A powerful, 1,200-hp (895-kW) Pratt & Whitney R-1830 double-row radial engine powers the
Grumman F4F Wildcat, a naval fighter during World War II.
Securing a PMA on radial engine a gold mine for us.” necessarily desirable. “The value
parts requires a lot of materials testing, Steve Curry shares his own “gold isn’t as high to us compared to an
too. “If you can make the new part out mine” story: “I got a call from a engine that’s used on a lot of war-
of the same material, then it’s easier to woman in Caldwell, Idaho, who said birds or commercial aircraft,” says
get an PMA on the part,” says Dalton. her father and brother had some Steve Curry.
Aside from buying “new spares” engines stored in a hangar. My son “And the dash number on the
and manufacturing other parts, both flew out there expecting to find a engine makes a big differences too,”
Dalton and Steve Curry say they are few Continental engines. When he he adds. “An R-2800 CB-16 or CB-3
always on the lookout for those leg- got there, he called and said there is pretty desirable compared to an
endary barns full of engines and parts. were actually five hangars full of R-2800 ‘B’ series. R-3350s, 1820s, and
“We purchased over 80 R-2800s a few inventory: engines, parts and 27 2800s are the types of engines that
years ago,” Dalton recalls. (Introduced vintage airplanes. We brokered the are most desirable to our customers
in 1939, the R-2800 is an 18-cylinder sale of the airplanes for them and right now.”
Pratt & Whitney engine that powers ended up with five tractor-trailer Getting Hands Dirty
the DC-6, P-47 Thunderbolt, A-26 loads of parts.” “The radial engine is a very simple,
Invader and F6F Hellcat, among other The true value of such a find straightforward design,” according
aircraft. More than 125,000 R-2800s depends on the type of engines, to the elder Curry. “All the engines
were manufactured.) “They were Air their condition and how they were we work on were designed in an
Force overhauls. Some of them were stored. A rare engine that’s only era when the manufacturers were
run once and put in the can. That was used on one aircraft type is not attempting to build something that
A Tip on Radials
Should a radial-powered airplane show up on your
ramp, there’s one critical operational tip that Radial
Engines president Steve Curry stresses: always pull the
engine through before you start it. That means you grab
the propeller and pull it down several times before firing
up the engine, just like you see in some old-time movies.
Many owners don’t seem to know how important that is.
“You have upper cylinders and lower cylinders, and
gravity is always working against you, trying to drain oil
into the lower cylinders,” Curry explains. The problem
arises when the amount of oil entering the lower combus-
tion chamber is larger than the chamber itself. “When the
piston goes down and hits the oil, something has to give,”
he adds. “And it’s almost always the link rod will bend or
the cylinder will crack.”
“If you pull [the engine] through two complete revolu-
tions and don’t feel a cylinder lock, then you’re safe to
start,” says Curry. “If you do feel the piston hitting the oil,
then you need to pull the sparkplugs from the lower cylin-
ders and drain the oil.” Consider it the labor of love.
Aviation Maintenance |
avmain-mag.com | Oct/Nov 2009 29
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