Warbird Information Exchange

FAH619,

the ID plate is the Manufacturer's/makers plate and as advised by Jase above is on the nose casing of the Wasp and is a brass rectangular plate riveted or screwed all four corners, it is pre-"printed with embossed details with final engine "specifics" punch "stamped" into the plate, it is therefore fitted by Pratt and Whitney in their factory long before allocation to an aricraft, and never carries any information relating to the aircraft airframe.


The disc tag as described in the EA New Britain Island site that you are chasing has information that appears to be describing the engine type and possibly carrying the aircrafts serial number rather than the engine serial number.

I therefore think it is either a lockheed aircraft assembly tag which in that case may still exist in place on other Lockheed twins from the 10 - 12 family if the engine changes havent been to severe or extensive,

Alternatively the tag may be a workshop tag fitted at the time the aircraft crashed, and was used to keep track of the engine (or engine mount) in its repair, to identify which engine type and which airframe it was to go back onto??

of interest however to close off a dead end would be to enquire with Pratt and Whitney if a Wasp or that apparant serial number was ever built, and to whom it was delivered or sold, if those records exist, I am aware the RAAF historical Records group at Canberra hold the history cards for all Australian built Wirraways which also lits the original and subsequent Wasps fitted to them in service, (including the wasp serial number) however only a few of these were American P&W built as we locally produced Wasps in Australia for the Wirraway at CAC (Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, and they were independantyly numbered to any P&W numbering system.

680 R 1340s S3H1G were built by CAC from 1939 to 1943, but over that time CAC commenced building 870 twin row R1830 S1C3-G at the same plant from 1941 to 1954, (For Boomerangs & Beauforts) and later licence built 108 packard RR Merlin mk 102 (Lincolns and mustangs?) from 1945 - 1952, this would imply the CAC serial number of a 600hp Single row wasp could be worst case in the range of #1 to #1658, assuming CAC started at #1 for the very first engine built not #10001.

However exploration of the typical CAC Wasp serial numbers, and then specific search of the RAAF records if warranted, would allow a RAAF Wirraway wreck to added or removed from the list of answers to the riddle of New Britain??


regards

Mark Pilkington