Warbird Information Exchange

Hi!

After reading the latest Warbird Digest, an interrogation sprung up in my mind : how come P-51 seem to suffer a heck lot of engine failures?

And why do we never hear about Spits having the same troubles?

I know I read that during the war, RAF/RCAF crews flying Packard-engined British plane complained from shabby reliability.

Can anyone provide infos on that?

Also, how reliable are R-1820-86As?? Just curious, ya know...

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Olivier Lacombe -- Harvard Mk.4 C-GBQB

From what I've heard the Commonwealth complaints about the Packard Merlins were more a case of Not Invented Here syndrome than any real problem with the Packard Engines.

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Dan Johnson

Seems like I remember reading that much of the early Merlin Mustang problems had to do with the American made spark plugs. When replaced with British made, they worked better.

Dan

There seems to be a high engine failure rate among the T-28 community compared to the T-6 community- assuming they both have gas in the tanks. That's just my observation, nothing scientific! My perception is that the Wright engines were a little more highly strung than the Pratts (which were models of reliability).

Here are the accidents attributed to engine failures (not due to fuel starvation) for T-28's and T-6's over the past 5 years:

http://www2.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20040713X00961&key=1 T-28
http://www2.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20040610X00782&key=1 T-28
http://www2.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20031110X01880&key=1 T-28
http://www2.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20020405X00470&key=1 T-6
http://www2.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001212X20778&key=1 T-28
http://www2.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001212X20639&key=1 T-28

This doesn't include engine failures that led to a safe landing though, but I would be very surprised if substantially more T-6's made it to a safe landing after an engine failure than did T-28's.

Of course if you look into the accident records there were numerous T-6 accidents due to ground loops and no groundloops for T-28's, nor were there any nose gear collapses on T-6's due to shimmy damper failures...

There were also two or three Mustang crashes during this same period due to coolant loss.

I'm not that versed in Mustang/Spitfire/Merlinology, but,I have a couple of simplistic answers.
Wartime
1. Early in the airwar in europe, the P-38's had a lot of problems due to the use of bad gas and low octane gas by those who didn't know any better. That might have been a factor with the P51's also.
2. The Mustang can and did stay airborne at heck of a lot longer than the Spitfire, I can't recall ranges, but I think it was triple or quadruple the Spitfire. The longer you're in the air at one time, the more likely a failure will happen, and it's almost always going to be a coolant failure or overheating problem.

Modern time
1.There are way more operational P51's than Spitfires.
2.It's my impression that the bulk of the flying Spitfires are owned by organizations and museums, mostly in England and Canada,making their use less frequent and their users,pilots and crews, a more liable bunch of folks. The pilots are likely to be high time in type, and same with the crews. The bulk of P51's (I'm absolutely not dissing the private owners) are owned by individuals, are flown more frequently, and have a greater variety in pilots, crews, and maintenance procedures. The Mustang I see the most, is flown weekly, in California (good weather most of the year), making the likelyhood of an incident involving it, much more likely than a BoB or Duxford aircraft (those might be the same, if I'm wrong please correct me). The guy who owns that plane has a Spitfire coming, hopefully by this fall, I'll ask him his impression of this question.

T6's, T28's, R 1820's...
I agree with everything BDK said. Here's a couple of other considerations...
1. T6's have been in civilian hands since the 1940's. I wouldn't be to far off base saying that every flying T6/SNJ/Harvard has been through a major (non US military) overhaul, or complete restoration, or multiple restorations and overhauls. The longer it's in the system, the less likely a failure.
2. The bulk of the big engine T28's became available in the 1980's and after. I would say that a significant percentage of them have not been actually restored, or majored. A paint job and cockpit detailing is not a restoration. It's nice, just not restored. The T28B I regularly fly in is completely unrestored. It last major was in 1982 and it performed by the US Navy. The owner likes to say that the fingerprints and the dirt off of the boots of the last ensign who flew the plane, are still in it. As for restorations, I guess the critical time would be the first flight, and the 20 or so hours after it. This is with any aircraft. All of these planes are coming up on that time. Remember, the longer it's in the system, the less likelihood of a failure.
3. I haven't flown in a T6. I've looked in them and around them. By the looks of it, the T28 is another order of complexity and power. Overboost, underboost, It's cold hearted, it takes about a zillion years to get oil temp up, and then hot/warm starting it can be brutal, take forever, and use up the battery, a go round on a short final can be a bitch.
Some of these things may be true with the T6 also, but I think it's pretty easy to damage an R1820 in a T28, through carelessness. For every airborne engine out , there's probably ten guys replacing two or three cylinders on an annual.

Every T28 owner I've talked with has said, when something goes, it goes big, most of them had whatever went go on the ground, but I know one guy who deadsticked a freshly restored T28 into stockton, another with a stuck prop govenor got it landed. The stock plane has a 200amp generator in it. The building I work in barely uses 200amps. My friend said that it let loose in his airplane during a runup, and basically slo blowed up the battery, when all of the juice ran out, it melted the paint off of the bottom of the plane and almost started a fire.

If you haven't figured it out, I love T28's. I think any bad press about the plane, mostly involves the things I've said above. Comparing T6's and T28's and their engines, is like comparing appl....I'm not going to say it...

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DEEP THOUGHTS BY KIDS:
"If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the looting started. Age 15 "


Deep Thoughts,
Jack Handy

Whoa, very interesting replies folks!

That's what I was looking for!!

I'll have to ask my old man if he had any troubles with his Fennec when he had it. I was too young then to remember much of it, apart that it was big, noisy and oily, and that my mother would not be happy if I touched it and came back all greased up!

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Olivier Lacombe -- Harvard Mk.4 C-GBQB