Paul --
Thanks for the item. I've actually seen it before and it is a good
explanation. In addition, as an item of trivia interest, the aircraft
at the top of the page is a later version of the Aero Commander. My dad
was an engineer with Aero Commander from late in 1951 until he came back
to California, to the Douglas plant in Long Beach, and worked on DC-8s,
DC-9s and DC-10s -- this was before and then during the time of the
merger with McDonnell.
The Aero Commander was originally conceived by one of the true American
aeronautical geniuses, Ted Smith, and a bunch of other guys who worked
at Douglas during WWII. The prototype was built in Culver City and made
its first flight from the Hughes plant because Ted Smith knew Howard
Hughes and Hughes let them use the runway. The manufacturing was set up
in Oklahoma City because of the financing arrangements in getting the
whole business up and running. My dad had worked with those guys at
Douglas and took the job offer to go to Oklahoma, which is why I grew up
in the Bible Belt and can deliver a pretty good southwestern twang when
I need it. During those days the company was kind of like a big family.
As a kid I knew Ted Smith and his family and we would sometimes, during
the hot summers, go to his house and go swimming in his pool.
Since Smith and the rest of the Douglas guys had worked on attack
bombers during WWII, notably the A-26, the Aero Commander looks an awful
lot like the A-26, particularly in wing plan, tail surfaces and general
layout. The views from the top are especially similar.
The "engineering offices" at Aero Commander in those days were nothing
more than a very small annex on the side of the manufacturing hanger,
with two rows of drafting tables crowded into the room and a narrow
aisle down the middle. There was a single door leading to the plant and
the manufacturing guys and engineering guys were constantly going back
and forth to solve matters of the moment, and even with that door closed
the engineering guys could hear the constant hammering of rivet guns and
smell the lubricants and paint.
Quite often dad would go into the plant on Saturday to get in some extra
work and take me with him -- I was maybe 10 or 12 at the time. While he
was over the drafting board I would have the free run of the plant and
would be out on the factory floor, crawling in and out of
partially-finished airplanes, fiddling with tools, clambering over this
and that and thoroughly fascinated by the whole thing. It's my guess
that current practices at Boeing or Northrup-Grumman don't allow
unsupervised 12-year-old kids to wander around the factory floor and
play with half-finished aircraft.
I have a lot more stories about those days but I've probably taken too
much of your time already.
Thanks again, and best wishes --
Don Fuller
Good hearing from you Don. What are you up to these days?
You should make time to visit my hangar in Santa Paula.
Paul Lamar
--
Paul:
The AC-685 which forms the top banner of every page on my site is
actually described here:
http://www.epi-eng.com/aircraft_engine_conversions/orenda_on_aero_commander.htm
I worked with Ted Smith's son when I did the engineering on that
conversion. I kept telling the client that it was a loser, but he wasn't
to be swayed by fact, so when it came time to try for the STC (along
with a badly-needed gross weight increase), the FAA basically laughed.
BUT, I did fly it a couple of times, and I can tell you for sure that it
was a real performer. Whereas the original AC-685 with the anemic
GTSIO-520's (at an optimistic 435 hp per side) was downright scary to
get into the air in less than 4000 ft, with the Orendas, it would be
airborne in about 1500 ft, and the single engine performance was very
impressive (Vmc and stall were very close).
The TOC for that section contains lots of info on the design and
implementation of an engine installation on an aircraft:
http://www.epi-eng.com/aircraft_engine_conversions/conversions_contents.htm
Best;
JK
Here is an article done by my friend and ex student Don Sherman on that
project. Correct me if I am wrong but I think the final TBO was 1200 hours.
It is still around sold by some outfit in Midland Tx and they are asking
$100,000 last time I talked to them at OSH. The Orenda company went
bankrupt.
Smithsonian Air & Space magazine article "Power Struggle" by Don
Sherman, January 1997, page 72. Excellent ten page article (with
many pictures) about auto engines in airplanes. A brief history of
all auto engines in airplanes and a more detailed history of the
twenty year, twenty million dollar development of the Chevy V8
based, all aluminum Orenda liquid cooled aircraft engine. The
engine failed its FAA 150 hour certification test due to a
crankshaft problem after 20 years of very expensive development.
It was finally certified in 1998 by Transport Canada.
Orenda tried moving the project to Nova Scotia
and injecting another 32 million dollars of mostly Canadian
government money. They also attempting to market the engine to
the homebuilt market. I don't expect many takers at over $100K per engine.
Lancair gave up after spending a lot of money installing
the engine in a special airplane called the Lancair Tigress.
The engine and the Tigress were donated to the EAA museum as
a tax write off I expect. They sure gave it the old college
try. I spoke to an Orenda engineer (was that you?) at and alternative
engine symposium in Santa Rosa a few years ago about it and he said he
would kill his grand mother for another 1/4 inch of cylinder spacing :)
I noticed somebody changed the block cooling system from serial to
parallel.
http://www.rotaryeng.net/DS-smith-art.pdf
BTW I hope the NTSB checks the Bud Warren LA-x engine for structural failures.
I am not optimistic about that as they took a rotary involved in a fatal
to a Mazda dealer. The Mazda mechanic concluded the engine failed due to a
missing apex seal oil metering pump. (Most people pre mix). This went
into the final report. NTSB Identification: SEA02LA072. We tried over and over
again to correct the report but the NTSB stone walled us. Despite the fact that
one of the board members was a friend of my A&P Wife's
Old message.
------------------------------------------------
Ken Welter wrote:
>
> The FAA called me and wanted input on what I knew about Jim's plane
> so I told them what I knew also they said that they took the engine
> to a Mazda dealer for a inspection and my reply was they may as well
> taken it to oil can Henry's as they know nothing about the engines as
> they replace them when they go bad. What they found is the bearings,
> crank, rotors and housings galled and blued which the dealer told
> them was do to the fact that Jim had removed oil injector pump, that
> just tells you what idiots the dealers are so I had to straighten them
> out and tell them that... that is common procedure to do on race cars
> and aircraft and that we mix oil in the gas to lube the apex seals
> and that it has nothing to do with lubricating the main bearings and
> cooling the rotors and that the main pump does that. In my experience
> the only thing that can cause these problems is a total loss in oil
> pressure which may have been the piece of crap oil cooler that he was
> running but I am sure that we will never know as the plane burned so
> bad that the cooler was melted. Still with all of this there was no
> reason to crash the plane as there were fields all around the airport
> and one must remember the three most important things about flying
> and that is airspeed, airspeed and airspeed.
> Ken Welter
----------------------------------------------------
Paul Lamar
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