there were quite a few "superprops". Spit XVI, Hawker Tempest, Do 335, TA152, Ki-84, A7M, LA-9 I'd even class the pancake in this class as well. Some amazing designs.
I'd like to think that if I was an engineer with Republic or indeed any manufacturer I would have abandoned any further 'hedging my bets' on piston engines and thrown myself and my design and development teams into turbojet technology, particularly axial flow compressors. The thing is the piston engine was pretty much at its developmental limit. They were also pretty expensive and difficult to build when held against the axial flow turbojet, which had the potential to be lighter, cheaper, faster and able to perform better at higher altitudes, due to no need for a heavy supercharger plumbing. The jet engine could only get much better, but the piston engine was only going to be improved in slight increments. However, the propellor is still the most efficient method of turning power to thrust. Which is why turboprops continue to be flown and the ducted fan of modern airliners is power derived mostly from a propellor or turbine in a Benoulli tube that is turned by an axial flow compressor. Incidentally, the piston engine is a four stage power cycle: Induction, compression ignition, exhaust. The axial flow compressor is exactly the same. Suck, squeeze, bang, blow but is laid out in a linear or axial fashion. This is why jet engines are lighter, less complicated and use less materials.
@@damndirtyrandy7721 sorry but the airacobra is a TERRIBLE aircraft. i totally understand what they were going for with the mid engine layout thinking itd improve performance like it does with cars, but what it did do was create a very dangerous aircraft that loved exiting controlled flight because the engine would push the inertia of the aircraft outside the flight envelope. Think of a paper airplane, where instead of the nose being a little heavier which really helps guide the aircraft, put that weight in the middle and watch it flutter around doing spins and backflips etc while falling forwards, this is an easy way to demonstrate how unstable and dangerous those designs were and are.
@@PORRRIDGE_GUN lol yup you're right. my grandfather was an engineer with Fairchild after his service in ww2, he was one of the alamo scouts, a pretty legendary group yet unheard of
The more I learn the more I realize I’ve got a lot to learn. I’ve been studying aircraft, specifically piston engine aircraft, since I was 3. I’m 54 now. I taught myself to read by looking at my older brother’s aircraft books. When I find a channel like this on RUclips I marvel at my expansion of knowledge after I watch a video. So, thank you for your efforts in my acquisition personal CE credits.
From page of ALPAR: For testing, a P-47 Thunderbolt, the largest and heaviest single-seater in the Air Force at the time, was selected. Some modifications were made to accommodate the XIV 2220; when done, the slimmed down nose helped reduce the drag produced by the big round radial engine. Preliminary testing showed promise. The big fighter was coaxed slowly into higher altitudes and higher speeds. Finally the go ahead was given for an all out test. At 15,000 feet, the huge plane, under the Chrysler V-16's power, broke the 500 mile an hour barrier, around 70 mph faster than the original engine. No one thought it was possible for a piston engine to achieve that speed in level flight. Radar timing shows how powerful that engine was. Flat out, it pulled the huge P-47 along at 504 miles an hour.
That's the XP-47J. Not the H. I'm an Allpar fan and that reference is not backed up by any paper test data. The ONLY test data, obviously from one of the preliminary flights, quotes 414 mph at altitude..They never completely dialed it in. The war was over.
Chrysler was 2 V8 engines end to end. The oilpan is off, where the crank shafts met there was the blower drive gearbox. If you are in the Northeastern US, New England Air Museum has one. I had a collection of America aircraft history books. All that mentioned the P47 doing 490. Have read memoirs of crew chiefs who understood ignition timing and boost pressures (translation, ran moonshine before the war, ran it afterwards while inventing NASCAR) who got 500 out of their P47. P&W once ran one 250 hours @ 3500 just to see if it blew up. It did not, however shut down for new sparkplugs evety 10 hours or so. I digress.
By paying attention and re-clicking here, my questions about the 4360 in a P47 was answered. Had my memory been better, I would not have wondered. Your channel is a trove of info, some obscure yet critically important facts concerning iconic birds.
Love your channel. My first experience in Europe was to figure how to open a door. When I crossed the Channel and came to France, my buddy and I went into a hotel. We went to dinner down a stairway and came to a door at the bottom; couldn't figure how to get thru the door to the dining room. Could see people on the other side and after trying for several minutes to open it, had to signal to a diner to open the door for us. He graciously rose, approached us and SLIDE the door to it's pocket. Talk about feeling stupid. I worked at P&W in the experimental design group in the 60's and the guys I worked with said the worst problem they had on the 4360 was to get the cooling sheet metal to the 2 rear rows. Lots of toasted 4th row cylinders. Had to run them richer to let fuel act as a cooling element. By the way, that 777 engine loss yesterday is definitely NOT supposed to happen with external part showers. BTW The comments are made by interesting viewers who add to your channel. I appreciate their input.
And Rolls Royce too! Don't forget the Rolls Royce Crécy sleeve valve engines. And Argyll Motors engines, designed by Burt and McCollum. And Harry Ricardo's "The High Speed Internal Combustion Engine", a really great book, specially the 1951 edition...
klegdixal - Huge displacement engines like the Napier Sabre, P&W Corncob, Wright 2160 were just too complex and extremely expensive to produce but they did make a few. A single engine usually cost more than the whole airframe.
Great content. My dad was a WW1/WW2 aircraft enthusiast, and taught me all he knew about them. We built more than a couple of scale balsa models when I was young. It's really awesome to hear someone who knows how to fill the gaps in my knowledge, and how much my dad had committed to memory.
Fascinated by the late war/post war models such as mb5, spiteful, fury2, hornet, tigercat , bearcat , ta 152, dornier pfiel, super corsair plus the mustang & thunderbolt developments. That would be a hangar well worth a visit
The sleeve-valved Hawkers whistled rather than roared. Exhaust sleeve valve opening was less dramatic than a poppet popping open maybe (which can have advantages in tuning non supercharged engines - sharp opening poppets that is).
Nice video! I knew next to nothing about these US super prop projects, and now I know what is explained in this video. Thanks for the shoutout as well!
Excellent Greg! Most folks are not aware of the Republic's P47H & J models, especially of the speed they were capable of. The XP72(14ft 4 bladed prop)with its high speed was also said to be a beautifully handling aircraft by its test pilots. I read there were problems with the contr rotating prop system. Republic never gets enough credit for its engineering & designs during the WW2 era. You present the facts with a fair point of view, without over glorifying any particular aircraft over another, thanks for that!
When you realize that practically all military contracts were rife with corruption, cronyism, cocaine, and prostitutes (just a day at the office in DC), it is important to destroy all traces of that, if we are to keep our rose tinted view of the war.
@@princeofcupspoc9073 Military contractors are dealers in DEATH. Their sole purpose is to make money off of the worst kind of human conflict possible. They make tobacco companies look like an organization of volunteers that rescues lost puppies and kittens. They are already at the maximum evil level of murder so all crimes against humanity and nature below that are just annoyances to them like a parking ticket.
@@toolbaggers to be fair, military contractors are also the ones making defensive weapons. It is a dirty business, but one necessary for the survival of nations
@@toolbaggers what a hippy. Workers go where there's work. When the government dumps billions into fighter planes then a lot of aerospace people will end up working on it.
I was the kid that play with my toys for five minutes then disassembled them to see how they worked. I thoroughly enjoy your videos because I am fascinated by all things mechanical.
Greg, great video as always. As a suggestion for a future video, how about a detailed comparison between the MiG-15 and the Sabre.? With the exception of the Spitfire vs Bf-109, the Sabre vs MiG-15 matchup was probably the most famous toe-to-toe slugfest. Engines, airframe design, armament, etc would be very interesting.
Love your content, Greg. Being in the automotive sector I enjoy your detailed exploration of the mechanical aspects. Hope you get around to the HE-177 someday soon.
I would like to think a hemispherical cylinder head is still in use, though it would have been a pain to manufacture. It would have better amplified the internal combustion (spherical blast) than a flat head.
Ford Motor Company lawyers hands twitching on their cell phones waiting to file trademark infringement... The Fairlane Thunderbolt tore up the dragstrip in the early sixties
Unfortunately there is no motivation to fund further development of piston powered propeller prototypes. It would for sure make for an interesting class.
Hello my name is Brian Sanders and I really enjoyed you videos. In 1982 my family built the racing Sea Fury Dreadnought. Which I have 5 second place finished in. I have flown the Sea Fury with the Centaurus 18, Centaurus 175, 2800, 3350 and 4360. If you would like to chat about operating the various engines or anything aviation related let me know.
Wow, I certainly know who you are,, I saw Dreadnought at Reno around 1991. It's a very exciting plane from a spectator standpoint, even watching and hearing it taxi is exciting. I would like to talk to you. I'll shoot you an email once I get back to the US sometime middle of next month.
Good to hear from you. FYI I retired from the family business a few years ago so you will need to contact me on my personal email. Smokemaster70@gmail.com
Thanks Greg, always enlightening. I never knew how complicated aircraft design could be, even in the 40's. Love that last shot with the Alfa! The Carabineri have coolness as part of their mission statement!
There are so many great things in Aviation, so happy to have had the opportunity to meet many of the greats in design, pioneering,daring doo, business, combat, and to have added my two cents.a Great Life.
The “strange” elevator control system is the new normal. It’s based on fully “intelligent” control software which minimizes total travel time. All major brands have adopted this now.
I have heard of this but not seen it. Think of several people all taking different elevators to go to the same floor. Less efficient than them all being directed to the same elevator as done in this Sicilian example.
@@bobzwicker807 Seems the tradeoff would be much lower total elevator usage, since you can't have a single car serve multiple sequential destinations. You get in the car and when the doors open you get out and assume you are on your desired floor.
Yes, I have run into these in several 4-star hotels, mostly in north America but also in Asia. I think the system works fine when the number of riders are low. The issue arise when you have many who want to ride the elevators like at a conference in a hotel after the sessions has ended. Then many persons needs to get to control to input where they are going. And then managed to get to the right elevator through the crowed in the elevator bay. Also the intelligent control doesn't know how many people a single press for flor 5 means. Thus, it has issues filling the elevators to capacity. Yes, it can optimize the number of stops when it gets many riders inputting where to go. Also if you make an input error you are sending an elevator on ghost chase.
There is one building, here in Cape Town, that my son and I use frequently, which has this system. I'm not terribly keen on its, as waiting times seem to have increased considerably over the conventional system, in the same building, that it replaced.
I live in downtown Chicago and most new buildings along with older buildings that can afford it are converting to this system - it is more efficient. Willis Tower (former Sears Tower) recently finished their conversion.
P-51H has to be one of my favorite aircraft of all time. It’s such a beautiful refinement of the already beautiful Mustang: lighter weight, more engine power, further aerodynamic improvements, and with almost nothing lost over the older model (rough field capability, admittedly, but this is the USAAF, smooth airstrips aren’t exactly a rare commodity). And unlike many super props, the H was more or less ready for service by the end of the war. It never got a chance, of course, but it was in production and being shipped out by the late summer of 45.
