The Aero Engine that Carried the First Nukes - Wright R-3350
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 พ.ค. 2023
- R-3350 - the engine that carried the first nuclear bombs and the powerplant that became synonymous with America's strategic bomber arsenal. From the R-3350's tumultuous beginnings through its development cycle, it went from a questionable choice for aircraft designers to the mainstay of America's bomber fleet. Towards the war's end, when Americans thought of reliable radial power, they thought of Wright Aeronautical.
#aviation #aviationhistory
A real human voice and no obnoxious music! That's a win-win! Thank you
Totally agree 👍
Well done! In the 1980s, I worked as a lawyer for C-W right in the Wood-Ridge facility. I actually have a 3350 piston, valve and cylinder barrel destined for the scrap heap, but given to me by the workforce there. In the early 80s they were STILL producing spare parts for engines in service, though not too many. I remember that the Taiwanese AF placed orders for R-1820 spares for their Grumman S-2 A/C, as an example.
My dad flew KB-29s in the 1950s, and even then, engine fires were a risk. On one occasion, an engine blew a cylinder head up and out through the cowling while the aircraft was in flight! He got the airplane down in one piece, sans that engine part.
I strongly recommend a book by the Smithsonian Institute Press called "Building the B-29." It has a good chapter about the R-3350 engines for the A/C, and the many challenges and problems that occurred in the program.
I have a book that details some issues the government was having with C-W Aeronautical and the production of the P-40 fighters. The mention here that the engine division was also in a pickle for some of it's practices during the period dovetails with that. C-W was second in size to General Motors at the time, report being that profits were the top priority with them.
@@whalesong999 The "Building the B-29" book is brutal in its discussion of labor and management problems at the W-R plant. The government actually sent in a "tiger team" of sorts with experience in management to straighten things out. Eventually, they did, but labor/management problems, especially with unions, were always a problem for the Company. There is also a book by Robert Fausel (sp?), a test pilot at Buffalo, called "Whatever Happened to Curtiss-Wright?" It discusses the management/profit extraction mentality that was the Company's M.O. during the war and long afterward, even when I was there. It's written from the viewpoint of a tee'd-off test pilot, and is not scholarly, but is an interesting read nonetheless. Eventually, C-W lost out to its competitors both in airframes and engines, though it still survives and does significant govt work as a military subcontractor.
There is a modern-day analogy: Boeing. I suspected the worst when it moved its HQ to Chicago and focused on bean counting and profits to the detriment of quality AND SAFETY OF FLIGHT. When Management fled from Seattle to Chicago, it reminded me of C-W's Rockefeller Center, NYC corporate HQ during WWII and into the 1950s. When top management gets away from the places where the work is really done and focuses on money rather than quality products, this is what happens.
Interesting to me that you mention the S-2 in the '80s. I was working on fire fighting S-2s in the '80s, some piston powered and some converted to turbo prop.
I agree with your comments about Boeing, when quarterly stockholder reports and executive bonuses become more important than the long term vision for the company, the company is doomed, but Boeing is very large and it is going to take the idiots in charge a long time to kill it. If we get lucky, someone with vision will replace the corporate idiots and give the company back the long term vision that William Boeing seems to have had.
@@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus Hopefully you rank Dennis Muilenburg as the biggest idiot that ever ran Boeing.
I flew on S-58 into the 90s, that 1820 is awesome!!!!
My father was a War Assets Administration inspector at Boeing/Wichita during the war and his few stories about the development of problems of the R-3350s had impressed me though was very young at the time. On my own in later years, I saw the forward mounted exhaust collector sitting ahead of the engine must have been a significant source of overheated air passing though the engine bay and raising the likelihood of fires and failures. They did eventually redesign the system with the front cylinder bank exhaust tubes running rearward to solve the problem, similar to how the Pratt-Whitney R-2800 is made.
My grandfather was the top foreman in the engine cylinder production plant in Cincinnati. He won many awards in producing the Wright cyclone engine.
In 1976 I remember seeing a Connie circling the Belize airport, Central America. One could see it was flying just on the two starboard engines. What had happened was the port outer prop had separated from the engine and it spun into the port inner engine with such force that it not only caused that engine to be shut down due to several cylinder heads being badly damaged, it also bent the engine mounting down about ten degrees buckling the undercarriage doors so the port main gear wouldn't extend. After circling for some time it came in on a long low approach to the runway and touched down on the starboard main and nose wheels until the left wing slowly dropped onto the concrete and it spun off into the dirt at the side of the runway. The gear didn't collapse and nobody was hurt. It made for a memorable day way back then. 🙂
Here is some trivia: The B-28 evolved into the B-50, then the 367 Stratocruiser, with four R-4360 engines. The airliner version was the Boeing 377. These airplanes were B-29's with a second much larger fuselage laid on top of the bomber fuselage. In profile they looked a like an "8", with the upper lobe somewhat wider.
Then in 1952, Boeing designed the 367-80 Stratocruiser, which of course was a complete ruse. The 367-80 was none other than the Boeing 707. What they did was take the double bubble fuselage of the 367/377 and fill in the dents and make an egg shaped fuselage. This was the original 707. Later, they widened the fuselage to 148 inches, and this was the production airplane. But also the production 720B, the 727, the 737 [all models] and the 757.
Which means that a 737 Max that rolls off the assembly line in Renton tomorrow actually has belly panels that were designed for the B-29....
I'm not kidding, the belly panels of every 737 match the belly curves of the B-29, if not actually are interchangeable!
