Which country designed the best engines for WWII? - Page 11 - Aircraft of World War II

Elvis · 12-08-2008, 03:08 PM

Burmese Bandit,

That sounds like the old Chrysler "Multi-Bank" engine that was used in the early Sherman tanks.
5 Chrysler 6's all plugged into a central transmission.

BTW, I actually mentioned England as the builder of strange engines, but you're right, we've built a few ourselves.

Elvis

Elvis · 12-08-2008, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by red admiral

The W-block engine was the Napier Lion from the 1920s ranging from the 450hp Lion I to the 1320hp Lion VIID and a couple of turbosupercharged and intercooled engines in between.

The other one is the Napier Deltic, an 18 cylinder two stroke diesel for marine use. It was also widely used for locomotives

Theres also the Napier Nomad, one of the most efficient piston engines ever, and also one of the most complicated. It was a flat-12 diesel with sleeve valves with turbocompounding and an afterburner.

The Sabre is probably the ultimate aircraft piston engine having unparalleled power for a relatively small size and weight.

Thanks for clarifying the names of those engines. It's been a while since I even thought about those. Kinda surprised myself that I even remembered them.

I'm not familiar with the Napier Sabre.
How late in the war are we talking with this engine, and how widespread was (is?) its usage?

Elvis

red admiral · 12-08-2008, 06:08 PM

The Sabre was fairly widely used on the Hawker Typhoon and Hawker Tempest but failed to see any further use. It was first run in 1938 but didn't really become reliable until 1944. Napier was a small firm with old equipment that wasn't really up to the task of producing a complicated modern engine like the Sabre. The manufacturing quality was notoriously poor at first and this problem was compounded by poor maintenance (again because it was complicated). English Electric took over Napier in 1942 and had a bit of a clean out with an aim towards making the Sabre more reliable which they achieved by around 1944. Because Napier was a small company and all efforts were focused on making the Sabre reliable work on developed versions was very slow. A high altitude version with a 3-speed 2-stage supercharger was planned for high altitude fighters but discarded in EE's cleanup. There was never anything wrong with the design of the Sabre itself. It was compact and produced 2200-2400hp for the wartime versions. This was with low boost (+11lb and +13lb) on 100octane fuel.

In the late war/immediate postwar the Sabre was developed a bit further with the Mk VII as the last production version which found it's way onto the Hawker Fury. This produced 3500hp. The ultimate version only ran on the test bench and gave 5500hp at +45lb boost on 150PN (sleeve valves less prospensity for detonation). The same engine was run non stop for 175hours whilst giving 3750hp without failure. [This is from Setright and from historical Napier documents]

Elvis · 12-09-2008, 05:01 AM

Impressive.
Thanks.

Elvis

tomo pauk · 03-06-2009, 03:19 PM

Despite loving the R-2600 & R-2800, England gets my vote. RR and Bristol were really up to the task, with Napier suffering from stuff Red Admiral posted.

Bug_racer · 10-16-2009, 04:05 AM

I havent read through all the thread ,just most of it , but the best piston engine in my eyes was the db603 that was meant to go in the fw190V18U1 .

Intercooled , twin turbo (looks like sequential??) also running mw50 .
Ive read rumours it made up to 4000hp .
With the right fuel its possible for very short periods of time .
It was scrapped before the first test flight .

In a way its kinda unfair to compare everyone like this when Germany was spending more resources on Jet fighter technology than the others . Would be a better if the date was up to Jan 1 1943 when all 3 were more even with piston engine technology

Shortround6 · 10-20-2009, 02:14 PM

Anybody could draw up something on paper, it was getting it to work that was the trick.

followed by getting it to work for more than a few minutes

A Pratt & Whitney engineer named Frank Walker is supposed to have gotten an R-2800 to touch 3800HP in a test cell using 150in. Hg of intake pressure and LOTS of ADI. The engine survived but getting such power levels out of production engines for even a few minutes on a regular basis might be another story.

Sparbolt · 11-02-2009, 10:55 AM

I voted the US, we had the R-2800, the R-3350(once it's major teething problems were cured), the Packard built Merlins, the Allisons,(would have been a better motor had the Army not pulled it's teeth in early versions).These I see as the major standouts, many other aero-engines also.
Have to give credit to the British also, the original Merlin, and even Napier for their overly-engineered, overly-complicated contributions.(sleeve valved radials ???).
Also have to give credit to Junkers and BMW for their engines, wonder where they could have been had they our experience in metallurgy.............

