. My work over the last few days came to fruition as the ramp at Keesler emptied out today ahead of hurricane Marco... one last WC-130 remaining that will fly into the storm early tomorrow and recover in Charleston. .
If you have an empty seat sometime, let me know. I would really like to go on one of those missions. I had to think again that I was at Keesler 75 years ago. Are the B-24's still there? I wonder if gate 3 1/2 is still there. I'll always the wonderful sea food and boiled eggs and shrimp that you could get at the bars in Biloxi for 50 cents if you bought a pitcher of beer.
After seeing that C-130 backing in to a parking slot it reminded me of a B-29 that came into Langley in the summer and showed off the reverse thrust act to do the same thing. He burned out two of the four engines and the airplane sat there for three weeks until it got four new engines...and a new pilot.
On the older C-130s you had to watch oil temps while backing as you didn’t get good air flow through the little radiators under the engines. Newer models have “oil cooler augmentation” or something like that so it isn’t such a problem. Backing up is no problem in the J model.
Funny thing was I was just talking to my boss (Wing commander) yesterday about that.... we carry media on board semi regularly but apart from that we can’t take extra people on operational missions. Would love to meet you if you are ever down this way.
I would, too. My son, Kris, lives near PDX and my wife's family and grand kids live in Troutdale . It's tough for me to drive that far now so when we do go down there, we take the train. I'll try to work it out when all this virus stuff settles down.
It looks like Marco is becoming much of a bust (like that "other" Marco at Indianapolis yesterday!) at least windwise. Laura looks more dangerous at this point.
The B-29 had such a tight cowling and poor airflow even in flight , to try to back one up for ten minutes on the ground in a hot environment is fatal.
The B-32 (remember it?) and the early C-97s used the exact same "power eggs", including the same cowling, so they probably had the same problem. It's always amazing that a four-row engine like the R-4360 had fewer cooling problems than the twin-row R-3350.
I took a look at the total displacement of the R3350 and compared it to two R1820's and it was pretty close but Curtis-Wright changed the bore and broke slightly. If you look at the engine configuration, the R3350 is essentially two R1820's joined back to back with the exhaust collector of the front engine in front of the air-cooled cylinders that need cool air. They never figured out out how to keep the exhaust valves from overheating and disintegrating. The back side of rear cylinders split open sometimes from unequal expansion. The crank cases were built up of so many individual parts that they never figured out how to properly seal them and they leaked from differential expansion, 50 gallon oil tanks per engine were sometimes empty at the end of a mission. A crew chief told me that they were the only externally oiled engine in the air force. Many engines were junk after the ferry flight to the Pacific bases and there were fields of them that had been removed and junked after only 6 hours of time. The R4360 was an entirely different animal and separated the exhaust pipes from the cooling air of the cylinders. The four rows of cylinders had huge cooling ducts over them that directed air over the entire row. They were actually four 7 cylinder radial engines arranged in a staggered row of four. The cylinders weren't the main problem like the R3350, it was the complex machinery inside the cases that operated all the valving and stuff. P&W did a masterful fob of design but there were always many mechanical problems but nothing like the R3350. I flew in several B-29's ( FIFI the last) and the biggest pucker factor was always the engines.
I suppose the later R-3350 powered aircraft, like the Skyraider, didn't have quite so many problems. But I wonder about the Turbo-Compound versions with the power recovery turbines. Those must have been maintenance nightmares! I have a book of "air disasters" that briefly lists all airliner incidents and accidents. In the 1950s, an incredibly high percentage were due to either engine or propeller issues, many on aircraft with R-3350s or R-4360s. Once the jets came along, the percentage of engine-related incidents dropped almost to zero!
Propellors. In 1952 I saw a B-50 go down after taking off from Boeing Field. Thick exhaust smoke from all four but it was skidding to the right and obviously losing airspeed. It did a snap roll and crashed into parts of the Rainier Brewery and wiped out the Lester Apartments on the hill behind it. Lester Apts. was the biggest brothel in the state at the time. They determined that the Woodruff Keys were never installed in the prop shaft where they connected to the pitch motors on No.3 and No.4 and the props went into full feather. The later models of the R-3350 were very different from the originals after having a lot of mods accomplished. I can't remember dash numbers but the engines on FIFI and DOC are hybrids of sorts with good parts from newer engines and they have cured a lot of the cooling problems and exhaust issues.. The removal of the 8 turbo chargers and associated induction items and controls has not only eliminated a lot of problems but I guess something like a ton of weight. The R-3350 and R-4360 were the end of the line in radial engine development.
And some would say that they were stretching development further than it should have been. (I wonder if the Soviets had the same problems with the ASh-73 engine that powered the Tu-4? It was NOT a copy of the R-3350, though it was similarly developed from the Soviets' license-built copy of the R-1820.) To me, the best radial engine ever built was the R-2800, powerful yet decently reliable and used on a heck of a lot of good aircraft, sometimes with turbocharger.
Yup, my Dad used them in his P-47D and I used them in my not so glamorous T-29C/D. Got us both home every time, even if the oil supply was a bit lower when the mission was over.
R-3350 specific HP= .66hp/cu.in. R-2800= .75hp/cu in. The bigger R3350 never achieved better spec. hp than the R-2800 that eventually produced almost 3000 hp. So you are correct and I always felt the same that the R-2800 was the very best radial. Other good ones; Wright J-5, P&W R-985, R-1340, R-1830
Flying back from El Fuerte, Mexico over San Diego on the way to Sacramento in a 64 Bonanza V Tail. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I just remembered an incident where a P-47 pilot flew back to his base with a jug shot out on his R2800 and it kept running until he got home. Again, a crew chief mentioned that, " They are dumb engines 'cause they don't know when they have been hurt."
Bob- Affirmative, they worked pretty well with one cylinder missing. Likely a bit noisy and rough, but no water cooled V12 was going to get you home with a hole in a cylinder.
First time into St. Maarten last week and a sunset over Orlando from a few days ago. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
A couple from today. I'm getting type rated in the C510 so it was a training flight - I didn't know when I left home this morning in a short sleeve shirt that we would get lunch in a snowstorm a short while later.. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