The performance of the 51H is exceptional but that's on its testing flights. Built from the start to last only 500 hours the 51H was unsuccessful in operational service. Not rugged,and with a finicky engine fitting very tight with limited access panels it only had a 30% availability rate. So it went to the air guard and they had problems with it as well. Pretty much,with the 51D,North American took that airframe as far as it would go. Trying to squeeze out more performance, they went to lightening the aircraft up.If the Pacific Theater would have lasted a little longer you would have seen the 47N totally take out the Mustang.
This is so good. No wild supposition when facts are unavailable. Excellent gap filling using science based reasoning and all the detail and clear annunciation that true enthusiasts long for. I've studied Unlimited Air Racers and engine performance for many years and I really couldn't fault anything in this documentary.
I hope that propellers video covers prop blade shape. I have been curious why the Germans favored "leaf" blades, for lack of the technical term, vs US props favoring (relatively) constant blade width.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles you provide excellent videos and need not apologize. Nobody can please everyone all the time. Downloaded the premier and will watch on my next leg. I have friend who is a WWII vet he is 98 and flew 100 missions in the P47 spanning two tours. Then he was MX officer for the same squadron on a third tour. If I could pick a single seat fighter just to sit in, it would be a P-47. Flying one, unthinkable joy. Again, thank you for posting
Thanks soooo much! Awesome episode, Cant thank you enough. I sincerely appreciate your time and efforts. The commentary is spot on; less documentary more lecture. Netflix ain"t got nuthin' on you bro. Take care
The PW-2800 was also able to take hits in the engine and lose cylinders but keep running enough to get back home. Another reason why the P-47 was a great plane that got guys home alot when other planes wouldn't have been able to. That and its armor. Something that republic remembered when designing the A-10 thunderbolt II.
Informative as ever Greg. May I mention in passing the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation CA15, and possibly one of the great "What Ifs" the Martin Baker MB5? All the best.
I love your work.........But......I usually have to watch them two-three times, as there is something in the way you speak that sets me off to sleepy land. Keep up the brilliant work!
When you look at the pace of fighter development during the 50s and 60s, it's easy to see why the British aero industry ended up consolidating like it did (and to a lesser extent the US industry too); Developing things only to have them obsolete before you've even delivered the Mk.1 version of your latest thing.
The problem with the british is that consolidation after WW2 was forced and most of the time was nationalization. This greatly damaged the development of planes as government people got in charge of running plane and plane engine factories. The British should have given incentive for their companies to merge sort of like the Americand did with their companies.
@@aceofhearts573 well yeah, but two problems - a) the politics and chicanery with centre-left post war Government. b) we were completely broke after the war. On the macro level our star was fading. What was left of the empire was breaking up. We had introduced the welfare state/NHS. From a purely practical sense, there was some logic in smashing together all the small-middling aero manufacturers into something that in theory could compete with the big American firms, and nationalising would generate revenue for the state coffers. In hindsight its easy to see how flawed that was, and the net result is BAe, universally referred to in defence circles here as Big And expensive.
I think it was Bill Gunston who said that Boeing had more engineers working on the wing flaps of the B-52 then the entire British aero industry had. Then you have the Sandystorm where the government ran around canceling everything that looked like it might work. TSR.2 could have been everything the F-111 was supposed to be.
Very good presentation. So many nostalgic people believe that it was a mistake abandoning advanced propellor aircraft - but it was all about the engineering and it made perfect sense. The only real advantage of propellor planes over early jets was in fuel consumption, especially at low altitude.
Hi Greg, Thanks as always for the excellent content... Will look forward to yr analysis of propellors! With respect to your elevators comment: 1. I live in Santiago Chile, and I can say that this elevator "methodology" is quite common in newer buildings. 2. It is implemented mostly (here), in big new highrise buildings, where they really don't install quite enough elevators to handle "peak hour" demand (cheapskates) 3. During most of the day a normal elevator methodology/algorithm would work fine (and simple is best right?) 4. However, in peak hour (like 8 o'clock in the morning), you can have 20-30 people waiting for 4 working elevators. 5. So, clearly, the idea is to try to improve elevator utilization by "load balancing" the available resource (4 elevators), and to avoid the chance of an elevator heading up to the 13th floor with 1 person in it (for example) 6. I spent a couple o' weeks using this system in a customer's building (arriving at peak hour). 7. There's a lot of heuristics in the algorithm (I reckon!), and its far from perfect, but without a doubt improves utilization (not necesarilly user experience).. the good solution is to install the number of elevators that you really need 8. Long term users can learn to fool the algorithm... if you want to go to floor 4, request floor "4" a couple of times, and you *may* get a quicker response in some cases (the algorithm assumes that 2 people need to go the floor 4) (This is hearsay, I have not tried it, but my mates tell me this), 9, Its an interesting topic!!! Someone on RUclips should discuss it "deeply" like you do with mechanical engineering!!! It is not a trivial problem! All the best Greg, have a great 3 days, all the best to the family!!!
All things considered, that this website is a work of love, for technology, flight, and lastly entertainment value, I really don't want to complain about the audio quality. I can understand background noise that may be unavoidable shooting in the field, but the audio is unacceptable. I listen to a lot of recorded music and have "good ears" for placement in the sound field and my physical reaction to the bottom heavy boom and drop out, made it impossible to sit through it. Please consider re-recording the audio as the aviation knowledge is the real value here. Thank you for this wonderful website.
At the end of this video Greg tells us about the differences in elevator customs in other parts of the world. This can be amusing sometimes, at least it was once for me. I live in Tennessee, in the USA where floors in buildings are numbered with the bottom or ground floor is the 1st floor, the next floor above is the 2ed floor and so on. I got on an elevator on the ground floor one day and before I pushed any buttons a nice young lady jumped in before the door closed. I moved over to give her room and she said "Thank you" with a heavy English accent. By that time the door had closed so she reached out and pressed the 1 button. Of course the door opened up and looking puzzled she leaned forward to see who was wanting on the elevator. She saw nobody so she waited while the door closed then pressed the 1 button again. Of course the door opened again and she went through the sequence again. All this time I am in the back corner of the elevator about to bust out laughing. She saw me trying not to laugh, then studied the control panel a moment and it dawned on her what was happening. You could see the red rise over her face. She wanted the 2ed floor which in her country would be the 1st floor on the control panel of the "lift". Out of habit she punched 1 and expected to be taken up 1 floor. The elevator door just was doing what it thought she wanted and was letting her out on the 1st floor (ground floor). Life can be entertaining sometimes!
I’ve seen that elevator system at a few layover hotels in the US as well. I do agree that it’s generally better than the normal system not only because it eliminates the guessing game as to which elevator you will get but also because it prevents some kid pressing all the buttons.
Hello, longtime viewer of your channel, thank you for the amazing content that you bring. In regards to the P-51H, I find an interesting something interesting in the reports on wwiiaircraftperformance.org. The level speed at 32000ft (not the altitude where top speed is achieved, which is far lower) is in huge discrepancy between the reports, the lowest being 430mph[1] and the highest being over 480mph[2][3]. A few in the middle suggest somewhere around 450-460mph[4][5]. This much discrepancy suggest either a major change in the supercharger or something more fishy. Sources 2 and 3, which produced the largest numbers for P-51H, are both clearly from NA Aviation itself, which I find interesting. In source 2, the rpm numbers are not provided, but I suspect that the 46" curve is using 2700rpm, and the 61" and 70" curves are using 3000rpm (as there would be no point in running 70" and 2700rpm), which would explain the large increase in performance above critical altitude, since spinning the engine faster drives the supercharger faster and a small increase in supercharger rpm leads to a large increase in its pressure ratio. Hence in source 2, the 80" and 90" curves are likely run at an impermissible engine rpm greater than 3000. In source 3 there are no visible problems. I suspect NA of providing falsely large numbers, and the actual level speed of the P-51H at 32000ft is more close to 450mph than to 480mph. [1]www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/p-51h-64182-fig16a.jpg [2]www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/p-51h-booklet-pg12.jpg (with racks) [3]www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/p-51h-altperf-91444.jpg [4]www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/F-51H_Mustang_SAC_-_22_March_1949.pdf [5]www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/p-51h-na117.jpg
great vid !!!! ironically My father was the first guy to manufacture a all "Billet" Chrysler Hemi Cylinder Head for Drag Racing. he teamed up with Art Whipple and his first screw Blower. truth is i love Mopar but the Hemi Chamber in a 2 valve configuration is really only good at Wide Open Throttle. for this reason and the fact they are a lot cheaper. I build a lot of RB and B motor Chrysler wedge headed motors for the street. the Hemi makes more peak power but the wedge makes quite a bit more average power over a given RPM range. the modern day aka late model Hemi is a semi Hemi or a squished Hemi. they realized the Quench a wedge head has is great at combating detonation and or pre ignition . the modern squished Hemi has a double quench . One on either side of the valves. that and the closed style chamber really helps combat the knock with higher compression ratio's both static and dynamic and are limp wristed low octane fairy fuels cheap americans like to burn in their hot rods now days. one final thing with a wedge style chamber and a tight quench you have to be careful about excessive "Rock" and the skirt thrusting moment on the skirt @ TDC. because the quench is perpendicular to the Wrist Pin. In the modern Hemi the quench pads are directly over the Pinboss Towers of the piston. so the load is carried equally and parallel with the Pin
An interesting video. One of the other limiting factors to increased engine power is the propeller size. One of the post war Spitfires used for high altitude recon had such a large prop it had to take of and land on all three wheels. Lifting the tail risked grounding the large prop. Also the Avro Shackleton had to use contra rotating props as the under carriage was not long enough to accommodate a single prop on the Griffons.
That elevator concept has made its way to the US. I’ve been on elevators at certain hotels here that operate on the same principle. I really like your videos!
Thanks for sharing such an excellent video on the super prop fighters! With hindsight those very powerful engines were were simply too complicated and required far more hours of development for some more horsepower leading to the demise of piston engined airplanes. In comparison the jet engines was much more easy to obtain more trust. I'm not an expert with maths or related topics but the development of the jet airplanes was on the way!Great going 👍👍
Yet another extraordinarily informative video as always Greg. The Super Props would be interesting machines to see in action, all the power making them monsters in action.
If you have noticed modern versions of superprops are reemerging again on some of newest versions of transport aircraft. The latest C130 variants are sporting I believe 6 paddle blade props, and performance is up.
Greetings, Greg! One beautiful day, the elevators in my employer's building substituted floor buttons outside for the call buttons. From that day on something very amusing started happening sometimes. Either I entered the elevator to go to my job and finished in another floor, because i didn't press the floor button outside, or I entered the elevator on my building and took a while staring at the walls and asking myself why the elevator didn't start, because, of course, i didn't press the floor button inside. Or the other way around. Either way, I felt very silly. Happy the elevators are not 737MAX.
Thanks for that. In contrast to the Fw 190, the XP-72 fan rotated at the same speed as the propeller. The cooling fan for R-4360 in the XF-12 was a two speed, gear-driven unit built by Curtiss Electric, but that is a story for another time.
