Good Morning there Iris7. It is truly amazing the number of aircraft that used the good ol P&W R-2800.
Going out on a limb I would have to say it was by far the most important aircraft engine that the Americans had for WW-II. The R-2800 would probably give the Rolls-Royce Merlin a fair run for the money as best Allied Engine in WW-II as well.
A while back on the Foxhole I tried to ist all of the aircraft that used the R-2800. A couple that I recall off hand were the Curtis C-46 Commando and the Douglas A-26 Invader.
Also the Douglass DC-6 airliner used R-2800s a major factor that has contributed to the longevity of the DC-6.
Here's a FG-2 for you taken ar Oshkosh this year I think. If you need an excuse to go to the Reno air races in September here ya go :-)
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Wow, fantastic. Would not that machine have been handy in 1942?
You must be about the only guy in the world who can name the FG-2 right off.
Merlin is so compact, so tiny, made the Spitfire possible. There is one on display (well, was, and I hope still is) at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry inside a plastic case. You can darn near wrap your arms around it. Turn around and there are three sectioned R-2800s. The Big Iron. Try to wrap your arms around one of those babies.
Spitfire was a defense interceptor, very good one in it's day. Tiny little machine, dainty, beautiful curves. There is one hanging from the ceiling next to the Merlin. Almost no range or room for guns though. Put a hole in the radiator or a round in the engine and crash.
Gabreski's P-47 flew him back from Germany with a cylinder blown clean off, gone completely, by a Bf109's cannon. Try that with a Merlin.
O.K., O.K., the Merlin was cool. Pretty cool, anyway. Somebody wants to drop one off in the garage on a stand with some tools and parts I won't tell him to get lost.
Some photos from Wright - Pat:
R-2800
Engine for the Vought SLAM, known as PLUTO. Some background:
"In the mid-1950s, nuclear ramjet powerplants for cruise missiles were studied, and in January 1957 the development of such a weapon system was officially initiated as Project Pluto.
The initial reactor prototype was called TORY-IIA and ran for the first time in May 1961. TORY-IIA was a proof-of-concept powerplant not intended for an actual flight-rated ramjet, and was followed by the larger and more powerful TORY-IIC. The latter was run-up on the ground to full power on 20 May 1964. The TORY-IIC consisted of 465000 tightly packed small fuel rods of hexagonal section, with about 27000 air-flow channels between them to heat the incoming high-pressure airflow. For the ground tests, the airflow was provided by a huge reservoir of compressed air, and TORY-IIC produced a thrust of about 170 kN (38000 lb) at a simulated airspeed of Mach 2.8."
A bit more modern is this 20,000,000 watt generator weighing 3,000 pounds. The engine to drive it would have had about thirty thousand horsepower, folks. SDI stuff, beam weapon maybe.