Really interesting trivia. The war certainly added to technology moving forward at a tremendous pace. 😊
Boeing fortunes would been very different if one of its engineers, German-American George Schairer hadn't stolen the blueprints for the B-47 from a secret Nazi aircraft research laboratory during an inspection by the Von Karman Mission.
The -80 was 132 inches, capable of five-abreast seating. Boeing made the production KC-136 fuselage 144 inches and was going to do the 707, but C. R. Smith (CEO of American Airlines) said he wouldn’t buy the jets unless they were 1” wider than the Douglas DC-8. Boeing made the 707 fuselage 148 inches wide for that reason.
@@aaronshipley5594 The Boeing 707 was designed from inception to be a very modular and adaptive with different fuselage lengths and diameters, wing spans and engine arrangements.
The 707, 737 and 727 all share the same basic platform and a high degree of parts commonality.
No.
1) The lower belly diameters are not the same.. not even between the 707, 727 (the front and back are different on that one), and 737.
2) The belly panels are made of flat sheet metal that are rolled, drilled, and riveted into place. They aren’t even technically interchangeable between the same aircraft unless you oversize the holes.
3) There’s no interchangeable parts between the B-29 and 737-MAX. None. Even the fasteners are different (AN/MS on the B-29 and BAC and NAS on the 737-MAX). Maybe some cotterpins and rivets might be the same.. but they aren’t reusable.
I was a Recip Engine Mech in the Air Force back in 62-66.
I worked on the R-3350, R-4360, R-2000 and the R1300 engines. The 3350's were on the EC-121, the 4360's were on the HC-97G, the 2000's on the HC-54 D and the 1300 were on the HH-19B. It was quite an experience working on those big engines. I still watch videos of the 4360 being run just to listen to the sound. You never forget the sound that those big engines make.
There was an old saying amongst B29 aircrew based on Tinian and Saipan in 1945: "What do you need to take off in a B29?" The answer was "either a full load of fuel or a full load of bombs, but not both". The 3350s only had a service life of 4 missions due to chronic overheating issues, with many aircraft lost way before reaching the targets in Japan. The first such takeoff from Tinian which was watched by the press and senior brass, thundered down the runway barely got airborne and plunged into the see. All the film was confiscated and the incident was never publicly reported.
Odd, the 3350 was quite successful in the Lockheed Super Constellation.
Yes, but that was MUCH later after the thousands of bugs and problems were worked out. The changes made to that engine were constant and boggle the mind. The right schedule of war development and time constraints were a big part of this, though not the only cause.
4 missions seems like a bit of an exaggeration, the early engine's had a service life of 100 hours, which means 4 missions would have been 25 hours each, they weren't 25 hour missions, more like around 10 to 12 hours which would put their replacement in the 8 to 10 missions range, by the wars end they had them up to 400 hour rebuild intervals.
Like many things about WW2 the R3350 engine has suffered from exaggerations about it more than it's actual issues, having to replace all 4 engine's on B29's every 4 missions would have been a mathematical impossibility, they weren't making engine's and shipping them half way around the world fast enough for that to have been possible.
Hearsay & poppycock Dodge built engines were the gold standard
Really not the fault of the engines. B-29 missions were often overloaded by 10% to 20% over the maximum design weight, and the earlier missions were flown to over 30,000 feet.
Something forgotten to history: my grandfather was an A&P mechanic on the B-29 during the war. He was an instructor as well. So he knew the B-29 very well. He said they were taught to work in those engines blindfolded. In case there was a bombing blackout, the could still work on them. I once asked him why it takes so long for those big radials to start. He said, "well....all the cylinders get together and form a committee and they take a vote on whether they want to start or not." Lol! When i saw Lord of the Rings and Tree Beard and the other Ents slowly talking in their committe about whether to go to war, i instantly remembered what my grandad said about the B-29s starting. I was laughing in the theater. Lol
Full b29 soviet plagiat is tu4.
all this technology barely 40 years after the Wright Brothers flight just amazing
And the moon a couple of decades later. It was humanity’s time to shine, even if largely war driven. 😂
The war was very sad and horrific but the engineering might of the world was downright amazing
Very interesting! My grandfather was a B-29 Instructor pilot during the last year and a half of WWII. I remember him telling stories about frequent engine fires during the long training flights(NM to AK and back) and having the engine mounts fail catastrophically as a result on several occasions?
He had a great deal of respect for(and fear of!) the Superfortress but never liked flying it as much as his IP days in the B17-he dearly loved the Flying Fortress.
RIP grandpa John!
My father was a gunner in Korea in the B-29s (later in the A/B-26). He told me a lot of stories about flying in them and about the remote gun systems. etc. He was responsible for starting and then shutting down the small gas generator that gave the plane electric power until the engines were up and running. He said the fumes from that little generator were terrible and many fights he made while sick from the fumes at the start of the flight from the "Putt-Putt". As a model builder I do a lot of contract builds for people. Recently a guy asked me to build a model for him and as a reference he gave me a copy of a home movie from the early 1950s (in color!) of an airshow in Texas. In the film were many aircraft; Hellcats, F-82 twin Mustangs and even a fly over from a very early B-36. In the background, parked on the ramp is what I am sure is a B-32 Dominator. Someday Ill post it to You Tube because it is really cool!
