admire "war" machines. But in civil use. Proved how awesome we built things back in the day.....