Looking forward to this as the stuff US aviation got up to in the short period of time between the end of WW2 and the adoption of jets is fascinating. Though speaking of jets, would you consider doing a few videos detailing the rapid development of early jet planes during the late 40s to early 50s? The rate at which the USN went through new fighters in particular was always an area of interest for me.
Yeah I'm interested too, I have an Uncle who was a Carrier pilot and fighter ace who also flew the first FJ1 Fury and early Sabres from North American Aircraft. The FJ1 was an interesting adaptation of the P(F)-51's aerodynamics as NAA sought to enter the jet age with an post WWII carrier fighter jet. Grumman beat them with their F9F Panther.
Another great video Greg. There were quite a few wonderful propeller driven aircraft that were just too late to see action for WW2. So there's plenty of room for more videos on the topic. Love the p.s. at the end with the elevators at the Sicilian hotel and of course the reference to Italian cars. Brilliant! Keep up the great work. Ciao.
The elevators in EAST Miami worked by keycards only from the ground floor to the guest floors, and the elevators were all lettered, and you tapped your keycard then selected the floor you wanted to access and it assigned an elevator letter and you got on. It was a very efficient design.
One can adjust to the differences in elevators, roads, and cars, but the countries that give you a bare hole in the floor instead of a toilet can set you back on your heels.
@@stephenanderle5422 still the best way to do it, the way Mother Nature intended. It's just much harder to participate in a zoom call at the same time.
*The sound those engines give off...there is nothing like it....I was standing outside work 5 years ago....when all of a sudden I hear this marvellous sound overhead that I've only heard on documentary's.....a B-17!! My jaw just dropped....where I live we don't get ANY airshows... to see a B-17 flying is quite the sight!* *Then I hear.. for a mere 600 CAD $ I could of gone for a ride!! Found out too late and they were all booked....hopefully they come back one day :/*
Very nice video. Here is a little more history regarding the Republic XP-69 and the Republic XP-72 you may have not been aware of. The Republic XP-69 was to feature an Aero Products Contra Rotating Propeller, which did arrive in 1942 at the Republic factory in Buffalo, New York. It was to be powered by a Wright R-2160 water cooled radial engine producing 2,500 horsepower. Its 42 cylinders were arranged in six rows each of seven cylinders with a displacement of 2,160 cubic inches. Unfortunately, Wright failed to provide a reliable enough running engine for testing due to the engines complexity and it suffered from overheating problems so this engine program was eventually cancelled. Another factor was that Wright found themselves more commited to developing the R-3350 Cyclone engines for the B-29 Superfortress which was given top priority and they simply didn't have the resources necessary to fully develop a new engine design and produce it in greater numbers. A three quarter mock-up of the XP-69 was inspected in June 1942, but by May 11, 1943, because of Wright's failure to produce the R-2160 water cooled radial engine, the USAAF decided the Republic XP-72 would fulfill their requirements and the XP-69 was cancelled. The most powerful piston engine to reach production in any country during WWII was the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major providing 3,500 horsepower. Designed by Leonard "Luke" Hobbs, the R-4360 featured four rows each of 7 cylinders providing 28 cylinders total. The cylinders themselves were arranged in a carefully coordinated corkscrew concept as a means to eliminate excessive cooling, which led to the engine's nickname, "the corncob." Displacement of the Wasp Major was 4,360 cubic inches of swept volume. Design studies for what was to become the XP-72 began in July 1941, barely two months after the XP-47B first flew. By June 18, 1943, the USAAF felt the prospects of the new design was worthy of a development contract and ordered two prototypes as XP-72's. When the first XP-72 was flown on February 2, 1944, it had much of the appearance of the P-47, differing mainly in the more aerodynamic slimmer nose that was created when the supercharger intake was moved back to the wing. The big 28 cylinder R-4360-13 experimental engine was housed in a tight fitting engine cowling and cooled by a fan located behind the propeller spinner. The first stage supercharger was located inside the fuselage rear behind the cockpit while the second stage supercharger was mounted to the rear of the engine. Both were connected together by a long driveshaft that ran underneath the cockpit, connected by fluid couplings. Features that proved advantagous on the P-47 Thunderbolt were retained on the XP-72. These included the teardrop shaped bubble top canopy and compressability recovery flaps for slowing the fighter as it approached the speed of sound in a dive. The first XP-72, S N. 43-36598, was fitted with a conventional Hamilton Standard 4-bladed propeller. The second XP-72, S.N. 43-36599, was delivered with an Aero Products Conta Rotating Propeller that measured 13 1/2 feet in diameter. The contra-prop was originally intended to be used on the XP-69, but Republic engineers decided to use it on the second XP-72 prototype instead. During flight testing, both XP-72's demonstrated outstanding performance characteristics and a contract for 100 P-72's was approved by the USAAF. The top speed of the XP-72's was estimated to be 504 mph although there were no flights made above 490 mph for fear the experimental R-4360 engine would catch on fire. As it turned out, the second XP-72 did catch on fire at 25,000 feet and the test pilot put the plane in a dive, which extinguished the fire. Flying the plane dead stick with two monster contra-props still spinning up front, the test pilot made a spectacular belly landing at a USAAF Base in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The second XP-72 was never repaired and it was eventually donated to the Boy Scouts of America where it was used as a static trainer for the Air Scouts. The production P-72's was to feature a new General Electric two stage, two speed centrifugal blower supercharger unit that measured nearly 5 feet in diameter and was to be fitted to the tail section. Top speed of the P-72 production models was 540 mph, which would have made it the fastest piston powered fighter plane of WWII. It was intended to use the planes as V-1 Buzz Bomb interceptors because of the plane's ability to rapidly accelerate to 490 mph at 25,000 feet. When the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star arrived in England in 1944, the USAAF quickly realized the Shooting Star's performance overshadowed the P-72's performance and there was more of a need for long-ranging bomber escort fighters, so the order for 100 P-72's was cancelled. The first XP-72 was scrapped shortly afterwards.
@jimfinlaw4537 The question is what eventually became of the second XP-72 prototype when the Boy Scouts were done with it. Was it sold for scrap, used as a fire training aircraft like so many other odd types, or buried in a local landfill? It would be worth finding out what happened to it, or if there is anyone around who may know. Some of the few F2Gs ended up on fire dumps unfortunately but parts were rescued.
@@FiveCentsPlease Not sure where it ended up at after the Boy Scouts. No one seems to know, but I imagine it was eventually scrapped. A good friend of mine who was an aircraft broker had a Goodyear F2G2 Super Corsair. He flew it in an air show back in the 1980's. When he got the fuel bill for it, he just about cried because that R-4360 engine burns fuel fast and he ended up with over 10k fuel bill. He sold that plane to a private collector shortly afterwards. I believe its now flying for the Red Bull Team if I'm not mistaken.
I remember when we first got the Harrier, AV-A in the Marine Corps. The Pegasus engine was originally rated for 250 HOURS of flight time! Major Groan I got expert on changing engines, and I was the Electrician! This required tasking off the entire, one piece wing. With time, I was head of a six man team that could complete the job in one 20 hour marathon go.... I was so proud. Yep, same 6 guys, 20 hours.
Or perhaps your mind got "stuck between floors" while conjuring that response. Let's hope you don't fall down that "shaft" in the future. I hope this joke didn't push any of your buttons.
[flips through the comment section] [keeps scrolling] [sees this comment] [almost spits his coffee everywhere] [thinks to himself] "well played sir, well played indeed"
Awaiting the sleeve valve engine video. I think I remember you once mentioned they would have been the way to go if it weren't for jet engines. Always thought the same. And so did Sir Harry Ricardo :)
@@thomasfink2385, there is that, but all professions--even engineers--are entitled to a kindly, humorous laugh at the expense of their clients--and their competitors.
@@thomasfink2385 I would say about 87% of everything out there is "designed" like crap in some way shape or form. Design starts with philosophy, and philosophy is practically lacking in engineering, anymore.
Is it true that in the US it is considered a very nice gesture to buy someone lunch? I read books about german planes almost 20 years ago. Ta152, FW187, Do335 and such. When an era comes to an end it´s technology excels within it´s era so that it can be called high tech from that era perspective. While the new era and tech already starts walking tall. Just take a look at the last steam engine locomotives for another example. I always wondered what the english and americans fiddled with piston engined fighters at the end of the era. But I have to much excuses why I was not getting into it. Now Greg arrives on the scene with this content. Im so excited already and Im only 7 minutes into the video. WOW!!! -Thank you Greg. If we ever should meet, I would like and enjoy to buy you lunch. :-) PS: And I cant wait to learn about the Thypoon and Tempest engines. ;-) With their turny disc valve thingies.
Enjoyable romp through the American incubators. I'd love to see a follow-on with commentary from UK, Russia, and the Axis. Kyuushuu J7W Shinden always fascinated, as has the Ambrosini SS.4 Pfeil . (Which is one obvious engine configuration missing from the list of options sketched out for the P-38, btw.) Sure, these weren't production fighters but the Shinden had a couple flights, and the Pfeil may have fought.
@@The_Bermuda_Nonagon The Pratt&Whitney R2800 along with most of the other US aircraft engines at the time already had Hemi combustion chambers. In 1910 Elbert J Hall of the Hall-Scott Motor Car Company (railroad cars not automobile cars) designed an overhead cam Hemi engine and later on along with an engineer from Packard was a part of designing the Liberty Aircraft Engine. Even though most people think that Chrysler pioneered the Hemi engine in all reality they were one of the last in line to make them, even for vehicles. Harley Davidson had a mass produced Hemi engine with the Knucklehead EL 61 ci engine in 1936, Packard, Duesenberg, Cord and many other vehicle manufacturers already had Hemi engines in production years before Chrysler did, they didn't really get into Hemi's until they were working on aircraft engines for the government during the war. As Greg pointed out the new Chrysler Hemi's aren't true Hemi engines, they have closed "bathtub" style chambers and run flat top pistons with a squish area as a result, it's much more of an efficient combustion chamber than a real Hemi, Harley Davidson did basically the same thing in 1984 when they released the Evolution engine although it's not a bathtub style chamber it's a "D" style chamber, but they did change to a bathtub style for the Twin Cam engine in 1999. The fact is a true Hemi style combustion chamber is very inefficient in a normally aspirated engine, they work well in an engine that's highly boosted running a flat top piston because then you have a large combustion chamber volume that's packed full by supercharging, but normally aspirated with a big dome on the piston sticking up into the dished out head of a Hemi causes all kinds of problems with flame propagation and the flame front having to travel around and crawl over the pistons dome, it turns the entire combustion chamber into a huge detonation trap, super high compression pistons for Hemi's like that usually have a "flame notch" in the top of the piston to minimalize as much of the problem as possible, another thing that aids with that problem is the addition of a second spark plug in the combustion chamber on the other side of the pistons dome, if the engine design allows for it those help quite a bit.