Very nice video of the Wright R-3350 Cyclone engines. Thankyou for sharing. My father was a B-29 pilot in command in June 1945. He referred to the Wright R-3350 Cyclone engines on the B-29 as "Wrong Engines" and "Flame Throwers" because they had a nasty tendancy to overheat and catch on fire during takeoff. On the early R-3350's, the cylinder head temperatures were red lined at 289 degrees Celsius and on takeoff it was not uncommon for the cylinder head temperatures would be reading well over 320 degrees Celsius. My father went on and flew WB-29 Superfortresses after the war for the USAF's Air Weather Service until 1956. Even then the engines still proved themselves to be problematic. It was not uncommon at all for a WB-29 come back to base with three engines running and one engine feathered.
Really not the fault of the engines. B-29 missions were often overloaded by 10% to 20% over the maximum design weight, and the earlier missions were flown to over 30,000 feet.
You probably mean redline of 289 Celsius (552 Fahrenheit). There is no air-cooled engine that would ever stay under 300 F cylinder head temperatures.
@@aaronshipley5594 You're correct. Thanks for the correction.
I’ve flown on aircraft powered by the R-3350, but not the B-29. Born in 1954, I’m referring to being a passenger on the Douglas DC7 airliners operated by American Airlines, circa 1958-59. I have a sketchy memory of a night flight from El Paso, TX to Los Angeles where an engine overheated, warranting an unscheduled mid-point landing to let the engine cool before proceeding.
The passenger versions of the R3350 were equipped with a power recovery turbine (PRT) as a system that scavanged exhaust pressure redirected via turboshafts as added crankshaft output power. The novel design added substantial power, but at the cost of even more complexities & maintenance costs.
I treasure my somewhat fuzzy memories as a young child flying in DC6 & DC7 aircraft…the sounds, smells, buffeting, and the overall experience in what was the inception of the golden age of commercial aviation.
The R-3350 and R-4360 were marvels of technology that gave the US some incredible military aircraft but commercial failures due to inadequet reliability and high maintenance costs. As a result the R-2800 powered DC-6 remains in service and the DC-7 was retired long ago.
@@williamzk9083 The reliability problems of the R-3350 persisted across both military & commercial applications. Consequently, the P&W R-3350 demonstrated the outer edge of attempting to extract maximum power from double row cylinder, air-cooled designs that met their sharp demise once jet engines arrived. The P&W J-57 and it’s successors proved to be a massive step forward. A handful of vintage DC6 remain today, but back in the late ‘50s planes like the Lockheed L-188 Electra with its 3,750 hp Allison turboprop motors also drove the nails in the coffin of piston engine, commercial aircraft
My father worked for C-W from about 1952 to 1963 mostly in Fairfield, NJ and in the last years in Wood-Ridge, NJ. He mainly did QC work, inspection and testing of rebuilt engines. Much of his work involved this engine for the military and commercial users. Sadly C-W didn't get involved with jet engines although did make some RR ones on license. The Wood-Ridge building and some deteriorating signage for C-W still exists. Most of the building has been sub-divided for warehouses, light industrial and by NJ Transit for heavy maintenance for their locomotives and passenger rail cars as adjacent to a major railroad track. The huge parking lots and adjacent properties have been developed into a massive apartment and town home development over the last 15 years.
The gun sight/turret demo 6:30 was pretty neat. Lotsa technology right there.
The world's first pressurized fuselage? The Boeing 307 Stratoliner would like a word.
The 307 was the first Pressurized airliner, the first pressurized aircraft was the Junkers Ju-49 in 1932.
Absolutely fascinating - I love these. Please keep them coming!❤
The Boeing 307 had a 7:48 pressurized cabin and it predated the B-29.
This has become one of, if not my actual favorite channel, on yutoobe. Great research, great info, expertly edited and extremely interesting.
American engineering and mass production ability blows your mind.
The B-29 was the most expensive project ever undertaken in the war, dwarfing the cost of the Manhattan Project that built the first nuclear weapons. The Dominator was seen as a conventional option, if the B-29's advanced systems failed to produce.
Strange how the Soviets managed to get it from us, for free, to prop them up as our new opponent. They got those nukes too. Almost like everyone was psyop'd for decades by a global regime.
@AuschwitzSoccerRef. Indeed. The Japanese murdering millions all over their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" were likely the worst war criminals of World War II. Don't forget the plague experiments, the Korean "comfort women," the Rape of Nanking, and the endless beheadings on a whim. Japan's atrocities in China from 1937 - 1945 could fill entire libraries of books. There was even cannibalism intended to intimidate American POW's on Chichi Jima. Japan was so savage in dealing with the Solomon Islands and New Guinea natives that they gladly continued cooperating with the Allies, rescuing hundreds of downed pilots. Ho Chi Minh lived in fear that Japanese soldiers would be sent to help the Americans during the Vietnam War, given the atrocities French Indochina had endured from 1941 - 1945.
It's a good thing the US and its Allies were relentless in hammering Japan so hard with strategic bombing and the submarine-based blockade of its ports. Considering not a single Japanese unit larger than a battalion ever surrendered in the war, it's amazing the Emperor was able to surrender his nation in the face of a near civil war from the Japanese militarists. Nobody finished the Pacific War with clean hands, but there is little comparison between Japan's and the Allies' hands.
Now go troll elsewhere.
@AuschwitzSoccerRef.Take your meds
@AuschwitzSoccerRef.What are you taking about 💀
According to some AEHS (Aircraft Engine Historical Society) data; a major cause of overheating was the loose tolerance design of the engines cooling baffles. This resulted in poor cylinder cooling as cooling air washed around the cylinders rather than through the cylinder's cooling fins.
