Merlin Rolls Royce and Offspring

Waterous Co in St Paul MN (fire plug mfg. and fire pumps) used the Packard engines on their test bench for pumps. After the war they bought several on surplus sale and kept them in storage just for future use. Friend worked ther and sait they never did use all the HP to test pump as no pmp they made could stand the HP for long at full revs.

A lot of old La France fire trucks from the fifties had the Lycoming Patent V-12 60 degree gas engines, real pigs to work on.  Not aircraft grade, heavy cast blocks, a lot of iron and steel for heavy truck use.

Edited by Coke-in-MN - 14 Oct 2010 at 7:55pm

The Navy liked the radial engine/ propeller combination for the carriers because they had better acceleration at low speeds, could take off from the old carriers a lot easier, and were much more reliable than the old jets.  Korea changed their minds as Corsairs weren't very good against MiGs and they finally had to change with the times.  Angled decks really helped a lot as a jet could bolter and go around a lot easier without running into a bunch of parked airplanes.  My first Division Chief was a plane captain on skyraiders in Vietnam, I wish I could have been a recip mech but they got rid of ADRs a few years before I enlisted.

Allisons were  put into the preproduction p51s.  They were however plauged with turbocharger problems at high altitudes and therefore the merlin was chosen to be put into the mustang.  The allison was also put into the p38's which where plagued with the same problems in the european theater but performed very well in the pacific due to hotter temps, japs flew at lower altitude, and the pacific theater gasoline was much higher quality.  It was also in P39 and P40s

The engine you saw was probably out of a skyraider, awesome planes.  The engine in that plane was a 3350, and although looks quite complicated to the eye, is very crude in a lot of ways.  Compare it to a napier sabre and you will see what I mean.  Because of its crudeness, many skyraiders made it back to ship with whole cylinders blown off and other damage that would have stopped the v12 liquid cooled engines in a matter of seconds.  Alot is lauded about the p51 but it was not the engine that made it, it was its aerodynamics.  If it was above you and had speed, it had the advantage.  Get a p51 down in the dirt and start turning it hard, and it was a lousy performer.  The big radials had the power to horse the airframe around in these kind of maneuvers.

Rick the allison was a completely different design, half the part count of a merlin, very very complicated engines did the british build. As Dave said, packard was awarded the license to produce the american merlin.  Allison was turbocharged where the merlin was supercharged. 

do you like the sound of a flat plane v8 such as a ferrari, lamborgini or formula 1 car?  Is so you will like the sound of a Ford GAA.  Its has a flat plane crank as well.  With straight pipes its a raspy roar.    

Allison had X24 prototypes in their Indy museum.   I think they got right to build the Merlin design as part of the wartime agreements.   

There was a V-8 ofspring called a Meteor that was used to power tanks and Antar tank transporters in the british army........

Does anyone know if there was a six cylinder little brother to the Merlin Rolls Royce used in the P51 Mustang?