@@paoloviti6156 The biggest reason for creating the Hemi type combustion chamber is valve area (size), if you draw a circle that represents the bore of an engine and then draw two circles inside of it to represent the intake and exhaust valves you can only make them so big until they run into each other and the cylinder wall, by "canting" the valves at an angle you can make them much larger than if they're flat, the dishing out of the combustion chamber basically just follows suit with the canted valves. The reason that the infamous 426 ci Chrysler "Elephant" Hemi engine made the power it did wasn't so much it's Hemi design as much as the fact that it was pumped up pretty good from the factory in the first place, it had a solid lifter cam in it along with high compression that could run a decent amount of timing advance on the gas of that era, in other words they already had the rubber band wound up pretty tight from the factory. Chevy released a version of the 427 engine around 69 or 70 that had a solid lifter cam and other race goodies in it that made more power per ci than the 426 Chrysler Hemi did, the Hemi really shines through when it's boosted to high levels for the reason I gave, with a flat top piston you wind up with a large volume combustion chamber that once packed full from forced induction gives you a lot of air/fuel to burn. But normally aspirated it really isn't the engine people think it is, between the dome of the piston itself causing problems that need to be overcome there's other issues like the valve pockets that need to be cut in it for valve clearance that are so big they create two detonation traps in the combustion chamber themselves, that's yet another thing that forces you to turn back the timing advance resulting in lost power. I've been building Harley engines professionally for over 30 years, the pre Evolution engine's like the Shovelhead, Panhead, Knucklehead and Ironhead Sportster engines all are true hemispherical combustion chamber engines, anytime someone comes to me with one of the older ones and want's it built up for performance I tell them all the same thing, don't waste your money, because no matter what you do an Evolution or later engine with less modifications will beat it every time, do yourself a favor and just go for a reliable rebuild that'll last and enjoy it for what it is instead of winding up with something you've spent a lot of money on that's failure prone and will wind up getting beat anyways. By closing the combustion chamber and creating a D type or bathtub style chamber and running a flat top piston you have what's called a "squish area", when the piston gets to the top of the compression stroke the air/fuel mixture is "squished" between the top of the piston and the corresponding area of the combustion chamber resulting in it being shot into the remaining area of the combustion chamber (that's known as the "quench area") and creating turbulence, this turbulence along with a smaller area for the flame to travel across as opposed to the larger area from one side of the combustion chamber to the other and over the large dome of a piston in a true Hemi is far more efficient. 18 years ago or so when Chrysler announced they were going to build Hemi engines again a friend of mine who's into cars came running into my bike shop all excited saying how they were bringing it back, I told him, "There's no way it's going to be a true Hemi like the 426, I'll guarantee you that it'll have closed combustion chambers and flat top pistons". He said "You think so? Why's that?" I told him "Because there's no way they could get a true Hemi to pass modern emissions standards, there's just no way." Lo and behold several months later he came walking into my shop with the latest car magazine from a subscription he has that had an article on the new motor that had a cutaway drawing of the engine and don't you know, flat top pistons and closed combustion chambers. Like everyone else in the 80's I was cussing the government and the emission standards they forced the automobile manufacturers to deal with but 25 or so years ago I started realizing that it's actually a blessing, by forcing them to conform with those standards the engineers had to develop more efficient induction systems and combustion chambers, more efficiency=more power, that's why today soccer mom's are driving SUV's that can absolutely smoke the most legendary muscle cars from the 60's.
In Europa “Ground Floor” is on (erm) the ground. First floor means the first storey. So that’s why our tall buildings start with zero. It makes even more sense when there’s a basement.
The ultimate configuration of R-4360 engine was planned to be a Variable Discharge Turbine. It got rid of the throttle completely, using only turbo wastegates and fuel control to adjust power output. They made it fly on a testbed aircraft (B-50), but never made it work properly without access to electronics. Anyway, as Greg said, piston engines were overtaken by jet development, Pratt & Whitney saw the writing on the wall and quickly shifted most of its resources and development capacity. Wright company kept investing in piston engines a bit longer, so they had their last word with a cheaper and highly optimized R-3350, but in the end we still fly on aircraft powered by P&W jets, while Wright engines are a history. R-4360 is a very interesting engine. I highly recommend Graham's White book on the subject, it's written in a way that does not require a hard-core engineering background and covers all the engine development, construction and the aircraft in which it was used.
I remember being surprised when my instructor told me to flying slower required more power and not less. That was during my first lesson. And he wasn't kidding, as I got the slowed and got the flaps out to 40 it took considerably more rpms to keep above stall speed with the added drag.
I enjoy your videos and commentary. I would like to add a comment about the thermodynamic advantages of the jet engine. The piston engines (largely Otto cycle) max out at between 15-25% efficiency of fuel energy to power. The Brayton cycle, which is involved in modern commercial jetliners, is roughly 70% efficient by the same metric. It was probably much lower in the early days, but no one can cheat thermodynamics, we can just see how far we can.
Interesting that in world-class precision aerobatics RC competition, (Pattern...) the Contra Rotating props have a particular advantage at the higher competition levels since they largely eliminate spiral propwash on your rudder at all speeds. You can back off that right rudder correction at low speed and certain angles of attack. Fantastic prop braking as well on maneuver downlines... and, it sounds totally awesome!!
Greg, I really enjoyed your video. However, you forgot to mention Republic’s XF-84H prop airplane which was a converted F-84 Jet. Republic only built two prototypes in 1955, one of which is now at the USAF museum in Dayton, OH. I have no information about the 2nd prototype aircraft. However, I do remember seeing this model which was on a static display at the Bakersfield Airport in 1985 when I was on TDY in California. The USAF museum received this plane during the 1990’s. The old pamphlet that I seemed to have misplaced somewhere, which was claimed by Republic, that this plane could fly at 670 mph. However, the USAF museum disputes those figures. That testing program with Republic was shut down in 1956. Flight engineers and ground crews were sickened by the noise the supersonic props created which could be heard 20 miles away. I believe another crewman or engineer was also injured by shockwaves the prop-wash caused. No USAF test pilot ever flew these aircraft. Only two civilian test pilots flew these, with one quitting after his second flight in it at Edwards AFB.
I’d love to see a video on early jet engines. Why were the British jet engines so powerful and more efficient than the 004 and bmw 003? Of course they had to cut metal usage severely but was that really the factor that made them so problematic? Or was it just their design?
@Glenn Quagmire it's a 5 Ton plane with significantly higher wing loading and lower thrust. How would it fly circles around anything? Magic? It was a decent plane but not something stellar
The XP-72 was amazing to see in person, got to see it that first appearance at KOSH. It’s hard to believe how few parts it actually shared with the 51.
what awesome videos, so much new and different information, got to love the XP72 w contra props, beautiful looking beast. Would have been great to see one flying at Reno every year with a super corsair!
Great work, Greg, love the detail and analysis. It would have been interesting if prop planes had developed another ten years before jets came to the fore. I think Goodyear was working on a super Corsair toward the end of the war. Things would have been interesting, and folks would have come up with some amazing solutions. Thanks for the hard work and insights.
Yes they were. The Goodyear F2G Corsair, often referred to as the "Super Corsair", is a development by the Goodyear Aircraft Company of the Vought F4U Corsair fighter aircraft. The F2G was intended as a low-altitude interceptor and was equipped with a 28-cylinder, four-row Pratt & Whitney R-4360 air-cooled radial engine. Such a fighter was first conceived in 1939, when Pratt & Whitney first proposed the immense, 3,000 hp (2,200 kW) R-4360,[1] and design work began in early 1944.
Hi Greg. Love your content. About the elevators, they have that new system in many elevators in downtown Toronto, Canada. It's more efficient, especially in busy office towers.
I wish jets had come in a little later so we had seen more Super props. They are absolutely amazing.
Yes!!! I would love to have seen my fav, the P-61, with upgraded engines!!! Yes I am fan boi lol
there were quite a few "superprops". Spit XVI, Hawker Tempest, Do 335, TA152, Ki-84, A7M, LA-9 I'd even class the pancake in this class as well. Some amazing designs.
I'd like to think that if I was an engineer with Republic or indeed any manufacturer I would have abandoned any further 'hedging my bets' on piston engines and thrown myself and my design and development teams into turbojet technology, particularly axial flow compressors. The thing is the piston engine was pretty much at its developmental limit. They were also pretty expensive and difficult to build when held against the axial flow turbojet, which had the potential to be lighter, cheaper, faster and able to perform better at higher altitudes, due to no need for a heavy supercharger plumbing. The jet engine could only get much better, but the piston engine was only going to be improved in slight increments.
However, the propellor is still the most efficient method of turning power to thrust. Which is why turboprops continue to be flown and the ducted fan of modern airliners is power derived mostly from a propellor or turbine in a Benoulli tube that is turned by an axial flow compressor.
Incidentally, the piston engine is a four stage power cycle:
Induction, compression ignition, exhaust. The axial flow compressor is exactly the same. Suck, squeeze, bang, blow but is laid out in a linear or axial fashion. This is why jet engines are lighter, less complicated and use less materials.
@@damndirtyrandy7721 sorry but the airacobra is a TERRIBLE aircraft. i totally understand what they were going for with the mid engine layout thinking itd improve performance like it does with cars, but what it did do was create a very dangerous aircraft that loved exiting controlled flight because the engine would push the inertia of the aircraft outside the flight envelope.
Think of a paper airplane, where instead of the nose being a little heavier which really helps guide the aircraft, put that weight in the middle and watch it flutter around doing spins and backflips etc while falling forwards, this is an easy way to demonstrate how unstable and dangerous those designs were and are.
@@PORRRIDGE_GUN lol yup you're right. my grandfather was an engineer with Fairchild after his service in ww2, he was one of the alamo scouts, a pretty legendary group yet unheard of
Once again, a fine explanation that's comprehensible to a non-engineer. Well done, Greg…
He knocks it out of the park every time. Great teacher.
Explaining things to people is an art and a skill. Simple yet informative
@@pleaseenteranamelol711 moreso it takes a true master to break things down in a manner that can still be picked back up, so to speak.
The more I learn the more I realize I’ve got a lot to learn.
I’ve been studying aircraft, specifically piston engine aircraft, since I was 3. I’m 54 now. I taught myself to read by looking at my older brother’s aircraft books.
When I find a channel like this on RUclips I marvel at my expansion of knowledge after I watch a video.
So, thank you for your efforts in my acquisition personal CE credits.
“I know enough about this subject to say that I dont know enough” - someone, probably
From page of ALPAR:
For testing, a P-47 Thunderbolt, the largest and heaviest single-seater in the Air Force at the time, was selected. Some modifications were made to accommodate the XIV 2220; when done, the slimmed down nose helped reduce the drag produced by the big round radial engine.
Preliminary testing showed promise. The big fighter was coaxed slowly into higher altitudes and higher speeds. Finally the go ahead was given for an all out test. At 15,000 feet, the huge plane, under the Chrysler V-16's power, broke the 500 mile an hour barrier, around 70 mph faster than the original engine. No one thought it was possible for a piston engine to achieve that speed in level flight.
Radar timing shows how powerful that engine was. Flat out, it pulled the huge P-47 along at 504 miles an hour.
That's the XP-47J. Not the H. I'm an Allpar fan and that reference is not backed up by any paper test data. The ONLY test data, obviously from one of the preliminary flights, quotes 414 mph at altitude..They never completely dialed it in. The war was over.