The Lockheed Constellation also used this engine and gained the reputation as the world's fastest tri-motor; commonly losing an engine on many flights!
oioioi!!! Yet another awesome aero engine video! thanks
That initial clip showing the crank rotation is arguably one of THE most relevant inventions of all time !
Так, в Європі їх випускали з початку хх століття
Great video as always, but a bit disappointed that you didn't go into the post war years with the turbo compound versions.
I grew up on Sproat lake living close to a pair of colossal 4 engine Martin Mars flying boats powered by the R-3350 used for fighting forest fires until their retirement 2015. Sadly both mars aircraft, still at sproat Lake, are now inactive unlikely to ever fly again.
I have flown twice in an EA-1E Skyraider with this engine. Gotta loved the smoke and sound at start-up!
The B-29 was the better bomber at any stage of development, but the B-32 was all over it in looks. Sad after the war thousands of brand new aircraft of all types sent straight to storage/scrap or burned where they sat overseas.
I would agree, except the B32 has a very weird looking tail... good nose though
Interesting, I thought the opposite, but I wonder if that’s because I’ve gotten so used to seeing the B-29 vs the B-32. Maybe if the Dominator retained the twin tail.
For whatever this means, after building the B-17, B-29, and B-24 1/48 scale Monogram kits, I liked the looks of the B-17 over the B-29 over the B-24.
These machines were amazing... The technology and materials that were available 80+ years ago, was put to good use... Eventually the R-3350 Engines were improved, to put out well over 3,700 H.P. which became reliable, AND last a relatively long time between overhauls... Several civilian and military planes had these engines well beyond the introduction of jet engines.... And they were the preferred powerplants of the fire-bomber planes, cargo planes and unlimited racing aircraft... They took time to develop, but they ended-up being some of the best large reciprocating aircraft engines that were ever made.
Those were the R-3350 PRT engines. PRT - Power Recovery Turbine. It was a turbo that was geared to the crank shaft and added some horse power to the engine. I forget how much power was created by that design.
power recovery systems were removed for nearly all of the non-military uses of 3350s. They were a nightmare, with reliability becoming the great equalizer. It was a system using fluid drive such as the torque converters in automatic transmissions through gears and shafts adding horsepower to the crank. Oil clogging was its worst trait as it used. engine oil and not hydraulic oil used in other applications.
The P&W R2800 was such a robust, highly-refined engine that I cannot see the logic in developing the R3350 for its 20% gain in displacement. The B 29 program would've been cheaper, faster and less lethal. The B-29 quickly evolved into the B-50 and received the P&W corn-cob, anyway. Add power recovery units to that engine and the output / fuel efficiency would be staggering .
The R4350 P & W turbo compound engine did incorporate a power recovery system and had a jet exhaust, making them easy to spot. They weren't available until 1953.
The R-3350 and R-2800 both first ran in 1937. The R-2800 matured into a highly reliable engine but in the first few years it was a horrible mess of catastrophic failures and neither design was a sure bet at all. At the time when the key development decisions were having to be made, circa 1937 -1940, it would have been extremely foolish to put all your eggs in one basket. Read "R-2800: Pratt and Whitney's Dependable Masterpiece" by Graham White, if you want to know more about the severe early problems of the 2800
What an interesting documentary! Very well put together. Fascinating specifications on the R3350 engine. 😊
The USAAF placed orders for over 1,500 B-32s. The plan was for them to replace the B-17 and B-24 in their roles, and that would have happened if the war lasted into 1946 or 1947.
The end of the war caused the cancelation of nearly all of the planned B-32.
You should have mentoned the R-3350's civil applications on the Lockheed Constellation series and Douglas DC-7. The maintenance-intensive R-3350 was a major reason why those types had little demand for conversion to freighters etc. after retirement by their original operators, compared to the reliable Pratt & Whitney R-2800 on the DC-6 series, some still carrying cargo in Alaska today.
The Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone has never been "my" supercharged, air-cooled, radial engine that suffered far too many issues especially suffering overheating ranging from eating .valves, burning magnesium crankshaft. Possibly because the front row exhaust pipes was at the front. A dangerous engine indeed...
amazing a new video! avidly watching :)
Powered the Lockheed Constellation and Douglas DC-7 too. It really ushered out the age of the piston powered large aircraft since the Wasp Major never really caught on in civilian applications.
Nice. My father was an engineer who hired on at Curtiss Wright in 1941. He worked with them until 1948 and went to work for Weston in Newark. It was a lot of fun getting him to talk about C-W after a few drinks the stories would start to come out. I remember him specifically talking about how valve seats were installed and planetary gear failures and engines puking in the test cells. One of his jobs was evaluating captured nemy engines to see what could bne learned from them, and one of his ashtrays was a rocker box cover from a BMW radial engine. It's kind of interesting because I too am a retired attorney/A&P mechanic and tried to get them to hire me on after I graduated in 1996.
Laf, I was an A&P around the same time, and worked on warbird restorations and boutique aircraft maintenance for some rich guys’ warbirds, Cessnas, etc. Thanks to the end of the Cold War and the Asian Economic Crisis, there was more money to be had in computers and IT. Although now, I wish I had stuck it out as I was no big fan of the corporate IT industry.
@@ronjon7942 I did a little of that when I worked for Kal Aero in the middle eighties. We'd work on the museum aircraft when we had some free time. My favorite was Sue Parrish's Curtiss P40. I got to taxi a C47 one time. One week the Cliff Robertson Spitfire was there waiting for another starter and I came in on Sunday just to see what it was like to sit in one. The boss said "Nobody goes near it." I had to do it. Tight as a pair of pants.
