First we went off the gold standard in America, and then we stopped building monster radial engines. No wonder this country is so messed up! So what if the turbine is light and powerful and burns kerosene, it sure doesn't sound like this engine. I know it's a hard sell trying to convince people that radial engines are where it's at, but I'm still a believer in the inspiring power of the sound that comes out of a radial's exhaust stacks.
As it turns out, the sound on this first run of a rebuilt Pratt & Whitney R-4360 isn't the best part of the video due to the sound inside the test structure, but seeing four rows of 7 cylinders for 28 total (with 56 spark plugs!) and that huge prop is just pure awesome. It's hard to imagine that the post WWII Convair B-36 had six of these engines buried in the wings turning pusher props. In fact it's even more interesting to me because unlike almost all other radial installations, you get the feel for the roundness of the engine, but the way they were built into the B-36 as pushers sorta disguises that fact. And can you even imagine and airplane with 336 spark plugs?!
I still think it would be very interesting to build a modern beast of a radial engine applying the design technologies that now make everyday oil leaks a thing of the past in automotive engines... along with the power-to-weight increases that computer-controlled fuel injection systems provide. Seems like a potentially viable concept to me. That was the fantasy idea behind my retro-wild Empress 400 airliner concept - big, powerful and efficient modern radial engines.
Anyway, the good news is that massive engines like this R-4360 can still be rebuilt, which means that for now we can still produce the best mechanical sound man has ever produced. Rock on.
Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 10:15AM 
