[Iris7]

"Nothing sounds like a Radial engine."

I like their sound OK, but I just love their amazing parts. One thinks about how one would make the parts one is looking at in utter amazement. Pratt was a production and custom machine tool builder of very precise, huge, and specialized milling machines before they were a radial engine builder, so getting into radial manufacture was a natural step.

Those crankcases must have been a bear to make. Talk about specialized tooling! To do that again today would cost, dunno, couple hundred million? All the tooling is pretty much gone. Once the old parts are used up, that is the end of them. Sigh.

Saw a Pratt mill for sale on ebay recently, figure it is for working on radials. Ten feet high, twelve feet deep, and twenty five feet long. Just to give you an idea.

[SAMWolf]

I think the U.S. has lost a lot of tooling that would take a lot of time and money to restart. Seems a shame we've lost so much of our manufacturing base.