Word: allisons
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...importance of this fact was that last year the Army, fed up with the air resistance of air-cooled radial engines (their "built in head winds''), all but abandoned them for fast fighter craft, ordered the bulk of its fighters equipped with Allison 1,090-h.p. liquid-cooled inline engines. Meanwhile Pratt & Whitney and Wright Aeronautical, top-flight U. S. engine builders, stuck to air-cooled radials (which in-line engine men scornfully call "starfish") and increased their power. Result: Pratt & Whitney is in production with a tremendous single package of power: a 2,000-h.p. 18-cylinder...
General Motors' Allison plant has just got going. It produced 73 engines in July, 65 in August, 223 in September, 286 in October. Many Army pursuit planes built for Allisons came off the line without power plants to drive them, and "bugs" were found in the comparatively untried engine. Built to develop 1,090 h.p., Allisons had to be held to 950 and until this week, when the restriction was finally lifted, Army pilots could not get full performance out of their ships...
...assistance of research-wise National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which helped slick the new plane up as no air-cooled job had ever been slicked before. An old flying adage is that "there is no substitute for soup," i.e., horsepower. In soup the new radials were ahead of the Allison by close to 2-to-1, even when the Allison was putting out its full power. Excess power means not only more speed, but better climb, higher service ceiling, more ability to lug the heavy armament load needed in modern fighters...
Three U. S. fighting planes are built around the Allison engine: Bell's Airacobra; Curtiss-Wright's snappy P-4O (also made in Buffalo) ; Lockheed's twin-engined P-38. Curtiss-Wright last week had its P-4O production up to seven a day, for the moment had enough Allisons, but only because Bell and Lockheed did not yet need them in quantity. Both soon will; there will not be enough for all three for months. One or more will have to finish fuselages and wings, store them and wait for engines...
General Motors Corp.'s Allison-making subsidiary in Indianapolis has had many a headache, many a delay. This was to be expected: all new engines have "bugs," and the liquid-cooled Allison was a daring departure from the radial, air-cooled engines which had become standard in the U. S. In August, Allison expected to turn out 130 engines, actually produced 80, most of which went to Curtiss-Wright. These still had bugs, were limited to 950 instead of their rated 1,050 h.p. Last week the Army heard good Allison news for a change: that the last bugs...