GM had the contract building the engines for the B-29, those early engines by GM had abysmal reliability records and the lost a lot of B29's for that reason, Chrysler took over production of those engines and reliability improved because chrysler at the time had superior machining equipment and they invented a process that made superior metallurgy in critical components allowing superior reliability over GM built engines.
The engines developed out of necessity for the war were all pretty amazing considering the technology available. Run at high rpms and amazing hp in extreme conditions.
I love watching other youtube videos about planes and hearing the engine names and then swap over to this channel and learn about the engine that was in the plane
The Enola Gay & Bock's Car had R-3350s. If it hadn't been for their missions, I might never have known my father or any of my uncles!!!!! - Marc Smith, born August 16, 1943
0:36 Build an air boat backwards, and there you have it: Wheels, and air pushing the trailer in reverse.
Thanks for a damn good video on a complex subject. 👍👍👍
A very beautiful, technically advanced engine for it's time!👍 Too bad 😞, after the war, it was scrapped!!☹️
Its amazing to me what they could do with the technology at the time.
IKR! Analog. On the subject of technology in general, how about radar-controlled guns on the battleships. I bet these engineers could work these sliderules pretty quickly.
Correct me if I am wrong but I always thought the radial was the Engine that God gave to aviation and they worked flawlessly at 2 rows add any more rows and you can’t get enough air to cool the back row and it seams like that was never solved ! They should have quit while they were ahead . Grandpa worked on and assembled these engines, he so loved these engines he could not get it out of his head , so 5 years after he retired he had put together a Radial Replica, to him it was a functional work of art. The motor spun due to a clock motor that ran the shaft and all of the other things that were supposed to move! This display ran at most 5 RPM ! Many many areas were cut. away just to show how it actually worked . He chose to make this model from a Japanese Zero engine with only 2 banks of cylinders ! What a great choice because I have often seen static cut aways of 2 Bank cylinder radials , but Never one that moved and showed you how it worked ! To call it a conversation piece would really sell it short as he have to kick out some of his visitors because he wanted to go to bed ! It was truly a Gear Heads’ delight ! My uncle got it from the Will and I am determined to get the engine that “God designed for aircraft “
Any engine that does not have the same stroke for all cylinders is an abomination in eyes of God... which is why he allowed Radials to die-out and become extinct.
How to make a bus fly: re-engineer it, add wings and call it a B29.
Great work , thank you for this
I know the RR Griffon achieved about the same power output (though later on), and even some hotted up versions of the RR Merlin got up to about that much power. The timings meant the RR Griffon (as it was at the time) was not an option, but I still wonder what a B29 would have been like with 4 RR V12 mounted. Or, 4 Bristol Centauri, especially the 2,600hp version.
Actually I do believe six of R2800 would have been a better set up !!! More reliable
Or 4 Napier Sabres even
If we are going to the realm of “what if” I would vote for 4 RR Crecy two strokes.
There was the Allison V-3420 option. At least on was built.
Or maybe the Napier Sabre with a 24 cylinder sleeve valve engine, equally problematic, but huge horsepower! 😊
“You can fly a Wright farther than you can ship a Pratt.”
-- CAF Col. Randy Sohn, first AC on “FIFI.”
Nice work on this vid FD.
The first vid ive watched , liked and subscribed
My dad, CVE crew on R&R, told of watching B29s take off.
'They rumbled down the runway, and just before they got to the fence at the end of the runway, they folded up their wheels, never actually gaining altitude until considerably out to sea.'
I had a friend who grew up near an airbase in Washington state. He said the same thing about fully loaded B-52's that made bombing runs over Vietnam. He said he didn't think they'd ever get up to altitude.
The B-29 wasn't DESIGNED for the Wright R-3350, but the Wright-GE R-4880 "Corncob" 48 cylinder triple-staged super-charged 4500-9000 (!!!) HP engine, which wasn't fully developed until 1950 and the B-29B became the B-50A when the were installed. The "Corn-cob" using 135/160 octane AV-gas and water injection could develop 9000 HP EACH for 7 minutes at 64,000 ft @ 86 inches of manifold pressure or 71 pounds of boost. This was a Ricardo Sleeve-valve engine with NO poppet valves per cylinder. "Now she handles like a fighter-plane" B-50A test pilot.
ONE of the most AWESOME aircraft engines ever built.
They built a plant in WoodRidge NJ. My son lives there. I wonder were it is (or was) located. Gonna look for it. They built a mamooth plant in Paterson NJ, and that building still stands to this day. Ive been inside that building and its great overbuild is astounding.
I spent about 4000 hours on ASW airplanes and L749 Constellations powered by these unfortunate engines; engine failure occurred every third flight or so. Including running out of oil!!! (60 Gallons) . They were a fine boat anchor but not much else . Sorry for the starry eyed folks... :-)
What an excellent presentation! Thank you! The clarification of the accident that cost the lives of 20 plus people during the development phase was a complete revelation! It would be interesting to know whether the Soviet Airforce, during their reverse engineering of the B29 as the TU -4 version, experienced the same early development problems?
I am surprised you did not speak much on the invention of the turbo-supercharger, the single component of that engine which allowed it to fly so high and takeoff on a higher emergency power.
The B-29 has an interesting history as the transmitter platform for Stratovision. They put 25 KW transmitters on board and broadcast television signals. I read a science fiction story about this, and had no idea the author was fully "grounded in reality". Stratovision was used in the Vietnam war, on the Lockheed Super Constellation powered by the same Wright R-3350s.
