LEADED vs UNLEADED

[MossRoad]

What airframe used those four Rows of radial cylinder engines ? The engines that overheated the 3rd and 4th row of cylinders in particular . Then suffered cracking when throttled back .

Wright R-335 Duplex-Cyclone - Wikipedia

Are you thinking of the Pratt and Whitney wasp engines?

 

[fried1765]

Would love to hear your best/favorite story related to that plane.

The quick & dirty.....

Flying 12 hour early warning mission out of BIKF between Greenland and Iceland.
Checking on WX back at BIKF every hour, because WX was marginal.
At the end of 11 hours proceeded back toward BIKF.
WX went below minimums, but with no close alternate tried two GCA's
Never saw the ground.
Diverted to EGPK, 3+45 away.
Had entire crew don "poopy suits", for possible ditching.
Landed EGPK with less than 20 minutes fuel remaining.
16+45 in flight.


The best part:
We had a real galley/oven, chose our inflight electrician for his cooking abilities, and cooked our own Thanksgiving turkey onboard.

The VERY worst part:
Took a small arms round up the back of my seat in Vietnam.
4" further fwd, and it would have gone right up my axx.

 

[PILOON]

As a teen my earliest job was in the quality control department for TCA (now Air Canada).
My job was to determine warranty remaining on engine components that came from Connie engines.
Due to frequent failures of internal parts many cylinders had remaining life.
My instructions were to smash the cooling fins so that they would not be returned to service.

That is when I learned that there was an underground market for used parts as my boss insisted that I only make a small dent in one cooling fin.
(Being enthusiastic I loved to see how many fins I could break off with a single blow of a 5 lb hammer.)
Seems that the used cylinders were ending up in Miami where 3rd world airlines had repairs effected.

I seem to recall that the engine was designated as DA1's

Guess that was the start of my love for aviation and things all mechanical.

Later in life I owned many a small aircraft, flew some 5000 hrs and lastly owned a major avionics facility based at Dorval (now Trudeau) with finally becoming an FBO as well as a Cessna SEL dealer.
I also was honored being nominated as a director of the Aircraft Electronics Assoc and served for some 8 years.
Along the way I earned my AME (A&P) ticket and held both Cdn and US endorsements as both pilot and mechanic.
Worked on both small single engine AC and pressurized jets.

 

[MossRoad]

As a teen my earliest job was in the quality control department for TCA (now Air Canada).
My job was to determine warranty remaining on engine components that came from Connie engines.
Due to frequent failures of internal parts many cylinders had remaining life.
My instructions were to smash the cooling fins so that they would not be returned to service.

That is when I learned that there was an underground market for used parts as my boss insisted that I only make a small dent in one cooling fin.
(Being enthusiastic I loved to see how many fins I could break off with a single blow of a 5 lb hammer.)
Seems that the used cylinders were ending up in Miami where 3rd world airlines had repairs effected.

I seem to recall that the engine was designated as DA1's

Guess that was the start of my love for aviation and things all mechanical.

Later in life I owned many a small aircraft, flew some 5000 hrs and lastly owned a major avionics facility based at Dorval (now Trudeau) with finally becoming an FBO as well as a Cessna SEL dealer.
I also was honored being nominated as a director of the Aircraft Electronics Assoc and served for some 8 years.
Along the way I earned my AME (A&P) ticket and held both Cdn and US endorsements as both pilot and mechanic.
Worked on both small single engine AC and pressurized jets.

Great story. :thumbsup:

When I was a kid, my best friend lived across the street from me. His dad was an aircraft salesman, and owned the FBO at our local airport. I had another good friend in my class in school who's father was an aircraft salesman and owned the FBO in the next town north of us about 11 miles away. My next door neighbors were a childless couple (for many years) and they owned an airplane. And the company my dad worked for owned their own airplane. So I spent a LOT of time flying around in airplanes and hanging around airports as a kid. I ended up working at the smaller airport north of us for a year and then the local one as a groundskeeper/handyman, then a line technician, then got promoted to line chief for the last few years. It was a really enjoyable job and I would have loved to stay if there would have been any benefits like affordable health insurance and retirement, and pay. Those three little things a newly married man and wannabe father thinks of from time-to-time! :laughing:

 

[MossRoad]

Only a year (my 1st as a Navy pilot) was spent flying the "early warning routes" , referred to as the North Altantic Barrier. That was an airborne extension of the DEW line which stretched across Canada, Greenland, Iceland, to the Faroe Islands, Scotland, and Norway.

Most of my Connie time was doing electronics countermeasures flying.
Flying various perimeter areas of the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc countries, North Korea, Cuba, ******/Egypt, and North Vietnam. We operated from random world wide sites, and sometimes flew without any flight plan, to avoid giving away our location.
A combination of boring, scary, and fun!

A Connie was shot down, over water, by the North Koreans on April 15th 1969, with all hands lost (31). The aircraft commander was a good friend of mine, with whom I had flown many times.

We used a crew of up to 30, monitoring/recording electronic signals and voice.
We also did NASA missile launch/recovery telemetry support.

Well... I changed 4 lightbulbs and a light switch today..... not nearly as fascinating. :laughing:

I'll bet you had some very interesting times up there. Well done! :thumbsup:

I'll have to read up on that North Korean incident. Sorry for your loss.

