For the Love of Radials.

[Garfly]

 

 

 

[facthunter]

There's nothing quite like them. Some of them sound like Popcorn due to "unusual" exhaust plumbing.. .nev

[onetrack]

This of course, is my favourite aircraft. The superb cabin with its rear bench seat, and the smell of top quality leather, just reeks of "Rolls Royce of the air".

Just the story of the restoration work on this machine by the Croydon Aircraft Co is worth a small book in itself - such as the owner of Croydon going into the forests of British Columbia and personally inspecting and selecting each Canadian tree, for the desired level of wood quality ....

 

http://captainbiff.com/blog/2012/09/winter-spring-2011-2012/#more-859

 

 

 

[facthunter]

It's VERY classic but the stagger  HAS to be all wrong. A lot of people  these days would find that aircraft a bit of a handful.. I'd hate to have to pay the cost of maintaining it. Nev

[Old Koreelah]

There was a Staggerwing under restoration at Mandeville, NZ in c.2012.

Red of course.

[onetrack]

I had a chat to the amiable Capt Biff about the Staggerwing when he pulled into Jandakot in 2009, IIRC. I asked him how he found the fuel consumption of the 450HP Wasp Junior, and he grimaced a bit, saying that the Staggerwing would do 200mph with ease, but if you opened the throttle wide, you had to open your wallet wide, too! He said economy cruise at 165mph was quite satisfactory, but it still chewed up 22 U.S. gallons/hr at that speed.

 

The Staggerwing layout certainly does look wrong, and according to the experts, the negative stagger doesn't do anything to improve drag (as it was supposed to) - but the pilots vision is apparently improved by the stagger.

I believe there were about 8 Staggerwings in Australia during WW2. It appears all but two have survived, some are still being restored.

 

Bill Harney repainted NC16S to its wartime colours and markings, for the 70th anniversay of D-Day, 2014.

 

https://www.airhistory.net/photo/305719/N16S/FT466

 

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by onetrack
correction ...

[turboplanner]

14 hours ago, facthunter said:

It's VERY classic but the stagger  HAS to be all wrong. A lot of people  these days would find that aircraft a bit of a handful.. I'd hate to have to pay the cost of maintaining it. Nev

It was first built in 1932, so has to be looked at in that era; they were the days where pilots would "spin in" so everything was a handfull and it was another 20 years or so until the flying cars - Cessna and Piper started building aircraft that were relaxing to fly.

Joe Drage had one in his museum in Wodonga - beautiful cabin, way ahead of its time, luxurious interior for the passenger.

Whatever the design reason it achieved 285 kts cruise (341 km/hr) with a ceiling of 25,000 feet  at a time when the Hume highway was dirt and most people cruised up it in wooden spoked boxes at 28 mph.

As much as it was fast, the takeoff distance was just 186 metres and landing distance 229 metres.

For its time it made an ideal transport for rich woolgrowers and their families, and the brylcreemed execitives of the day.

[Garfly]

3 hours ago, turboplanner said:

It was first built in 1932 ... and it was another 20 years or so until the flying cars

- Cessna and Piper started building aircraft that were relaxing to fly.

 

[Click pic for (a bit) higher rez]

[onetrack]

Cessna, "Family Car of the Air"! Don't you just love it! Nary a mention of flying training or flying costs!

 

I'm amazed at the number of Staggerwings sold in the 1930's and 1940's, considering their purchase and running costs. But I guess there's always been that group of extremely rich people for whom expenditure like that was pocket money.

 

I was also quite surprised at the number of people in this group who purchased high quality expensive aircraft during WW2, and who then specifically donated them to the War effort - even in Australia, several aircraft were donated by the wealthy.

[turboplanner]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

Cessna, "Family Car of the Air"! Don't you just love it! Nary a mention of flying training or flying costs!

 

I'm amazed at the number of Staggerwings sold in the 1930's and 1940's, considering their purchase and running costs. But I guess there's always been that group of extremely rich people for whom expenditure like that was pocket money.

 

I was also quite surprised at the number of people in this group who purchased high quality expensive aircraft during WW2, and who then specifically donated them to the War effort - even in Australia, several aircraft were donated by the wealthy.

In WWI Sidney Kidman was donating fighter aircraft on a regular basis along with other services.

