Ken Powell wrote:
This is off topic but is still airplane stuff, so:
Can anyone provide me with general info in the engine used on
the A1 Skyraider as used in Vietnam?
Cubic Inches?
No. of Rows?
No. of Cylinders per Row?
Was it Turbo-Compound Supercharged?
Other Interesting Info?
Thanks,
Ken Powell
I think they used the P&W R4360 four row corncob engine. Not sure.
For sure not turbo compound. May have been a Curtis Wright R3350.
Paul Lamar
Bill Freeman wrote:
It was the Wright 3350, not the PW. The 3350 is a two
row radial of 3350 cubic inches, I think two rows of 9 each, for 18 cyls,
and the Navy nearly always used supercharged engines, very rarely
turbo'd.
The AD (A-1 is the Air Force stealing the AD and renaming it; typical)
used
the 26W, 26WA or 26WB version of the 3350. Rated at 3050 hp. This
class of engines was typically manually shifted for at least two
supercharger
speeds, sometimes three, shifted as altitude increased. Not sure if this
was
true for the R3350-26W, but I'd guess "probably".
The AD was called the Spad by most Navy pilots since if flew far into the
jet age, but was operational at the very end of WW2. The AF took Navy
ADs and rebuilt them to use as SAR close air support birds, code named
Sandy for Vietnam. The Navy did a lot with them in 'Nam off carriers.
Tremendous load & range and time on target, very useful for close air
support.
Super tough, hard to kill and bad to have mad at you. A truly historic
bird. Designed by the legendary Ed Heinemann, also of A4 Skyhawk
fame.
Bill
tommayer wrote:
The Air Force taught the VNAF how to fly them and had at least one
operational squadron of its own operating with a couple of VNAF squadrons.
In late 66 and early 67 it was based at Pleiku.
The USAF flew the A-1E version with side by side cockpit seats. There
were some young pilots in the outfit--I flew a night strike up north of the
17th Parallel with Jimmmy Thyng, the son of Harrison Thyng who was a general
and I think a WWII or Korean ace, and he was not too long out of Colorado
Springs--but you saw a lot of guys wearing gold and silver oak leaves on
sweaty flight suits, glasses, thinning hair and less than svelte
midsections. I think what had happened was that the accident rates,
especially on T/O and landings, were a bit high when the program started,
and finally some upper echelon genius remembered about torque and tailwheels
and all that good stuff, and they scoured the Pentagon for Jug and 51
drivers. I flew with a number of guys enjoying their second childhoods.
The airplane was easy to fly, at least for somebody who had experience
in C-180s and Stearmans and Ag Cats and Staggerwing Beeches. The 3350s gave
very good service, although with a brace of 500 pounders under the wings
another 1000 ponies would have been welcome. As I remember, they did not
have turbos. There were some tight spots on them, and the VNAF mechanics
were often prized for their small, deft hands.
I had never done any dive bombing, and on my first such sortie the
driver politely asked me to look behind to see if we hit the hut we were
aiming at. We probably pulled 6 G coming off. My chin was locked in the 5
o'clock position for a week. The flight surgeon gave me Ben Gay and I was
the butt of beaucoup jokes during happy hour.
They carried four 20 mike mikes, and were a very steady gun platform.
When you fired a 5 second burst it felt as if the airplane had stopped in
midair. They also had phenomenal loiter time compared to any of the jets,
which made them most useful for S&R. That old 3350 out in front of you
provided a nice warm secure feeling when you rolled into a 60 degree dive
and noticed swarms of little 12.7 red dots coming up at you out of the dark
green.
I have in some notebooks I could probably find in a week twenty or so
stanzas of the song about the famous rescue of Bernie Myers, who crash
landed on the abandoned strip near the old Ashau Special Forces A camp. It
starts, The A1Es were bouncing off the Ashau Valley floor. The refrain runs:
Number One was Captain Blood, Number Two got quite a few, Number Four came
around and tried to get some more. Oh the road was filled with ruts and the
ruts were filled guts and we came around and tried to get some more. Little
children sucking...but maybe this is a family forum.
I remember a couple of the sorties better than the flight I made
yesterday, but that has nothing to do with rotary engines, does it.
tommayer
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