 

[MossRoad]

I was 8 years old in 1969, and I do not recall this incident. I do recall the Pueblo incident the year before that, though. I can't say much after reading about this as to my opinions of why the U.S. did not respond.... hard to fathom.

1969 EC-121 shootdown incident - Wikipedia

 

[buickanddeere]

Are you thinking of the Pratt and Whitney wasp engines?

Found the turkey. If water-cooled the engine would have held together but the weight and logistics would have been impractical. Pratt & Whitney R-436 Wasp Major - Wikipedia

 

[Jim Nelson]

My primary care doc is a real airplane nut and spends every spare minute that he can at the local airport. He's also a small acreage owner with a couple of tractors. We talk a lot about tractors and small engine equipment that we all use to maintain our land. He gets me AV gas in 5 gal. cans for use in the small stuff. He is not a fan of ethanol because he says "it makes planes fall out of the sky".The gas he gets for me is usually $20-$25 for 5 gals.which will last me a couple of years. He says it's 104 octane LL. I know it sure peps up a chain saw or weed eater.
Before getting this I was using the "racing" gas from the small equip. dealers for $80-$90 for 5 gal.

 

[fried1765]

My primary care doc is a real airplane nut and spends every spare minute that he can at the local airport. He's also a small acreage owner with a couple of tractors. We talk a lot about tractors and small engine equipment that we all use to maintain our land. He gets me AV gas in 5 gal. cans for use in the small stuff. He is not a fan of ethanol because he says "it makes planes fall out of the sky".The gas he gets for me is usually $20-$25 for 5 gals.which will last me a couple of years. He says it's 104 octane LL. I know it sure peps up a chain saw or weed eater.
Before getting this I was using the "racing" gas from the small equip. dealers for $80-$90 for 5 gal.

As far as I know ALL low lead gas sold in the US is actually defined as...... 100LL

 

[Jim Nelson]

As far as I know ALL low lead gas sold in the US is actually defined as...... 100LL

Could very well be,I sure don't have the experience that you have on the subject, all I know is that it sure does pep up the small engines. I do put extra 2 cycle oil in it though.
Thank you for your service and sharing your experiences.

 

[buickanddeere]

Could very well be,I sure don't have the experience that you have on the subject, all I know is that it sure does pep up the small engines. I do put extra 2 cycle oil in it though.
Thank you for your service and sharing your experiences.

If the 100LL perks up a two stroke that much . The carb could be lean , the cranks seals leaking , timing over advanced , operating too hot or combustion chamber deposits have raised the compression ratio.

 

[Jim Nelson]

If the 100LL perks up a two stroke that much . The carb could be lean , the cranks seals leaking , timing over advanced , operating too hot or combustion chamber deposits have raised the compression ratio.

Well here again,I have to plead stupid, I don't use my 2 stroke stuff nearly as much as I used to but it starts easier and runs better when I do need it.The only obvious leaking is the bar oil,I don't know how to tell if the crank seals are leaking, or how to check the timing. I did put a new carb. on one of the saws just about the time I started using this and adjusted it to where it runs the way I think it should.
Thanks for the info.

 

[MossRoad]

If the 100LL perks up a two stroke that much . The carb could be lean , the cranks seals leaking , timing over advanced , operating too hot or combustion chamber deposits have raised the compression ratio.

X2 :thumbsup:

 

[ray66v]

He is not a fan of ethanol because he says "it makes planes fall out of the sky"

I'm no fan of ethanol either.

Though the aviation community is not in favor of using ethanol, accident reports involving "planes falling out of the sky", from ethanol use, do not seem to be piling up.

A lot of the guys who were running auto gas, continued to do so after the government mandate to put ethanol in all auto gas. And, it simply isn't causing the big problems for them that were predicted.

 

[Jim Nelson]

I have a very good friend who is a chief in the Navy Seal very shallow water warfare program and in their smaller, gas powered boats the use only ethanol free. Their bigger boats are all diesel powered jet drives.
I sold my last boat 15 years ago but it seems like I was told that all marina fuel was non ethanol. We used to go to the gas station and pump street gas into 15 gal. drums and pump that into our boats with no problems.

 

[PILOON]

There were originally 3 grades of aviation gas with 80/87 being the most common and generally used in all the Cessnas Pipers etc.
Then there was at the higher end a 100/120 and for a while another somewhere in the middle.
Now days smaller aircraft are using automotive gas with a STC (special permit but seem to recall that higher altitude use is forbidden or limited.

To the best of my knowledge the high octane gas was what they used in AC such as the Connies and others with the big radial engines.(and probably the old warbirds)

 

[CincyFlyer]

What exactly do you have in mind for options?

The only leaded fuel I know of, is 100LL aviation gas, and beside the fact that it's low lead, using it in any vehicle aside from an airplane, is a violation of federal law. Not to mention, it's expensive.

I have seen "lead substitutes" for sale, but they aren't lead. So, I really don't know if they do anything, aside from lightening your wallet. There doesn't seem to be any research on them as far as I can see, to show they make a difference.

Lots of opinions, as usual, but there seems to be little science.

AvGas is "low lead" only compared to the 100/130 gas of old. It's nasty stuff, and limited (as everyone knows) to use only in aircraft.