Chrysler was 2 V8 engines end to end. The oilpan is off, where the crank shafts met there was the blower drive gearbox. If you are in the Northeastern US, New England Air Museum has one. I had a collection of America aircraft history books. All that mentioned the P47 doing 490. Have read memoirs of crew chiefs who understood ignition timing and boost pressures (translation, ran moonshine before the war, ran it afterwards while inventing NASCAR) who got 500 out of their P47. P&W once ran one 250 hours @ 3500 just to see if it blew up. It did not, however shut down for new sparkplugs evety 10 hours or so. I digress.
That's crazy! There was an Alfa Romeo Grand Prix inline 8 that did the same.
By paying attention and re-clicking here, my questions about the 4360 in a P47 was answered. Had my memory been better, I would not have wondered. Your channel is a trove of info, some obscure yet critically important facts concerning iconic birds.
Thanks for watching this video. I'll have another superprop video up quite soon.
Love your channel. My first experience in Europe was to figure how to open a door. When I crossed the Channel and came to France, my buddy and I went into a hotel. We went to dinner down a stairway and came to a door at the bottom; couldn't figure how to get thru the door to the dining room. Could see people on the other side and after trying for several minutes to open it, had to signal to a diner to open the door for us. He graciously rose, approached us and SLIDE the door to it's pocket. Talk about feeling stupid.
I worked at P&W in the experimental design group in the 60's and the guys I worked with said the worst problem they had on the 4360 was to get the cooling sheet metal to the 2 rear rows. Lots of toasted 4th row cylinders. Had to run them richer to let fuel act as a cooling element. By the way, that 777 engine loss yesterday is definitely NOT supposed to happen with external part showers.
BTW The comments are made by interesting viewers who add to your channel. I appreciate their input.
"I need to do Bristol and Napier engines first". you're the man.
And Rolls Royce too! Don't forget the Rolls Royce Crécy sleeve valve engines. And Argyll Motors engines, designed by Burt and McCollum. And Harry Ricardo's "The High Speed Internal Combustion Engine", a really great book, specially the 1951 edition...
Yummy H24 Sabre lump😎
i hope for napier nomad and such engines...
If anyone's got any Sabre parts, there's a bloke in Canada who'd love to hear from u!
klegdixal - Huge displacement engines like the Napier Sabre, P&W Corncob, Wright 2160 were just too complex and
extremely expensive to produce but they did make a few. A single engine usually cost more than the whole airframe.
Great content. My dad was a WW1/WW2 aircraft enthusiast, and taught me all he knew about them. We built more than a couple of scale balsa models when I was young. It's really awesome to hear someone who knows how to fill the gaps in my knowledge, and how much my dad had committed to memory.
Fascinated by the late war/post war models such as mb5, spiteful, fury2, hornet, tigercat , bearcat , ta 152, dornier pfiel, super corsair plus the mustang & thunderbolt developments. That would be a hangar well worth a visit
Would LOVE to see you do a video on the Hawker SEA FURY! Gorgeous monster of a fighter...
It gets mentioned in this video, just mentioned though.
I agree 👍!
@@iconoclastpleonast8726 Quite a unique sound, not at all like the equivalent P&W or Wright engines. Much smoother and more muted.
The sleeve-valved Hawkers whistled rather than roared. Exhaust sleeve valve opening was less dramatic than a poppet popping open maybe (which can have advantages in tuning non supercharged engines - sharp opening poppets that is).
And the Hawker Fury I with the Napier Sabre engine
Nice video! I knew next to nothing about these US super prop projects, and now I know what is explained in this video.
Thanks for the shoutout as well!
Adam and Greg crossover episode when?
@@wetzel1628 two goats finally collab
Imagine the XP72 with quad 37's in War Thunder
Watching both you and Greg is an absolute treat for an undergraduate aerospace engineer!
You ever going to admit you were wrong about the "P51 vs Bf109 what can germany do" video? Or is your ego still too massive?
Thank you, Greg’s Airplanes and Automobiles.
Excellent Greg! Most folks are not aware of the Republic's P47H & J models, especially of the speed they were capable of. The XP72(14ft 4 bladed prop)with its high speed was also said to be a beautifully handling aircraft by its test pilots. I read there were problems with the contr rotating prop system. Republic never gets enough credit for its engineering & designs during the WW2 era. You present the facts with a fair point of view, without over glorifying any particular aircraft over another, thanks for that!
I died inside when you said republics records were destroyed.
When you realize that practically all military contracts were rife with corruption, cronyism, cocaine, and prostitutes (just a day at the office in DC), it is important to destroy all traces of that, if we are to keep our rose tinted view of the war.
@@princeofcupspoc9073 Military contractors are dealers in DEATH. Their sole purpose is to make money off of the worst kind of human conflict possible. They make tobacco companies look like an organization of volunteers that rescues lost puppies and kittens. They are already at the maximum evil level of murder so all crimes against humanity and nature below that are just annoyances to them like a parking ticket.
@@toolbaggers to be fair, military contractors are also the ones making defensive weapons. It is a dirty business, but one necessary for the survival of nations
@@toolbaggers And as investors in those companies, we earn fantastic returns.
@@toolbaggers what a hippy. Workers go where there's work. When the government dumps billions into fighter planes then a lot of aerospace people will end up working on it.
I was the kid that play with my toys for five minutes then disassembled them to see how they worked. I thoroughly enjoy your videos because I am fascinated by all things mechanical.
This is easily one of the best quality RUclips channels. Thanks for this!
Greg, great video as always. As a suggestion for a future video, how about a detailed comparison between the MiG-15 and the Sabre.? With the exception of the Spitfire vs Bf-109, the Sabre vs MiG-15 matchup was probably the most famous toe-to-toe slugfest. Engines, airframe design, armament, etc would be very interesting.
Love your content, Greg. Being in the automotive sector I enjoy your detailed exploration of the mechanical aspects. Hope you get around to the HE-177 someday soon.
"Though I think it should have been called the Challenger Thunderbolt.
Engineers at Dodge: *furiously writing notes*
More likely Marketing Department.
I would like to think a hemispherical cylinder head is still in use, though it would have been a pain to manufacture. It would have better amplified the internal combustion (spherical blast) than a flat head.
@@dadillen5902 Marketing Department(s) doesn't watch videoes like this!
@@MultiZirkon Perhap not yours
Ford Motor Company lawyers hands twitching on their cell phones waiting to file trademark infringement...
The Fairlane Thunderbolt tore up the dragstrip in the early sixties
How fine would be to see one of these things racing at Reno at current days...
All you need is a bunch of money.
@@greatgandalf5233 Indeed. That seems to be the requirement for most of my wishlist items.
531 mph at ground level!
Unfortunately there is no motivation to fund further development of piston powered propeller prototypes.
It would for sure make for an interesting class.
We already have R3350 powered Bearcats, Griffon powered Mustangs, and R4360 powered Corsairs and Sea Furies; functionally the same thing.
Hello my name is Brian Sanders and I really enjoyed you videos. In 1982 my family built the racing Sea Fury Dreadnought. Which I have 5 second place finished in. I have flown the Sea Fury with the Centaurus 18, Centaurus 175, 2800, 3350 and 4360. If you would like to chat about operating the various engines or anything aviation related let me know.
Wow, I certainly know who you are,, I saw Dreadnought at Reno around 1991. It's a very exciting plane from a spectator standpoint, even watching and hearing it taxi is exciting. I would like to talk to you. I'll shoot you an email once I get back to the US sometime middle of next month.
Good to hear from you. FYI I retired from the family business a few years ago so you will need to contact me on my personal email. Smokemaster70@gmail.com
Thanks Greg, always enlightening. I never knew how complicated aircraft design could be, even in the 40's.
Love that last shot with the Alfa! The Carabineri have coolness as part of their mission statement!
There are so many great things in Aviation, so happy to have had the opportunity to meet many of the greats in design, pioneering,daring doo, business, combat, and to have added my two cents.a Great Life.
The “strange” elevator control system is the new normal. It’s based on fully “intelligent” control software which minimizes total travel time. All major brands have adopted this now.
I have heard of this but not seen it. Think of several people all taking different elevators to go to the same floor. Less efficient than them all being directed to the same elevator as done in this Sicilian example.
@@bobzwicker807 Seems the tradeoff would be much lower total elevator usage, since you can't have a single car serve multiple sequential destinations. You get in the car and when the doors open you get out and assume you are on your desired floor.
Yes, I have run into these in several 4-star hotels, mostly in north America but also in Asia. I think the system works fine when the number of riders are low. The issue arise when you have many who want to ride the elevators like at a conference in a hotel after the sessions has ended. Then many persons needs to get to control to input where they are going. And then managed to get to the right elevator through the crowed in the elevator bay. Also the intelligent control doesn't know how many people a single press for flor 5 means. Thus, it has issues filling the elevators to capacity. Yes, it can optimize the number of stops when it gets many riders inputting where to go. Also if you make an input error you are sending an elevator on ghost chase.
There is one building, here in Cape Town, that my son and I use frequently, which has this system. I'm not terribly keen on its, as waiting times seem to have increased considerably over the conventional system, in the same building, that it replaced.
I live in downtown Chicago and most new buildings along with older buildings that can afford it are converting to this system - it is more efficient. Willis Tower (former Sears Tower) recently finished their conversion.
P-51H has to be one of my favorite aircraft of all time. It’s such a beautiful refinement of the already beautiful Mustang: lighter weight, more engine power, further aerodynamic improvements, and with almost nothing lost over the older model (rough field capability, admittedly, but this is the USAAF, smooth airstrips aren’t exactly a rare commodity).
And unlike many super props, the H was more or less ready for service by the end of the war. It never got a chance, of course, but it was in production and being shipped out by the late summer of 45.
The performance of the 51H is exceptional but that's on its testing flights. Built from the start to last only 500 hours the 51H was unsuccessful in operational service. Not rugged,and with a finicky engine fitting very tight with limited access panels it only had a 30% availability rate. So it went to the air guard and they had problems with it as well. Pretty much,with the 51D,North American took that airframe as far as it would go. Trying to squeeze out more performance, they went to lightening the aircraft up.If the Pacific Theater would have lasted a little longer you would have seen the 47N totally take out the Mustang.
Thanks for making my day Greg!
This is so good. No wild supposition when facts are unavailable. Excellent gap filling using science based reasoning and all the detail and clear annunciation that true enthusiasts long for. I've studied Unlimited Air Racers and engine performance for many years and I really couldn't fault anything in this documentary.
Nice throwback to "Pulp Fiction" movie at the end of this video. Thank you, Greg for top notch content.
You remembered the XP-72!
Thank you for the video, these are so overlooked
I hope that propellers video covers prop blade shape. I have been curious why the Germans favored "leaf" blades, for lack of the technical term, vs US props favoring (relatively) constant blade width.
The P-51 did come out with a spoon blade late in the war. It resembled a regular prop with a big paddle at the tip.
The US did add cuffs to the propellor blades, which acted as a crude imitation of the cooling fan used on the FW190.
@@fafner1 which planes did they put those on? Corsairs and the naval Cat fighters (F4F, F6F, etc.)?
