The Legendary 'Double Wasp' Engine
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- Опубликовано: 24 авг 2024
- 🌟 Celebrating aviation history with the legendary Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine! 🌟
Known as the "Double Wasp," this engine changed the landscape of engineering in the 1940s, powering iconic aircraft like the F4U Corsair and P-47 Thunderbolt. With its 18-cylinder, air-cooled radial design, the R-2800 delivered unmatched performance and reliability.
We explored the history of this engine type and how this engineering marvel helped shape the skies!
We had a cut away of that engine at the A&P school I taught at. It was remarkable that it’s horsepower and torque was designed using slide rulers and drafted on pencil and paper.
Actually it’s sad that Engineerng and Design students lost that craft. It gave students the ability to fully grasp the engine.
Why?
In those days engineers used their BRAINS!
Not BUTTONS!
That, could cost us latter down the road loosing that way.
Those planes used a similiar engine several types use different supercharger systems, and the AT6 Texan/SNJ.Harvard did NOT use the R2800, it used the R 875 !!!!
Many years ago a lifeguard at Bellows Air Force Station, in Hawaii , told me about a wrecked WW2 plane out on the reef about a half mile from the beach. The next morning with my sons in rented kayaks and snorkel gear , we paddled out. It took a while to find but there it was. The unmistakable 4 blade prop and R2800 of a P47. About 50 ft away was fuselage and wings, still with the guns and ammo in a solid block of corrosion. After doing some research, I discovered it had crashed in 1944 after losing power on takeoff. The pilot survived.
I would love to have explored that, im jealous.
Load up boys, we're off to Hawaii to pick up a new resto project!
Did you dig it up and drag it home?
@@MrJohnnyDistortion
Lol! No I didn’t. Since the only access is through a military base where the Marines actively practice amphibious assault, even the aviation museum at Pearl Harbor can’t get to it. I gave the museum the gps data.
All of those planes had something else in common. They could take a pounding and still get their pilots home. As the war ground on, the skill differential favored the Americans as the enemy frittered away their most experienced pilots. So the durability of these aircraft definitely made a huge contribution to the war effort.
And an important reason for that is this particular engine being a radial one. It could keep going even one a few pistons get battle damage
YUP ! The reason they named the A-10s after them....
Connies started with and kept the Wright R-3350, although it looks like the R-2800 would have been a good fit. The North American T-6 Texan/Harvard (the single engine yellow airplane) has a smaller R-1340-AN1 engine, but if you look closely, the R-2800 is basically two R-1340 s sandwiched together. The names are even similar: Wasp and Double Wasp. Both great engines.
Beat me to it. A T-6 with an R-2800(if you managed to get it to fit and fly), would have been a battle all by itself to handle
The P 47, the Jug, was the most survivable single engined fighter of WW II.
It had a heavily armored pilots seat.
IL-2?
@@panzerofthelake506
No.
It's about time that someone posted this fact. Different airframes required different variants of this monster, with varying horsepower output ratings.
A few of my cousins flew Hellcats in WWII. By far the best Allied naval aircraft. Those birds were goddamn deadly
They were so wildly underestimated in the pacific theater since the Japanese were used to the Wildcats and one thing the wildcats and hellcats shared, despite the power differences were definitely the survivability
The aircraft didn’t use the exact engine. What you didn’t mention was that the R-2800 had engine variants, such as the R-2800 was developed and modified into a basic sequence of subtypes, "A" through "E" series, each of which indicated major internal and external modifications and improvements, such that the "E" series engines had very few parts in common with the "A". Each series and subtype had increasingly more horsepower, from 1500hp to 2800hp.
Alright, calm down nerd.
@@hangarrat This is the venue for those who want to know the facts. Idiots like you know nothing about aircraft anyway.
Every aviation engine went through constant changes and improvements.
@@hangarratthe only retard is you because you’re mad about him pointing out a basic fact the video overlooked. He also overlooked that the numbers A and B are series, and sub-variants exist within each series. So -5, -10, and so-forth.
