Excalibur
Sun Mar 20, 2011 10:41 pm
I see Courtesy is listing Jim Read's Excalibur as being sold. Does anybody know where she's going/went?
http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/Current ... 0P-51D.htm
http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/Current ... 0P-51D.htm
Re: Excalibur
Mon Mar 21, 2011 5:28 am
Prague.
Re: Excalibur
Mon Mar 21, 2011 8:52 pm
Thanks Vlado!
Re: Excalibur
Tue Mar 22, 2011 7:43 am
What are the "transport heads" version of the cylinder heads? What useage were they intended for, and what improvements did they consist of? How did they get their name? 
Was this a WWII modification or post-war?
Was this a WWII modification or post-war?
Re: Excalibur
Tue Mar 22, 2011 9:46 am
Edward Sheetmetalhands wrote:What are the "transport heads" version of the cylinder heads? What useage were they intended for, and what improvements did they consist of? How did they get their name?
They would be heads off Merlins used in post-war transports such as the Canadair North Star/Argonaut.
AFAIK they were designed to be more reliable and have a much longer life than the standard heads for a Merlin in a fighter since they would usually be used at lower RPMs. (someone correct me if I'm wrong)
Re: Excalibur
Tue Mar 22, 2011 1:15 pm
From what I can remember, transport series engines ran at cruise power settings pretty close to wartime engine METO settings. The transport series Merlins were built to run on airliners and airliner types, and for longer hours between overhauls. For a while, the lowest time Merlin we had around the shop for one of our customers, had just under 13,500 hours total time.