This version of the R 3350 used a Turbo Compound design to boost hp to 3250 and eliminated most of the overheating. These engines have jet exhaustsd behind the engne buit are not turboprop engines, whose propellers are driven by turbines [Lockheerd Electra]. R3350 propellers are driven by pistons, this increased the Connie's top speed to 375 mph. This TC version wasn't available until 1953.
The 3350 was unfortunately rushed into production during the war without proper R&D. The results were scattered all over the Pacific theater. I have documentation in the 50s with pictures showing new engines from the factory having to be disassembled, cases split to drill passages because of oil clogs.Oil technology was in its infancy comparatively but given the problems power recovery systems presented, R2800s with appropriate turbos would have been a far better and much more reliable choice. Even the B50s were using P&Ws as was the B36. These had their problems though as radial technology had peaked.
It was stated here, that these engines were only developing 2500hp. Near the end of the war, P&W2800s were making 2400, and then eventually 2500 themselves.Politics was the reason for choosing these Wright engines, not good sense.
I can't imagine the amount of finger pointing that would take place after an event like that XB-29 crash. Doubly amazing that they managed to work it out so quickly.
Thank you.
The maintenance requirements of these engines and planes are wild. I'm curious what percentage of air corps personnel were dedicated to A&P jobs to do these rebuilds and regular maintenance work?
Its actually "Bockscar," pronounced "box car." Its sometimes spelled "Bock's Car."
They had a very long development to eliminate all the bugs built into the engine. They never were as robust as the Pratt and Whitney R 2800 series.
Minor point:14:52. Wasn't the Boeing 307 fully pressurized? Also you neglected to mention that a waist gunner on the B-29 could control 3 turrets. Front lower, rear lower, and tail (if they weren't in use)
Yes, the Boeing 307 Stratoliner was the first fully pressurized airliner.
The Junkers Ju-49 was the world's first pressurized aircraft in 1931.
I don't believe it was the waist gunners that could do that, I believe it was the upper turret gunner who was somewhat of the master gunner who had the controls that could dictate which guns were slaved into which gun sight.
The channel WW2 US Bombers has several videos on the B29's defensive guns that are the most factual and complete of any videos you'll find, he goes into great detail about the computers, how they formed their ballistic firing solution, the fact that each turret had it's own gun camera for verifying kills, the changes made to different variant's, how the sights and the triggers on them worked and just about anything you'd want to know about the defensive guns on a B29 including the amazing fact that they had a kill to loss ratio higher than the P51 Mustang.
@@dukecraig2402 Trust me on this. The gun commander (upper gunner) had primary control of the upper rear turret, and secondary control of the upper front. The waist gunners had primary control of the lower rear, secondary control of the lower front, and secondary control of the tail mount. Waist primary control was switch selectable between left and right waist. Of course, the nose gunner had primary control of the upper and lower front turrets, and the tail gunner had primary control of the tail mount. This was done with an "action switch" on each gunsight. In practice the gun commander was responsible in coordinating his gun crews response to threats. That section behind the bomb bay where gun commander, left and right waist were, was called central fire control, specifically because all turrets could be controlled from there. Here's another tidbit. The B+ to the servo amplifiers wasn't DC, but 400Hz AC.
@@lnchgj
Yes but it was the gun commander who had say on what guns were controlled by which sights, not the waist gunners, they couldn't switch what guns were slaved into their sights which is the way it sounded in your first post, the gun commander and not them controlled who sighted which guns, hence his title gun commander, there's only one lower turret and two waist gunners, someone besides them had to dictate which waist gunner had control of the lower turret, that was the commander not them.
@@dukecraig2402 If a waist gunner was using a particular turret, as in guiding and firing, could the gun commander reassign said turret to a different gunner while it was in use?
12:15 "4221 units produced by the end of production in 1945" The figure from most sources is a total of 3970 ending in May 1946. By VJ day, only 1645 had been produced (or taken on charge). These 1600 barely saw 6 months of serious use, which serious use only really began in March 1945, when low altitude fire bombing on civilians was implemented, the bomb bays bringing back a massive stench of barbecue from burning civilians... By VJ day about 500 of these 1600 units were lost/destroyed (only 85 due to fighters), a sobering figure considering the relatively small number of sorties, and the weak to non-existent opposition during the last 6 months of its heaviest use, which saw it carry 8000 pounds of turrets with their guns removed... Improved engines with better reliability were very rare in WWII, and basically limited to the Silver Plate atomic bomber force. To say that the B-29, by the end of WWII, became just as reliable as any other US bombers is just false, especially considering the hundreds lost to engine fires alone, while over 100 simply disappeared... You do not mention that during WWII they often had to be flown full time with opened cowl flaps at a massive performance cost, and that the improvements in reliability you cite were almost all entirely post War. More surprising, you do not mention that a unique attribute of its 3350 engines was that they were made of magnesium, which material caught fire on runaway props or oil starvation, burning at 5000 degrees. A fundamental flaw that was not repeated since. Aside range and bomb load, the best feature of the B-29 was by far its gun turrets, 6 times as efficient as the B-17G(!), but for most missions those ended up being unarmed dead weight... Overall I find you painted quite a rosy picture of the B-29, as it suffered high attrition against a nearly expired opponent, and was only really effective as an indiscriminate night bomber and minelayer, at a cost only the US had the pockets to pay... It proved effective, but was certainly not efficient, and it is likely its numerous flaws would have become much more prominent against a serious opponent. That being said, the revolutionary turrets would no doubt have helped to protect the engines, since at least these worked correctly...