That's awesome how it can handle any prop size from small single engine planes to the 4 engine 8 foot blades of the big boys.... Very cool, I'd like to know what was different about each engine now. 😁👍
Interesting, one powerplant, several airframes. Hellcat, thunderbolt, Corsair, 3 different ideas of how to do it and all good at what they did.
The Army's CH-37 Mojave helicopter was powered by 2 Pratt and Whitney R-2800-54 Double Wasp engines.
Can't say for sure, but I think the engine shown mid-video with the "banana peel" cowling open is installed in a Fairchild C-123 Packet aircraft. The cowling is similar to the cowling on the Convair 240's that I maintained after graduating Spartan in 1965. There was always a lot of work to do on the hardworking R-2800s in airline service. Most of it involved fixing broken exhaust pipe brackets and replacing loose exhaust studs in the cylinder heads. Hard work, but a great experience.
Probably, the wing over the fuselage plus the way it narrows up at the end for a ramp.
The P&W R2800 was the first internal combustion engine to produce 1 horse power per pound of weight. The engine weighs 2000 pounds and produces 2000 horse power.
They were like enormous Swiss watches but massively more complex. Engineered with slide rules. Analog milling equipment. Human ingenuity.
The BEAST!
I think the neatest ride with R2800s is the F7F tiger cat! Got a piston and bent master rod from an F4U hanging on my wall. (wife demanded I buy it and that it go up in the dining room, gotta love her! 😂)
That p47 is at my museum!!!
The P47 at the Pete field museum in Colorado Springs has bow ties stamped on the engine. Evidently Chevrolet was one of the producers of the engine!
My aircraft mechanic school had us tinkering on the corncob R-2800. Smooth running machine!
You left off the F8F Bearcat, which used an P&W R2800-30W in the F8F-2 . Also, the B-26 light Bomber used this same engine type. Some differed in the models of that engine used, but they are of the R-2800 family, early or late with improvements. The Bearcat was the fastest piston single engined aircraft made. It was the first aircraft to require the pilot to wear a G-suite.
P-61,TBM ,A-26 ,F7F(tiger cat) C-46 and one more???
My Dad tooled parts for this engine as well as other important aviation components all throughout the year years.
He often told me that they worked ten to twelve hours days early in the war and that their jobs as machinists were FROZEN - meaning that they couldn't leave to work for another company, or employer.
And their rate of pay was ALSO "frozen"...
Yep, several men in my family were “black listed” by the government because they were toolmakers. They were told anyone can shoot a rifle, but not everyone can build the tooling for war materiel.
So show us an AT-6 Texan that does NOT use this engine.
There’s no replacement for displacement!! Those Wasp and the Wasp jr engines were bullet proof.
If they’d up-engined the B-17 with it, and dumped all but the top, ball, and tail guns, they’d probably have saved 20,000 lives.
The “Pratt and Winnie” are a wonderful pair! 😂
Its Pratt and Whitney not winnie 😭
@@eliork16Yes tell that to the autor. Or perhaps it’s the accent 😂 either way.
THEY WERE A BAD ASS ENGINE & RELIABLE KICK ASS COME HOME PLANE !!! YA !!! GATA LOVE 💘 EM ! THANKS &AMEN 🙏!!! 🙏 🙌☺ 😊❤ 🙌 ☺ 🙏!!! 🙏 🙌☺
I’d love to know an approximation of how many R-2800’s survive today.
The yellow North American T-6 Texan shown was not powered the R2800. It was powered by the P&W R1340. Juz say'n;)
Ak-choo-ah-ee, the Connie was powered by Wright Duplex Cyclones, same as the B-29. 🤓🤓
It should be noted that Allied aircraft (and some PT boats) had access to fuel that ran up to 140 octane.
I would have preferred if you had talked more about the engine itself rather than just the planes that it was used in.
The engine was air cooled instead of water cooled, meaning it could take more abuse and keep flying instead of overheating thanks to a cut water line.
When did Connie the airliner have 2800s?
It wasn’t the most powerful radial engine. But it was the most reliable.
Northern air cargo still Flys a 4 engine cargo plant that runs these engines.