 

Before WWII fuel was very cheap compared to today. Trucks had petrol engines and 1 - 2 mpg wasn't a problem for them, and in those years parts failures were usually repaired in local workshops. There's a book about a South Australia pilot in the 1920s who bought a plane, operating out of Glenelg and flew arund the State doing aerobatics shows followed by joy rides. and then repairing the aircraft and flying to the next show. On one occasion the engine seized on take off for a joy flight, so he got his tools from the showground, somewhere like Clare or Kapunda, pulled the seized cylinder off and borrowed a horse and cart to take it into town and the local blacksmith cast a new cylinder and piston, and turned them up and the pilot went back out top the paddock fitted them and he was on his way to the next show. Most of that engineering capacity was still around to about the 1960's.

[facthunter]

The AIRCRAFT were Commandeered by the government. You had no choice. Nev

[Yenn]

I thought that this was going to be about radials, instead it is Beech.

I flew the Fairchild Argus many years ago. A nice plane in my opinion, but I was only used to Cessna and Piper in those days. No steerable tailwheel, nor independent brakes, it taught you how to steer a taildragger. More important than fuel quantity seemed to be oil quantity. The instructor when I did the conversion asked me where i would land if we had an engine out, so I pointed down to a relatively clear area near the Warragamba Dam. He suggested it was not a good choice, it was the lion park. Not the lions who do the christmas cake.

[Old Koreelah]

3 hours ago, turboplanner said:

On one occasion the engine seized on take off for a joy flight, so he got his tools from the showground, somewhere like Clare or Kapunda, pulled the seized cylinder off and borrowed a horse and cart to take it into town and the local blacksmith cast a new cylinder and piston, and turned them up and the pilot went back out top the paddock fitted them and he was on his way to the next show. Most of that engineering capacity was still around to about the 1960's.

…and earlier. During the Peking to Paris car race one entrant had a total ignition failure in the middle of Siberia.

A professor at a nearby institution was called in. He knew nothing of cars or their engines, but figured out how the magneto worked and made them a new one.

[onetrack]

Quote

The AIRCRAFT were Commandeered by the government. You had no choice. Nev

That is true, for the aircraft that were already here and owned by civilians. The Govt did the same thing with near-new cars and trucks. That's why a lot of people joined up. If you had a new taxi or a new tip truck, and the military stopped you in the street and commandeered it on the spot (it happened, quite regularly, in 1940-41 in particular), you immediately had no income, so you joined up, to keep up your income.

 

But the aircraft I spoke of, were specifically purchased new, by the wealthy from aircraft factories in America, and upon arrival, they were immediately donated to the Govt for military use.

[turboplanner]

8 minutes ago, onetrack said:

But the aircraft I spoke of, were specifically purchased new, by the wealthy from aircraft factories in America, and upon arrival, they were immediately donated to the Govt for military use.

I was going to write up what Sid Kidman donated, but it would be too long, but he started with a donation of 700,000 pounds - millions today, and supplied a Battle Plane with his name on it, was matched by another person in another State, another one in the name of his wife, ran fundraisers to buy enough seed for the Belgian farmers to re-grass Belgium, and I think extended to a few tanks as well. 

[Old Koreelah]

My mum’s war diaries mention that the citizens of Taree proudly donated the money to buy a Spitfire; either 20,000 or 50,000 quid from memory.

[NT5224]

 I  must confess to have less love of radials than the original poster. 

 

I now fly behind a solid Lycoming after several in flight emergencies flying behind a rotec.  Looks pretty and sounds pretty but I was always too terrified by the looming shadow of  catastrophe to enjoy the experience.  Despite constant investigations by qualified technicians had three failures and partial failures in about 20 hours at one stage.

 

I'm too old for all that excitement!

 

Alan 

[facthunter]

Thread topic . Doesn't seem many have any love for /of Radials. It was never that easy to get exposure to them. 

  They have some unique features. The SOUND  (generally)and the smoke on starting and the need to know a few idiosynchratic features. A couple being you can hydraulic lock it and revving it when not loaded is a no no to a far greater extent than a flat or in line motor. The design lends itself to supercharging (Centrifugal) from the accessories drive case at the rear and to a sun and planetary reduction at the front usually about 2:1 reduction on motors over say 250HP. When  the motors are in cruise the big ends have little load on them. Can you work out why that is so? Nev

[facthunter]

I wouldn't use a Rotec as a good example  of a radial, though the effort to produce a "NEW" retro engine series was very commendable in my view. . Don't forget the RR Merlin never had a TBO over 650 hours and many countries didn't allow it on the Civil register due to the magneto drive for Both Magnetos being ONE skew gear. It also doesn't have roller followers on the OHC camshaft mechanism and occasionally scuffed on start up  if it had been sitting for a while.  Some low hours motors still have their uses. I've said often I'd fly something with a primitive motor anytime at the right airfield. It also depends a lot on WHO puts the motor together. Nev