Like most wartime development the need for speed in getting it into service doesnt allow the luxury of sufficent R&D often thats done in combat dangerous combination
Sorry this is only indirectly related to the 3350, but what were the other two mfgs that had designs for the requirement? Boeing, Consolidated/Consolidated-Vultee/Convair, Lockheed, and ???
The Wright R-2600 didn’t exactly shine either.
I wonder if the P&W double wasp made the same power? It was more reliable.
The R-3350-32WA was very reliable in the Lockheed P2V in the firefighting role.
The P2 fire tankers had the turbochargers removed and were significantly detuned,
@@sandervanderkammen9230 The were not turbocharged in the typical sense of forced air induction, for that they had a two stage centrifugal supercharger. The turbos (that were not removed for the firefighting role) were Power Recovery Turbines. The PRTs directed the rotational energy recovered from the exhaust gases and put it back into the crankshaft through a fluid coupling (torque converter). The 3350 had 3 PRTs driven by the exhaust of 6 cylinders each. In the late firefighting role of the 3350 on the P2V, each engine developed 2880 hp. The high blower position was disabled on the firefighting aircraft, but that was a high altitude item only, not required for takeoff or typical cruise altitudes. The biggest performance reductions in that role were primarily the removal of the alcohol/meth ADI system for takeoff and the unavailability of purple 115/145 fuel. The ADI was unreliable and failure of it during takeoff at the manifold pressures would result in quick failure.
@@timothyleeuw5895 Yes, they are significantly detuned from its military specifications and power output, this was done to improve reliability and durability.... so not a typical example of R-3350's reputation for reliability.
The engine does not have a great reputation of reliability in military service.
@@timothyleeuw5895 The exhaust turbines are coupled to the crankshaft, which in turn drive the supercharger.
So it's still a turbocharged application, with increased exhaust pressure and temperatures.
These engines consume more fuel and produced more horsepower per pound of Fuel thus rejected less heat out the exhaust stacks per horsepower developed, the engine absorbing more combustion heat, significantly higher MEP and more mechanical stress on the engine and temperature load on the cooling systems.
Significantly derated in the firefighting role... So not a typical characteristics of this particular engine.
At 11:15 wasn't the second B29 to drop the atom bomb on Japan called Boxcar?
"Bockscar" - a whimsical pun based on the name of it's regular pilot, Captain Frederick C. Bock. From Wikipedia: Bockscar, sometimes called Bock's Car, is the name of the United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber that dropped a Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II in the second - and most recent - nuclear attack in history. One of 15 Silverplate B-29s used by the 509th, Bockscar was built at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant at Bellevue, Nebraska, at what is now Offutt Air Force Base, and delivered to the United States Army Air Forces on 19 March 1945. It was assigned to the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, 509th Composite Group to Wendover Army Air Field, Utah in April and was named after captain Frederick C. Bock.
Bockscar was used in 13 training and practice missions from Tinian, and three combat missions in which it dropped pumpkin bombs on industrial targets in Japan. On 9 August 1945, Bockscar, piloted by the 393d Bombardment Squadron's commander, Major Charles W. Sweeney, dropped the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb with a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT over the city of Nagasaki. About 44% of the city was destroyed; 35,000 people were killed and 60,000 injured.
After the war, Bockscar returned to the United States in November 1945. In September 1946, it was given to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The aircraft was flown to the museum on 26 September 1961, and its original markings were restored (nose art was added after the mission).[1] Bockscar is now on permanent display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio, next to a replica of a Fat Man.
Also from Wikipedia: The bomber which actually dropped Fat Man was called Bockscar,[2] an aircraft named for and usually flown by Bock. The staff was swapped just before the raid, and Major Charles Sweeney piloted Bockscar, which flew with The Great Artiste and another aircraft.
Go see it - you'll never regret making the trip!
12:22 search for _B-32 Dominator, the other Very Heavy Bomber of WW2_
The clip we are watching is quite informative and presented well, as is all of the content from this provider's channel.
The search will yield an hour plus length clip released less than a week before this one.
I am acquainted with Greg. I do not steal his content. If there is overlap in the way our content is presented it’s from the source material. The source for this video is:
Allied Aircraft Piston Engines of World War II: History and Development of Frontline Aircraft Piston Engines Produced by Great Britain and the United States During World War II
@@flightdojo I tried to word my comment to simply inform without either promoting another channel or casting a shadow over your excellent content. If an apology is in order please consider this to be a form of one.
What is the surface area of all the cooling fins combined?
@flught dojo II didn’t hear you mention the background information the development and delivery of the B-29 cost $3 billion, quite a bit more than the $1.9 billion cost of the Manhattan Project. I don’t know how much of that was a result of problems with the R-3350, but still sort of interesting.
This article seemed ignore the issue of 3350’s in later iterations using PRT’s. These Power Recovery Turbines provided 400 more shaft HP delivered to the crankshaft as the turbines being geared to the crankshaft in conjunction with the supercharger it failed to add “reliability” to this iconic motor. Shutting down a fully functioning 3350 upon a successful flight and a subsequent restart the next day the engine being utterly unairworthy after a thermal cycle managed to break things. All this helped usher in the jet age.
3350 cubic inches! 😳
Here, hold my beer ... P&W 4460😮
What wrist pin tool is that?