Connie had Curtis Wright R-3350s
👌😎👍!.
So why pick a thumbnail of a T-6 Texan with the 9-cylinder, single-row Wasp 1340?
F8F 2 as well.
I hear them every day flying over in DC-6s. Wonderful stuff.
With higher octane fuel-130, and later 150- the blowers could run in the 50’s and higher. Top hp I’ve heard of: 2,600 at war emergency power. See Greg’s airplanes and automobiles.
War emergency power. Where the term "Balls to the wall" came from. The throttles had metal balls on top. At least the P38 lightning had balls. Pushed all the way forward toward the firewall...Balls to the wall. 😊Just some useless info.
Why show a clip of the T6 which was powered by an R985?
I did fly DC 6 and r2800 was great eng
You can't say Lockheed constellation without mentioning Howard Hughs.
Nice 👍
The Japanese were rattled to the core when they first engaged the hellcat! They mistook them for wildcats.
The Rolls Royce engine performed better in the P-51 and was ultimately swapped over for the faster speed and better thrust to weight ratio, which gave better performance and maneuverability. Pratt and Whitney made great engines though!
AMERICAN POWER .
i thought that yellow plane was a Dauntless 💀
DC-6 but not the Connie.
There was a cutaway and a bare engine in the foyer at the Aviation A school for Aviation Ordinance at NAS Jacksonville in the 70’s where I attended. The R2800 was in my opinion Pratt&Whitney’s best radial engine design and I can only imagine the power it would be capable of today using modern technology and materials. 2,800 hp?
The big bad double wasp engine .
Why show a T-6 Texan? It did not have an R-2800.
And Douglas A-26 Invader and Martin B-26 Marauder and P-61 and F8F and F7F and PBM and…
Was the Corsair decent in dog fights?
Did I see an AT-6 Texan? Definitely not powered by the R-2800!
The constellation had a wright 3350! Do your homework!
All made on Long Island NY ?
.50 cal guns? That's what they have in common? 😂
1840?
Why is the IAF plane in the middle of the video orange. I have never seen an orange IAF plane before
Engine first produced in 1840? I don't think so.
Why random NA-16?
I don't think the AT6 had the R2800 lol
So, your Flyby of the T-6 doesn't match, as they have a single row with about 600hp.
I had to watch this twice because it sounds like this clip said this engine was first used in "1840"! And I thought that weird and had to be a mistake.
I listened again, and every time I do, it still sounds like 1840. But the caption clearly prints it as 1940.
It is amazing how 1840 and 1940 soind so much alike. And yeah, I do have a bit of a hearing problem that resides in the range of human speech. I often question what I've heard, and just as often I figure it out. But proper enunciation helps prevent that problem.
It seems to me these engines are double radial engines.
The second crown of cylinders, the closest to the cockpit, used to heat up a bit too much.
Does anyone know about any aircraft with this engine but double cooling air scoops ?
Yeah, the B-24
Bro, said 1840
"1840": really?🤣😆
That’s what I heard also❗️. Didn’t even know they had airplanes in 1840! 🤔
there was NOT one of those engines in a T-6
The AT-6 didn't have an R-2800.
Showing it is stupid.
I dont know that
British engine
corsáir
Was this video made by AI? I just learned youtube videos with no humans are clickbait and totally taken over youtube ALREQDY
the British replaced their mustang engines with Rolls Royce because the american engines were poor in performance
And it's American made people that's when we made good stuff😅 now we make potato chips
Stop spamming 🤮
Then Boeing buys all these great companies and our planes are now overpriced pieces of electronic nightmares , that can't get over 30% into a fight.
Same shit with "look in Martin" F35 is a (catas)trophy
The P51 was powered by a Rolls Royce engine built under licence by Pratt&Whitne.
No it was built under liscense by Packard
It was the Rolls Royce engine that converted the P51 in the best WWII fighter.
Yeah but it was a V-12 not an 18 cylinder radial engine
Has nothing to do with the video and is incorrect
A lot of other countries radial aircraft engines were based off P&W Wasp series engines. Especially Soviet engines.
1840?