View Poll Results: Which country designed the best aircraft engines for WWII?
England	57	38.00%
Germany	46	30.67%
United States	43	28.67%
Japan	1	0.67%
Russia	2	1.33%
Italy	0	0%
Spain	0	0%
France	0	0%
Poland	1	0.67%
Czechosloviaka	0	0%
Sweden	0	0%
Australia	0	0%
Canada	0	0%
Other:	0	0%
Voters: 150. You may not vote on this poll

03-06-2009, 03:19 PM	#155
tomo pauk Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 588	Despite loving the R-2600 & R-2800, England gets my vote. RR and Bristol were really up to the task, with Napier suffering from stuff Red Admiral posted. __________________

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12-08-2008, 03:08 PM	#151
Elvis Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Little Norway, U.S.A. Posts: 811	Burmese Bandit, That sounds like the old Chrysler "Multi-Bank" engine that was used in the early Sherman tanks. 5 Chrysler 6's all plugged into a central transmission. BTW, I actually mentioned England as the builder of strange engines, but you're right, we've built a few ourselves. Elvis

12-08-2008, 06:08 PM	#153
red admiral Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 374	The Sabre was fairly widely used on the Hawker Typhoon and Hawker Tempest but failed to see any further use. It was first run in 1938 but didn't really become reliable until 1944. Napier was a small firm with old equipment that wasn't really up to the task of producing a complicated modern engine like the Sabre. The manufacturing quality was notoriously poor at first and this problem was compounded by poor maintenance (again because it was complicated). English Electric took over Napier in 1942 and had a bit of a clean out with an aim towards making the Sabre more reliable which they achieved by around 1944. Because Napier was a small company and all efforts were focused on making the Sabre reliable work on developed versions was very slow. A high altitude version with a 3-speed 2-stage supercharger was planned for high altitude fighters but discarded in EE's cleanup. There was never anything wrong with the design of the Sabre itself. It was compact and produced 2200-2400hp for the wartime versions. This was with low boost (+11lb and +13lb) on 100octane fuel. In the late war/immediate postwar the Sabre was developed a bit further with the Mk VII as the last production version which found it's way onto the Hawker Fury. This produced 3500hp. The ultimate version only ran on the test bench and gave 5500hp at +45lb boost on 150PN (sleeve valves less prospensity for detonation). The same engine was run non stop for 175hours whilst giving 3750hp without failure. [This is from Setright and from historical Napier documents]

12-09-2008, 05:01 AM	#154
Elvis Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Little Norway, U.S.A. Posts: 811	Impressive. Thanks. Elvis

10-16-2009, 04:05 AM	#156
Bug_racer Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Sydney Posts: 55	I havent read through all the thread ,just most of it , but the best piston engine in my eyes was the db603 that was meant to go in the fw190V18U1 . Intercooled , twin turbo (looks like sequential??) also running mw50 . Ive read rumours it made up to 4000hp . With the right fuel its possible for very short periods of time . It was scrapped before the first test flight . In a way its kinda unfair to compare everyone like this when Germany was spending more resources on Jet fighter technology than the others . Would be a better if the date was up to Jan 1 1943 when all 3 were more even with piston engine technology

10-20-2009, 02:14 PM	#157
Shortround6 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 502	Anybody could draw up something on paper, it was getting it to work that was the trick. followed by getting it to work for more than a few minutes A Pratt & Whitney engineer named Frank Walker is supposed to have gotten an R-2800 to touch 3800HP in a test cell using 150in. Hg of intake pressure and LOTS of ADI. The engine survived but getting such power levels out of production engines for even a few minutes on a regular basis might be another story.

11-02-2009, 10:55 AM	#158
Sparbolt Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 11	I voted the US, we had the R-2800, the R-3350(once it's major teething problems were cured), the Packard built Merlins, the Allisons,(would have been a better motor had the Army not pulled it's teeth in early versions).These I see as the major standouts, many other aero-engines also. Have to give credit to the British also, the original Merlin, and even Napier for their overly-engineered, overly-complicated contributions.(sleeve valved radials ???). Also have to give credit to Junkers and BMW for their engines, wonder where they could have been had they our experience in metallurgy.............