I’ll be at work. I am very disappointed I won’t be able to see this premier. Thanks in advance!
Sorry the timing didn't work out for you. I can't really make it right for everyone, so I alternate start times with these videos.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles you provide excellent videos and need not apologize. Nobody can please everyone all the time. Downloaded the premier and will watch on my next leg. I have friend who is a WWII vet he is 98 and flew 100 missions in the P47 spanning two tours. Then he was MX officer for the same squadron on a third tour. If I could pick a single seat fighter just to sit in, it would be a P-47. Flying one, unthinkable joy. Again, thank you for posting
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Excellent video! It was worth the wait.
You are one of the most effective "splainers" on RUclips. Thank you!
Thanks soooo much! Awesome episode, Cant thank you enough. I sincerely appreciate your time and efforts. The commentary is spot on; less documentary more lecture. Netflix ain"t got nuthin' on you bro. Take care
The PW-2800 was also able to take hits in the engine and lose cylinders but keep running enough to get back home. Another reason why the P-47 was a great plane that got guys home alot when other planes wouldn't have been able to. That and its armor. Something that republic remembered when designing the A-10 thunderbolt II.
Contra-rotating propellers also had planetary gear box longevity and maintenance headaches as well. Great video!
Informative as ever Greg. May I mention in passing the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation CA15, and possibly one of the great "What Ifs" the Martin Baker MB5? All the best.
I love your work.........But......I usually have to watch them two-three times, as there is something in the way you speak that sets me off to sleepy land. Keep up the brilliant work!
When you look at the pace of fighter development during the 50s and 60s, it's easy to see why the British aero industry ended up consolidating like it did (and to a lesser extent the US industry too); Developing things only to have them obsolete before you've even delivered the Mk.1 version of your latest thing.
The problem with the british is that consolidation after WW2 was forced and most of the time was nationalization. This greatly damaged the development of planes as government people got in charge of running plane and plane engine factories. The British should have given incentive for their companies to merge sort of like the Americand did with their companies.
@@aceofhearts573 well yeah, but two problems - a) the politics and chicanery with centre-left post war Government. b) we were completely broke after the war.
On the macro level our star was fading. What was left of the empire was breaking up. We had introduced the welfare state/NHS.
From a purely practical sense, there was some logic in smashing together all the small-middling aero manufacturers into something that in theory could compete with the big American firms, and nationalising would generate revenue for the state coffers.
In hindsight its easy to see how flawed that was, and the net result is BAe, universally referred to in defence circles here as Big And expensive.
I think it was Bill Gunston who said that Boeing had more engineers working on the wing flaps of the B-52 then the entire British aero industry had.
Then you have the Sandystorm where the government ran around canceling everything that looked like it might work. TSR.2 could have been everything the F-111 was supposed to be.
Very good presentation. So many nostalgic people believe that it was a mistake abandoning advanced propellor aircraft - but it was all about the engineering and it made perfect sense. The only real advantage of propellor planes over early jets was in fuel consumption, especially at low altitude.
Hi Greg, Thanks as always for the excellent content... Will look forward to yr analysis of propellors!
With respect to your elevators comment:
1. I live in Santiago Chile, and I can say that this elevator "methodology" is quite common in newer buildings.
2. It is implemented mostly (here), in big new highrise buildings, where they really don't install quite enough elevators to handle "peak hour" demand (cheapskates)
3. During most of the day a normal elevator methodology/algorithm would work fine (and simple is best right?)
4. However, in peak hour (like 8 o'clock in the morning), you can have 20-30 people waiting for 4 working elevators.
5. So, clearly, the idea is to try to improve elevator utilization by "load balancing" the available resource (4 elevators), and to avoid the chance of an elevator heading up to the 13th floor with 1 person in it (for example)
6. I spent a couple o' weeks using this system in a customer's building (arriving at peak hour).
7. There's a lot of heuristics in the algorithm (I reckon!), and its far from perfect, but without a doubt improves utilization (not necesarilly user experience).. the good solution is to install the number of elevators that you really need
8. Long term users can learn to fool the algorithm... if you want to go to floor 4, request floor "4" a couple of times, and you *may* get a quicker response in some cases (the algorithm assumes that 2 people need to go the floor 4) (This is hearsay, I have not tried it, but my mates tell me this),
9, Its an interesting topic!!! Someone on RUclips should discuss it "deeply" like you do with mechanical engineering!!! It is not a trivial problem!
All the best Greg, have a great 3 days, all the best to the family!!!
All things considered, that this website is a work of love, for technology, flight, and lastly entertainment value, I really don't want to complain about the audio quality. I can understand background noise that may be unavoidable shooting in the field, but the audio is unacceptable. I listen to a lot of recorded music and have "good ears" for placement in the sound field and my physical reaction to the bottom heavy boom and drop out, made it impossible to sit through it. Please consider re-recording the audio as the aviation knowledge is the real value here. Thank you for this wonderful website.
At the end of this video Greg tells us about the differences in elevator customs in other parts of the world. This can be amusing sometimes, at least it was once for me. I live in Tennessee, in the USA where floors in buildings are numbered with the bottom or ground floor is the 1st floor, the next floor above is the 2ed floor and so on. I got on an elevator on the ground floor one day and before I pushed any buttons a nice young lady jumped in before the door closed. I moved over to give her room and she said "Thank you" with a heavy English accent. By that time the door had closed so she reached out and pressed the 1 button. Of course the door opened up and looking puzzled she leaned forward to see who was wanting on the elevator. She saw nobody so she waited while the door closed then pressed the 1 button again. Of course the door opened again and she went through the sequence again. All this time I am in the back corner of the elevator about to bust out laughing. She saw me trying not to laugh, then studied the control panel a moment and it dawned on her what was happening. You could see the red rise over her face. She wanted the 2ed floor which in her country would be the 1st floor on the control panel of the "lift". Out of habit she punched 1 and expected to be taken up 1 floor. The elevator door just was doing what it thought she wanted and was letting her out on the 1st floor (ground floor). Life can be entertaining sometimes!
I’ve seen that elevator system at a few layover hotels in the US as well. I do agree that it’s generally better than the normal system not only because it eliminates the guessing game as to which elevator you will get but also because it prevents some kid pressing all the buttons.
These late propeller planes are awesome, but the real magic is in those amazing engines. The technology had truly reached its apex.
When you get to the R4360 you've gone beyond the apex...I can envision a T56 on just about any of these...
Thanks Greg, always look forward to your offerings. Looking forward to the "sleeve valves".
Hello, longtime viewer of your channel, thank you for the amazing content that you bring. In regards to the P-51H, I find an interesting something interesting in the reports on wwiiaircraftperformance.org. The level speed at 32000ft (not the altitude where top speed is achieved, which is far lower) is in huge discrepancy between the reports, the lowest being 430mph[1] and the highest being over 480mph[2][3]. A few in the middle suggest somewhere around 450-460mph[4][5]. This much discrepancy suggest either a major change in the supercharger or something more fishy. Sources 2 and 3, which produced the largest numbers for P-51H, are both clearly from NA Aviation itself, which I find interesting. In source 2, the rpm numbers are not provided, but I suspect that the 46" curve is using 2700rpm, and the 61" and 70" curves are using 3000rpm (as there would be no point in running 70" and 2700rpm), which would explain the large increase in performance above critical altitude, since spinning the engine faster drives the supercharger faster and a small increase in supercharger rpm leads to a large increase in its pressure ratio. Hence in source 2, the 80" and 90" curves are likely run at an impermissible engine rpm greater than 3000. In source 3 there are no visible problems. I suspect NA of providing falsely large numbers, and the actual level speed of the P-51H at 32000ft is more close to 450mph than to 480mph.
[1]www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/p-51h-64182-fig16a.jpg
[2]www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/p-51h-booklet-pg12.jpg (with racks)
[3]www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/p-51h-altperf-91444.jpg
[4]www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/F-51H_Mustang_SAC_-_22_March_1949.pdf
[5]www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/p-51h-na117.jpg
If I decide to make a dedicated P-51H video I'll cover all that.
Greg for President! =) You guess perfectly all the time my thoughts: engineering, history, sexy warbirds, piston & props 4ever! Thank you! Cheers, N.
I'm north-Italian and I wasn't expecting to hear anything good about Sicily, still the Alfas are awesome cars.
You horned like disappointed now ^^
I love Italy and only have good to say about it, even Sicily.
The Targa Florio was THE road race. Would have loved to see it during the sixties!
great vid !!!! ironically My father was the first guy to manufacture a all "Billet" Chrysler Hemi Cylinder Head for Drag Racing. he teamed up with Art Whipple and his first screw Blower. truth is i love Mopar but the Hemi Chamber in a 2 valve configuration is really only good at Wide Open Throttle. for this reason and the fact they are a lot cheaper. I build a lot of RB and B motor Chrysler wedge headed motors for the street. the Hemi makes more peak power but the wedge makes quite a bit more average power over a given RPM range. the modern day aka late model Hemi is a semi Hemi or a squished Hemi. they realized the Quench a wedge head has is great at combating detonation and or pre ignition . the modern squished Hemi has a double quench . One on either side of the valves. that and the closed style chamber really helps combat the knock with higher compression ratio's both static and dynamic and are limp wristed low octane fairy fuels cheap americans like to burn in their hot rods now days. one final thing with a wedge style chamber and a tight quench you have to be careful about excessive "Rock" and the skirt thrusting moment on the skirt @ TDC. because the quench is perpendicular to the Wrist Pin. In the modern Hemi the quench pads are directly over the Pinboss Towers of the piston. so the load is carried equally and parallel with the Pin
An interesting video. One of the other limiting factors to increased engine power is the propeller size. One of the post war Spitfires used for high altitude recon had such a large prop it had to take of and land on all three wheels. Lifting the tail risked grounding the large prop. Also the Avro Shackleton had to use contra rotating props as the under carriage was not long enough to accommodate a single prop on the Griffons.
That elevator concept has made its way to the US. I’ve been on elevators at certain hotels here that operate on the same principle. I really like your videos!
Thanks for sharing such an excellent video on the super prop fighters! With hindsight those very powerful engines were were simply too complicated and required far more hours of development for some more horsepower leading to the demise of piston engined airplanes. In comparison the jet engines was much more easy to obtain more trust. I'm not an expert with maths or related topics but the development of the jet airplanes was on the way!Great going 👍👍
Yet another extraordinarily informative video as always Greg. The Super Props would be interesting machines to see in action, all the power making them monsters in action.
If you have noticed modern versions of superprops are reemerging again on some of newest versions of transport aircraft. The latest C130 variants are sporting I believe 6 paddle blade props, and performance is up.
Makes me want to know more about the development of the Tu-95.
I love your channel. You approach things differently than others. You get deep with out getting too technical. Thank you.
Greetings, Greg!
One beautiful day, the elevators in my employer's building substituted floor buttons outside for the call buttons. From that day on something very amusing started happening sometimes. Either I entered the elevator to go to my job and finished in another floor, because i didn't press the floor button outside, or I entered the elevator on my building and took a while staring at the walls and asking myself why the elevator didn't start, because, of course, i didn't press the floor button inside. Or the other way around. Either way, I felt very silly. Happy the elevators are not 737MAX.
