Finest piston engine of WW2 era?

Bristol Centaurus is pretty good contender and the Napier Sabre is proof of the evolution of wartime development thinking even if towards the end of the war you wernt checking your six as much as your engine instruments.

Wasnt the griffon an earlier design than the merlin? – if so, for the underdog to overtake the merlin makes it a contender? –

Ultimately if the context is ‘wartime’ engines and not just piston engines the merlin has to win doesnt it?

Having said that if the Griffon was earlier, it spawned the Merlin then Superceded it right up to the good ole shackelton. (my facts could be wrong).

My money is on the Griffon – and youve got to thank it for the way it improved the look of the spitfire, without it would we have had the distinctive look of the later mark spitfires – (and less to argue over!)

Hello Dave,

You’d be the second person in a few days to say that about the Griffon… 😉

Hi! Yeah, I know! 😮

…the Griffon is a fine engine but always sounds like it it has a couple of plugs fouled!

That is because it uses a different firing order to the Merlin. And its not because it rotates in the opposite direction either. And if my memory serves me correctly it has some quite aggressive settings for timing and valve overlap. Combine this with lower rpm settings and the sound is very different. Its a bit meatier in my opinion.

By the way, although I admire the Sabre and Centaurus, not to mention the Jumo 213, BMW801 and R3350, by any measures you wish to use 2 engines stand head and shoulders above everything else, yes, the Merlin and the R2800. I find it impossible to chose between them as to which was the best.

Any one who knows Merlins, The “Packard built Rolls-Royce Merlin” 1650-7 for performance and reliability.

I’m with HP on this one. Without the Gipsy, few of the pilots of the Merlin engined aircraft et al wouldn’t have got airborne. Possibly one of the the most under-rated engines in recent times?

The Gipsy may well be a good engine, but i don’t think it would have stopped people from progressing to fly merlin engined aircraft if it hadn’t been invented. And also isn’t the gipsy not a pre world war two engine. So merlin it is for me.

If it wasn’t for the Gipsy……..

HP

I’m with HP on this one. Without the Gipsy, few of the pilots of the Merlin engined aircraft et al wouldn’t have got airborne. Possibly one of the the most under-rated engines in recent times?

For afficinados of engines there is an extremely good book by Victor Bingham titled “Major Piston Aero Engines of World War II”. It covers some interesting German & Russian engines.

the Griffon is a fine engine but always sounds like it it has a couple of plugs fouled!

Hello Dave,

You’d be the second person in a few days to say that about the Griffon… 😉

Please….open and shut for me…Rolls Royce Merlin inline and Pratt and Whitney R-2800 radial…SOOOO easy….but others will disagree…

And some will agree – you’re bang on laddie

were there any really unique differences between the major engines?

Radial engines:
All American radials apear the same except for displacement and number of cylinders.
The Centaurus has sleeve valves and at least one British radial series had 4 valve heads.
The Japanese HA-45 had direct injection

The inline engines all apear more or less the same. V-type (of some sort) over head cam(s) 4 Valve heads.

I’d still love to see a Centaurus hung off the front of a KI-84

Real can of worms :confused: .

For me its the Merlin, Napier Sabre and Griffon for inline types. Although the DB605 was excellent. And let’s face it for low level work the Allison was no slouch.

For radials its a real toss-up – Wright Cyclone, P&W R2800, BMW, Bristol Hercules, Centaurus etc. etc.

One could just go on and on :confused: – the Russian engines were all good and the Japanese Homare was pretty fine too.

Too hard to pick though – my personal favourite is the Napier Sabre but that’s just a personal thing because I like the Tempest 😀 .

Please….open and shut for me…Rolls Royce Merlin inline and Pratt and Whitney R-2800 radial…SOOOO easy….but others will disagree…

M

Lets see now.

Liquid cooled;
For development potential, does anything beat the Merlin? Clean sheet start with 27 litres and 1000 Hp. Finish with 27 litres and 2000 Hp. Hmm, not bad. Almost broke the company. But so did the Vulture. The RB211 did but that is another story.

For liniage, Start with 37 litres as the Buzzard, get developed into the 37 litre Schnieder (sure I spelt it wrong again) Trophy winning ‘R’, get further developed into the 37 litre Griffon (test run before the Merlin), and serve with Her Majesty’s RAF in front line service until 1991, continue to serve with the RAF up to the present day. That makes about 80 years. Hmm, not bad.

Both pretty fine.

Air cooled;
American – Continental, Lycoming, Wright and Pratt and Whitney all built fine radial engines. Wouldn’t like to say which was the finest.
British – long list of the finest ever built. Wouldn’t like to say which was the finest.
Russian – as per British.
Japanese – as per British

I think this is one issue that could only be settled by those airmen who trusted their lives behind these engines. Then again, chances of general agreement…

Have to agree with Hairyplane, the Gipsy makes any aircraft powered by it beautiful (Tiger Moth, Auster I and III, Messenger, Magister, need I go on!)

A forgotten gem?

If it wasn’t for the Gipsy……..

HP

How true.

But whenever WWII comes up, I tend to think of big noisey piston engines that powered fighters & bombers! 😮

Cheers

Paul

Piston engines of WW2

If it wasn’t for the Gipsy……..

HP

But for classic engineering excellence and longevity of type and developement it would have to be the Merlin…nothing else sounds like it or evokes such a response from the public as a whole…the Griffon is a fine engine but always sounds like it it has a couple of plugs fouled!

I agree with Dave.

Well, maybe not quite about the Griffon though! 🙂

For pure longevity and development, the Merlin has to be the engine that takes this award for me.

And what a sound! 😀

Like the Spitfire, it always amazed me how Rolls kept on developing it and developing it, attempting to get the maximum performance from it, and also coming up with variants that would suit one particular role or another.

Remarkable!

I guess there is a lot of truth when people say that the Spitfire without the Merlin would have been like Laurel without Hardy!

I guess also the P&W R2800 maybe a contender for this title too. Again, a magnificent engine and developed in many models and power ratings that powered a many of American greatest Fighters.

Cheers

Paul

You’ve really started something here!! 🙂

From a complexity and sheer ingenuity of design point of view my choice would be the Bristol Centaurus, Napier Sabre, or Rolls-Royce Vulture X….

But for classic engineering excellence and longevity of type and developement it would have to be the Merlin…nothing else sounds like it or evokes such a response from the public as a whole…the Griffon is a fine engine but always sounds like it it has a couple of plugs fouled!

Sorry if I’ve upset anyone… these are only my humble opinions! 😉