First pressurized fuselage? That would be the Boeing 307 Stratoliner of 1940, two years before the B-29. Or if you include prototypes it could be the Junkers Ju 49 of 1931.
I believe he means for war planes, like most others when they state the same thing.
JUNKERS built the first pressurized aircraft including military
@@dukecraig2402 If he is making historical content, I think accuracy is important. If he means "war planes" he needs to say "war planes".
XC-35 in 1937.
@@raoulcruz4404 That is about 6 years too late to be first if we count prototypes and one-offs. Also the Wiki article for it states " It was the second American aircraft to feature cabin pressurization."
I guess developing new machines with new designs has its share of problems. Working these problems out takes effort, resources, and time. Winning WWII is not that simple. There were many sacrifices.
Dude! Do you know what a PRT is?? That is what makes this engine special.....
Aircooled motorcycle engines comfortably make 100 bhp per litre. Japanese bikes could do this all day long. e.g. Yamaha 900 made 90 bhp. Cooling fins on cylinders and heads were spaced about 1/4 inch (6mm) apart allowing air to flow freely and extract heat.
R2350 had extremely close packed cylinder fins. It’s hard to see how any useful air could get between those fins. It’s highly likely this is why they overheated so easily.
When you work on the bleeding edge of technology, sometimes, you bleed before things work. I have seen it multiple times in the computer industry, including what is going on with AMD right now with their 7000 series processors. The only difference being, these engines were needed for war use, it meant the difference between ending the war and it dragging on. It is mind blowing to me, how fast tech changed just between 1920 and 1940, but especially between 1935 and 1945.
This is a fascinating video history of a fascinating engine. It displays American engineering skills, problem-solving, and a dogged determination to get things done the right way. These skills were an integral part of why America, and her Allies, won WW II. Wright and Pratt & Whitney engines were indispensable in the war effort. Radial engines are a fascinating design, and no other engines sound as dominating as they. All designed without computers, CNC, nor CAD-CAM techniques. Really amazing.
Greetings, do you think the companies producing these aircraft were motivated by profit or patriotism? Or some of both? I ask because I wonder if the same commitment were to be asked of today’s corporations I think it would have to be strictly profit driven, thanks
Carrying the hopes of an entire nation on their shoulders ... That's definitely one perspective.
Wright: How many pistons do you want in the new engine ?
America: All of them
I can’t help but wonder what the P-47 would have been like with this monstrous engine
Unflyable?
@@WilhelmKarsten Dankeschön Wilhelm. Yet actually, my comment was for humor only. Cheers, Deutsch brother. 🇺🇸💛🇩🇪
@@Glen.Danielsen Cheers mate!!!
I always thought the P-47 had a B-29 engine and cowl because they looked identical. Got straightened out on that issue couple of years ago.
Good video. I had to pull out the "bullshit flag" on the comment at@ 3:05. There is no way the engine was mounted usi ng the valve covers...maybe they supported parts of the cowlings but that's about it.
What amazes me is some of these men are 19, 20 years old, that blows my mind but kudos to them
Where is the plant in Chicago?
I am actually looking for a Curtiss Wright R-3350 Engine. We currently use this engine to create wind at our testing laboratory. Any leads would be appreciated I am located in Ontario California.
With a single mag I bet the mag drop was more than 50 rpm.
What that means is there's two mags in a single assembly, not simply a single mag.
He could have worded it better.
@@dukecraig2402 The thing he shows on screen is a mag for a 4 cylinder Offenhauser or Continental (it might be a Bendix Scintilla SF4).
The Bendix Scintilla DLN-9 on the R3350, (of which there was only one per engine, mounted top center at the back of the supercharger housing) fed two distributors, mounted left and right on the crankcase up front, with one distributor feeding the front bank, and the other feeding the rear bank. There was some redundancy in the ignition system, but only a single mag. From what I could find it doesn't seem to have been a dual mag like a Bendix D4LN from a 4 cyl Lycoming.
So it looks like the mag drop would indeed have been a b*tch.
The best source I could find was an R3350 manual in French, and I don't speak French. Much Google translate ensued.
@@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus Great screen name, btw. I thought it strange there was only a single mag; was there so little room on the accessory section? I’m guessing Wright figured the quill shafts were a low failure rate component?
@@ronjon7942 I didn't find any reasons as to why they chose to install one mag.
@@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus
Other US aircraft engine's had mags built the same way, 2 in a single assembly.
i was an ADR worked on 26wd models and 32wa models the best ones wer sub contracted by chevrolet divison by general motors
Not being an engineer, I'm guessing that putting the exhaust collector in front was a necessary shortcut in order to meet the demand.
The problem with these types of videos is they’ll make a statement like at 10:00 ‘meanwhile workers toiled in away in dismal conditions’ without saying anything about what context the statement is made.
In Indonesia people called car relay starter : " Bendik " from Bendix
I don't think these ever became properly reliable. I had a conversation with an ex Qantas Airlines Super Constellation flight engineer at a local airshow where "his" Connie was displaying. He said the oil consumption was incredible and that arriving in Sydney from "Frisco or Vancouver via Fiji was often on 3 Engines. No encouraging to be 1000km from base and engine failure a matter of routine. I wonder if they lost two very much?
Radials were an evolutionary dead-end..
The R-3350 pushed the limits of what was possible and then some...
So, the R-3350 had overheating/fire problems. AMD should re-number their RYZEN 9 7900X3D and call it the RYZEN R9 3350X3D. I think this is appropriate for me. Doesn't the letter 'X' usually mean experimental?