Thanks for that. In contrast to the Fw 190, the XP-72 fan rotated at the same speed as the propeller. The cooling fan for R-4360 in the XF-12 was a two speed, gear-driven unit built by Curtiss Electric, but that is a story for another time.
Looking forward to this as the stuff US aviation got up to in the short period of time between the end of WW2 and the adoption of jets is fascinating. Though speaking of jets, would you consider doing a few videos detailing the rapid development of early jet planes during the late 40s to early 50s? The rate at which the USN went through new fighters in particular was always an area of interest for me.
What Brian said.
Yeah I'm interested too, I have an Uncle who was a Carrier pilot and fighter ace who also flew the first FJ1 Fury and early Sabres from North American Aircraft. The FJ1 was an interesting adaptation of the P(F)-51's aerodynamics as NAA sought to enter the jet age with an post WWII carrier fighter jet. Grumman beat them with their F9F Panther.
Another great video Greg. There were quite a few wonderful propeller driven aircraft that were just too late to see action for WW2. So there's plenty of room for more videos on the topic.
Love the p.s. at the end with the elevators at the Sicilian hotel and of course the reference to Italian cars. Brilliant! Keep up the great work. Ciao.
my favorite post-war prop has to be the De Havilland hornet
Ahh, a man of culture I see :)
Marvelous choice!
I always assume that plane is the very definition of “ engine failure on take off = disaster”
One of, if not the most prey twin engine fighter!
@@jonathangriffiths2499 Good job the Merlin was pretty reliable. Any twin engine plane at high speed on takeoff with engine failure tends to swing.
The elevators in EAST Miami worked by keycards only from the ground floor to the guest floors, and the elevators were all lettered, and you tapped your keycard then selected the floor you wanted to access and it assigned an elevator letter and you got on. It was a very efficient design.
One can adjust to the differences in elevators, roads, and cars, but the countries that give you a bare hole in the floor instead of a toilet can set you back on your heels.
Bon mot!
Holy merde, Bat Man, well said..
An unintentional ( maybe) pun there. “....set you back on your heels. How else can you take a dump in a hole in the floor? Lol
That's the way we used to do it all the time.
@@stephenanderle5422 still the best way to do it, the way Mother Nature intended. It's just much harder to participate in a zoom call at the same time.
*The sound those engines give off...there is nothing like it....I was standing outside work 5 years ago....when all of a sudden I hear this marvellous sound overhead that I've only heard on documentary's.....a B-17!! My jaw just dropped....where I live we don't get ANY airshows... to see a B-17 flying is quite the sight!*
*Then I hear.. for a mere 600 CAD $ I could of gone for a ride!! Found out too late and they were all booked....hopefully they come back one day :/*
Greg, I love you. I've been waiting for this video forever. Thank you so much
Very nice video. Here is a little more history regarding the Republic XP-69 and the Republic XP-72 you may have not been aware of. The Republic XP-69 was to feature an Aero Products Contra Rotating Propeller, which did arrive in 1942 at the Republic factory in Buffalo, New York. It was to be powered by a Wright R-2160 water cooled radial engine producing 2,500 horsepower. Its 42 cylinders were arranged in six rows each of seven cylinders with a displacement of 2,160 cubic inches. Unfortunately, Wright failed to provide a reliable enough running engine for testing due to the engines complexity and it suffered from overheating problems so this engine program was eventually cancelled. Another factor was that Wright found themselves more commited to developing the R-3350 Cyclone engines for the B-29 Superfortress which was given top priority and they simply didn't have the resources necessary to fully develop a new engine design and produce it in greater numbers. A three quarter mock-up of the XP-69 was inspected in June 1942, but by May 11, 1943, because of Wright's failure to produce the R-2160 water cooled radial engine, the USAAF decided the Republic XP-72 would fulfill their requirements and the XP-69 was cancelled. The most powerful piston engine to reach production in any country during WWII was the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major providing 3,500 horsepower. Designed by Leonard "Luke" Hobbs, the R-4360 featured four rows each of 7 cylinders providing 28 cylinders total. The cylinders themselves were arranged in a carefully coordinated corkscrew concept as a means to eliminate excessive cooling, which led to the engine's nickname, "the corncob." Displacement of the Wasp Major was 4,360 cubic inches of swept volume. Design studies for what was to become the XP-72 began in July 1941, barely two months after the XP-47B first flew. By June 18, 1943, the USAAF felt the prospects of the new design was worthy of a development contract and ordered two prototypes as XP-72's. When the first XP-72 was flown on February 2, 1944, it had much of the appearance of the P-47, differing mainly in the more aerodynamic slimmer nose that was created when the supercharger intake was moved back to the wing. The big 28 cylinder R-4360-13 experimental engine was housed in a tight fitting engine cowling and cooled by a fan located behind the propeller spinner. The first stage supercharger was located inside the fuselage rear behind the cockpit while the second stage supercharger was mounted to the rear of the engine. Both were connected together by a long driveshaft that ran underneath the cockpit, connected by fluid couplings. Features that proved advantagous on the P-47 Thunderbolt were retained on the XP-72. These included the teardrop shaped bubble top canopy and compressability recovery flaps for slowing the fighter as it approached the speed of sound in a dive. The first XP-72, S N. 43-36598, was fitted with a conventional Hamilton Standard 4-bladed propeller. The second XP-72, S.N. 43-36599, was delivered with an Aero Products Conta Rotating Propeller that measured 13 1/2 feet in diameter. The contra-prop was originally intended to be used on the XP-69, but Republic engineers decided to use it on the second XP-72 prototype instead. During flight testing, both XP-72's demonstrated outstanding performance characteristics and a contract for 100 P-72's was approved by the USAAF. The top speed of the XP-72's was estimated to be 504 mph although there were no flights made above 490 mph for fear the experimental R-4360 engine would catch on fire. As it turned out, the second XP-72 did catch on fire at 25,000 feet and the test pilot put the plane in a dive, which extinguished the fire. Flying the plane dead stick with two monster contra-props still spinning up front, the test pilot made a spectacular belly landing at a USAAF Base in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The second XP-72 was never repaired and it was eventually donated to the Boy Scouts of America where it was used as a static trainer for the Air Scouts. The production P-72's was to feature a new General Electric two stage, two speed centrifugal blower supercharger unit that measured nearly 5 feet in diameter and was to be fitted to the tail section. Top speed of the P-72 production models was 540 mph, which would have made it the fastest piston powered fighter plane of WWII. It was intended to use the planes as V-1 Buzz Bomb interceptors because of the plane's ability to rapidly accelerate to 490 mph at 25,000 feet. When the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star arrived in England in 1944, the USAAF quickly realized the Shooting Star's performance overshadowed the P-72's performance and there was more of a need for long-ranging bomber escort fighters, so the order for 100 P-72's was cancelled. The first XP-72 was scrapped shortly afterwards.
@jimfinlaw4537 The question is what eventually became of the second XP-72 prototype when the Boy Scouts were done with it. Was it sold for scrap, used as a fire training aircraft like so many other odd types, or buried in a local landfill? It would be worth finding out what happened to it, or if there is anyone around who may know. Some of the few F2Gs ended up on fire dumps unfortunately but parts were rescued.
@@FiveCentsPlease Not sure where it ended up at after the Boy Scouts. No one seems to know, but I imagine it was eventually scrapped. A good friend of mine who was an aircraft broker had a Goodyear F2G2 Super Corsair. He flew it in an air show back in the 1980's. When he got the fuel bill for it, he just about cried because that R-4360 engine burns fuel fast and he ended up with over 10k fuel bill. He sold that plane to a private collector shortly afterwards. I believe its now flying for the Red Bull Team if I'm not mistaken.
On the subject of the engine-driven cooling fan, I believe the Mitsubishi J2M Raiden used one too.
Didn't the Centaurus Tempest have an engine driven cooling fan?
I remember when we first got the Harrier, AV-A in the Marine Corps. The Pegasus engine was originally rated for 250 HOURS of flight time! Major Groan I got expert on changing engines, and I was the Electrician! This required tasking off the entire, one piece wing. With time, I was head of a six man team that could complete the job in one 20 hour marathon go.... I was so proud. Yep, same 6 guys, 20 hours.
I had a friend in the elevator business.. it was very up and down.
Sorry ..I simply couldn't resist.
i see whats going on here
Your joke is wrong on multiple levels.
I'm actually scared of elevators, I'm taking steps to avoid them now.
Or perhaps your mind got "stuck between floors" while conjuring that response. Let's hope you don't fall down that "shaft" in the future. I hope this joke didn't push any of your buttons.
[flips through the comment section]
[keeps scrolling]
[sees this comment]
[almost spits his coffee everywhere]
[thinks to himself] "well played sir, well played indeed"
Looking forward to an explanation of sleeve valve engines I can understand. You have that ability and it is much appreciated. Thank you.
Nice. This will be good. You have a great insight into this stuff.
Awaiting the sleeve valve engine video. I think I remember you once mentioned they would have been the way to go if it weren't for jet engines. Always thought the same. And so did Sir Harry Ricardo :)
Sir Harry Ricardo was probably right.
"Once you understand them the designs make a lot of sense." Sort of like engineering in-jokes.
We do it all the time. You should have heard the conversation the day I designed a “nut bar” for a new design I was working on.
No. There are designs that do not make sense once you understand them. There is a world of badly engineered crap around.
@@thomasfink2385, there is that, but all professions--even engineers--are entitled to a kindly, humorous laugh at the expense of their clients--and their competitors.
@@abchaplin You are right. But this crap makes me angry.
@@thomasfink2385 I would say about 87% of everything out there is "designed" like crap in some way shape or form.
Design starts with philosophy, and philosophy is practically lacking in engineering, anymore.
AWESOME video covering my FAVORITE family of piston engines! I learned a LOT from this video, great work!
This one really shines a bright light on the transition period from peak prop designs to the early jet age 👍👍
Is it true that in the US it is considered a very nice gesture to buy someone lunch?
I read books about german planes almost 20 years ago. Ta152, FW187, Do335 and such. When an era comes to an end it´s technology excels within it´s era so that it can be called high tech from that era perspective. While the new era and tech already starts walking tall. Just take a look at the last steam engine locomotives for another example.
I always wondered what the english and americans fiddled with piston engined fighters at the end of the era. But I have to much excuses why I was not getting into it.
Now Greg arrives on the scene with this content. Im so excited already and Im only 7 minutes into the video. WOW!!! -Thank you Greg.
If we ever should meet, I would like and enjoy to buy you lunch. :-)
PS: And I cant wait to learn about the Thypoon and Tempest engines. ;-) With their turny disc valve thingies.
Yeah, the second floor of a building being called floor "1" threw me off for a bit when I was stationed in Germany.
Enjoyable romp through the American incubators. I'd love to see a follow-on with commentary from UK, Russia, and the Axis. Kyuushuu J7W Shinden always fascinated, as has the Ambrosini SS.4 Pfeil
. (Which is one obvious engine configuration missing from the list of options sketched out for the P-38, btw.) Sure, these weren't production fighters but the Shinden had a couple flights, and the Pfeil may have fought.
Will there be a discussion about "hemi power" of the 16 cylinder variety ? : )
Yes, and how it ties in to the modern Chrysler products.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Sweeeeet.
@@The_Bermuda_Nonagon
The Pratt&Whitney R2800 along with most of the other US aircraft engines at the time already had Hemi combustion chambers.
In 1910 Elbert J Hall of the Hall-Scott Motor Car Company (railroad cars not automobile cars) designed an overhead cam Hemi engine and later on along with an engineer from Packard was a part of designing the Liberty Aircraft Engine.
Even though most people think that Chrysler pioneered the Hemi engine in all reality they were one of the last in line to make them, even for vehicles.
Harley Davidson had a mass produced Hemi engine with the Knucklehead EL 61 ci engine in 1936, Packard, Duesenberg, Cord and many other vehicle manufacturers already had Hemi engines in production years before Chrysler did, they didn't really get into Hemi's until they were working on aircraft engines for the government during the war.
As Greg pointed out the new Chrysler Hemi's aren't true Hemi engines, they have closed "bathtub" style chambers and run flat top pistons with a squish area as a result, it's much more of an efficient combustion chamber than a real Hemi, Harley Davidson did basically the same thing in 1984 when they released the Evolution engine although it's not a bathtub style chamber it's a "D" style chamber, but they did change to a bathtub style for the Twin Cam engine in 1999.
The fact is a true Hemi style combustion chamber is very inefficient in a normally aspirated engine, they work well in an engine that's highly boosted running a flat top piston because then you have a large combustion chamber volume that's packed full by supercharging, but normally aspirated with a big dome on the piston sticking up into the dished out head of a Hemi causes all kinds of problems with flame propagation and the flame front having to travel around and crawl over the pistons dome, it turns the entire combustion chamber into a huge detonation trap, super high compression pistons for Hemi's like that usually have a "flame notch" in the top of the piston to minimalize as much of the problem as possible, another thing that aids with that problem is the addition of a second spark plug in the combustion chamber on the other side of the pistons dome, if the engine design allows for it those help quite a bit.
@@dukecraig2402 very interesting info as I have little knowledge about the HEMI...!
@@paoloviti6156
The biggest reason for creating the Hemi type combustion chamber is valve area (size), if you draw a circle that represents the bore of an engine and then draw two circles inside of it to represent the intake and exhaust valves you can only make them so big until they run into each other and the cylinder wall, by "canting" the valves at an angle you can make them much larger than if they're flat, the dishing out of the combustion chamber basically just follows suit with the canted valves.
The reason that the infamous 426 ci Chrysler "Elephant" Hemi engine made the power it did wasn't so much it's Hemi design as much as the fact that it was pumped up pretty good from the factory in the first place, it had a solid lifter cam in it along with high compression that could run a decent amount of timing advance on the gas of that era, in other words they already had the rubber band wound up pretty tight from the factory.
Chevy released a version of the 427 engine around 69 or 70 that had a solid lifter cam and other race goodies in it that made more power per ci than the 426 Chrysler Hemi did, the Hemi really shines through when it's boosted to high levels for the reason I gave, with a flat top piston you wind up with a large volume combustion chamber that once packed full from forced induction gives you a lot of air/fuel to burn.
But normally aspirated it really isn't the engine people think it is, between the dome of the piston itself causing problems that need to be overcome there's other issues like the valve pockets that need to be cut in it for valve clearance that are so big they create two detonation traps in the combustion chamber themselves, that's yet another thing that forces you to turn back the timing advance resulting in lost power.
I've been building Harley engines professionally for over 30 years, the pre Evolution engine's like the Shovelhead, Panhead, Knucklehead and Ironhead Sportster engines all are true hemispherical combustion chamber engines, anytime someone comes to me with one of the older ones and want's it built up for performance I tell them all the same thing, don't waste your money, because no matter what you do an Evolution or later engine with less modifications will beat it every time, do yourself a favor and just go for a reliable rebuild that'll last and enjoy it for what it is instead of winding up with something you've spent a lot of money on that's failure prone and will wind up getting beat anyways.
By closing the combustion chamber and creating a D type or bathtub style chamber and running a flat top piston you have what's called a "squish area", when the piston gets to the top of the compression stroke the air/fuel mixture is "squished" between the top of the piston and the corresponding area of the combustion chamber resulting in it being shot into the remaining area of the combustion chamber (that's known as the "quench area") and creating turbulence, this turbulence along with a smaller area for the flame to travel across as opposed to the larger area from one side of the combustion chamber to the other and over the large dome of a piston in a true Hemi is far more efficient.
18 years ago or so when Chrysler announced they were going to build Hemi engines again a friend of mine who's into cars came running into my bike shop all excited saying how they were bringing it back, I told him,
"There's no way it's going to be a true Hemi like the 426, I'll guarantee you that it'll have closed combustion chambers and flat top pistons".
He said "You think so? Why's that?"
I told him "Because there's no way they could get a true Hemi to pass modern emissions standards, there's just no way."
Lo and behold several months later he came walking into my shop with the latest car magazine from a subscription he has that had an article on the new motor that had a cutaway drawing of the engine and don't you know, flat top pistons and closed combustion chambers.
Like everyone else in the 80's I was cussing the government and the emission standards they forced the automobile manufacturers to deal with but 25 or so years ago I started realizing that it's actually a blessing, by forcing them to conform with those standards the engineers had to develop more efficient induction systems and combustion chambers, more efficiency=more power, that's why today soccer mom's are driving SUV's that can absolutely smoke the most legendary muscle cars from the 60's.
wow Greg - more incredible WW2 engineering, thank you for sharing this too
In Europa “Ground Floor” is on (erm) the ground. First floor means the first storey. So that’s why our tall buildings start with zero. It makes even more sense when there’s a basement.
Cool story!
@@bBersZ as a dad, I approve.
The ultimate configuration of R-4360 engine was planned to be a Variable Discharge Turbine. It got rid of the throttle completely, using only turbo wastegates and fuel control to adjust power output. They made it fly on a testbed aircraft (B-50), but never made it work properly without access to electronics.
Anyway, as Greg said, piston engines were overtaken by jet development, Pratt & Whitney saw the writing on the wall and quickly shifted most of its resources and development capacity. Wright company kept investing in piston engines a bit longer, so they had their last word with a cheaper and highly optimized R-3350, but in the end we still fly on aircraft powered by P&W jets, while Wright engines are a history.
R-4360 is a very interesting engine. I highly recommend Graham's White book on the subject, it's written in a way that does not require a hard-core engineering background and covers all the engine development, construction and the aircraft in which it was used.
I remember being surprised when my instructor told me to flying slower required more power and not less. That was during my first lesson. And he wasn't kidding, as I got the slowed and got the flaps out to 40 it took considerably more rpms to keep above stall speed with the added drag.
Thanks again for your time ,love airplanes like motorcycles
Can't wait for the sleeve valve engine video.
I enjoy your videos and commentary. I would like to add a comment about the thermodynamic advantages of the jet engine. The piston engines (largely Otto cycle) max out at between 15-25% efficiency of fuel energy to power. The Brayton cycle, which is involved in modern commercial jetliners, is roughly 70% efficient by the same metric. It was probably much lower in the early days, but no one can cheat thermodynamics, we can just see how far we can.
When two propellers are on the same shaft the more correct term is "Contra Rotating" but very interesting subject.
Interesting that in world-class precision aerobatics RC competition, (Pattern...) the Contra Rotating props have a particular advantage at the higher competition levels since they largely eliminate spiral propwash on your rudder at all speeds. You can back off that right rudder correction at low speed and certain angles of attack. Fantastic prop braking as well on maneuver downlines... and, it sounds totally awesome!!
@@Mike-eq4ky I would love to see a video of the RC Contra Rotating prop.
@@25mitchel you can add me to wanting to see that too!
@@julianneale6128 Thanks
Greg, I really enjoyed your video. However, you forgot to mention Republic’s XF-84H prop airplane which was a converted F-84 Jet. Republic only built two prototypes in 1955, one of which is now at the USAF museum in Dayton, OH. I have no information about the 2nd prototype aircraft. However, I do remember seeing this model which was on a static display at the Bakersfield Airport in 1985 when I was on TDY in California. The USAF museum received this plane during the 1990’s. The old pamphlet that I seemed to have misplaced somewhere, which was claimed by Republic, that this plane could fly at 670 mph. However, the USAF museum disputes those figures. That testing program with Republic was shut down in 1956. Flight engineers and ground crews were sickened by the noise the supersonic props created which could be heard 20 miles away. I believe another crewman or engineer was also injured by shockwaves the prop-wash caused. No USAF test pilot ever flew these aircraft. Only two civilian test pilots flew these, with one quitting after his second flight in it at Edwards AFB.
These still can't compare to the Bob semple
Thank you , may I say you have a great voice for narration , on a fascinating subject Super Props . Wales UK.
I’d love to see a video on early jet engines. Why were the British jet engines so powerful and more efficient than the 004 and bmw 003? Of course they had to cut metal usage severely but was that really the factor that made them so problematic? Or was it just their design?
@Glenn Quagmire guess what, the British did have the Meteor. So if you're accusing SB of something, better not skip history class. Kinda sad
@Glenn Quagmire it's a 5 Ton plane with significantly higher wing loading and lower thrust. How would it fly circles around anything? Magic? It was a decent plane but not something stellar
Nice. My dad was design engineer with Mc/D during war and after. He told me once that they were always laying down an new jet every few months...
This elevator structure is used in large hotels in my town here...Vancouver, B.C. it is more efficient.
The XP-72 was amazing to see in person, got to see it that first appearance at KOSH. It’s hard to believe how few parts it actually shared with the 51.
Love the trivia at the end.....
what awesome videos, so much new and different information, got to love the XP72 w contra props, beautiful looking beast. Would have been great to see one flying at Reno every year with a super corsair!
I've heard it several times now and it still hasn't sunk in for me yet that republic's records were purged.
Great work, Greg, love the detail and analysis. It would have been interesting if prop planes had developed another ten years before jets came to the fore. I think Goodyear was working on a super Corsair toward the end of the war. Things would have been interesting, and folks would have come up with some amazing solutions. Thanks for the hard work and insights.
Yes they were. The Goodyear F2G Corsair, often referred to as the "Super Corsair", is a development by the Goodyear Aircraft Company of the Vought F4U Corsair fighter aircraft. The F2G was intended as a low-altitude interceptor and was equipped with a 28-cylinder, four-row Pratt & Whitney R-4360 air-cooled radial engine. Such a fighter was first conceived in 1939, when Pratt & Whitney first proposed the immense, 3,000 hp (2,200 kW) R-4360,[1] and design work began in early 1944.
Reminds me of the Martin Baker MB 5, which despite being considered "outstanding", also was developed too late to enter production.
What a machine!
Hi Greg. Love your content.
About the elevators, they have that new system in many elevators in downtown Toronto, Canada. It's more efficient, especially in busy office towers.