Exhausts at night

Hi Daz,
Pages 60 – 61, lovely shot, well remembered. It was 6.95 when it came out too. Well worth getting the book; by Richard Winslade. Anyone know what he’s up to these days?
Cheers

Originally posted by Chris Broad
The ‘Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’ Book (published by ?).

I think this is it…
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0850457246/qid=1077655284/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_8_5/026-3020257-1200403

No picture though, so can’t really be sure. However it was the only one published in the eighties and Osprey sounds familiar.

The very first time I flew was in a Hermes, out of Blackbush,
on the 23/10/1953 at 01:25, after a two week delay due to fog. I was sitting behind the wing and could see these jets of blue flame appearing from under the trailing edge – very impressive but for someone who didn’t know better, a little unnerving.

Still see the odd DC3 or DC6 comming out of Coventry at night flaming nicely. Run up a Tiger Moth at dusk and that even flames.

For some excellent photo’s of exhaust glow and flames you must buy/borrow The ‘Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’ Book (published by ?).

IIRC the centre spread is of the then all black Hurricane LF363 ground running to some rpm with thick blue flames pouring out of the 6 exhaust stubs of the roaring Merlin! Fantastic stuff, a book full of great photos and history of the team and aircraft. Everyone should have it!

Anyone else know of this book? I’m not at home and am finding it difficult to describe, grrr… i’ll have a browse on the net. I think it was published before 1991 because, a) LF363 had not crashed and b) there is no mention of their Mk.IX Spitfire MK356.

Interesting thread.

The Supermarine Walrus, commonly called the Shagbat, was also called the ‘Flying Gas Ring’ due, I’m told, to the exhaust pattern at night from its pusher Pegasus engine. Never seen a pic, or other evidence though… 🙁

NX611 should have exhaust shrouds for authenticity, but being a ‘comestible’ item, they are rarely looked for on active restorations. I think PA474 doesn’t have them as they a) get burned, b) degrade performance. Both seem a trifle unlikely to me, but I don’t know. Any comments from someone who does know?

At least one nightfighter Spitfire V flew without the plates to protect the pilot’s vision. There’s a pic in the new book Spitfire Mk.V from MMP Books.

Cheers

Having seen engine runs on a B-25 at night I can tell you that at anything approaching normal power settings you will get blue flames from the exhausts like on the photo of NX611 above. At low power settings they can only be seen from the back (but I didn’t stand there at the time). In flight these are the best indications of mixture settings that you can get! As illustrated by the image above. Most B-25 have a collector ring for the top cylinders and individual stacks for the bottom ones. The flame from the collector is up to a feet in length (maybe even more).

The rest of the exhaust system is hidden inside the cowlings so you don’t get to see the red glow. The Blenheim must look great at night with the two exhaust collector rings glowing! It is a similar installation as the Anson mentioned by Gyp.

Civilian use of the Merlin

On one of the ‘civvy’ airliners fitted with a Merlin, I think it was the DC-4 to make it an ‘Argonaut’, they routed the inboard bank of exhausts to exit on the far side of the engine.

This was to prevent disquiet among the passengers seeing the exhaust glowing ‘cherry red’ in the dark!

Mark

[i]

Note that the Russians refer to the mixture control as an “altitude corrector”.

– Hamtech. [/B]

There’s a warning light on the Yak 52 quaintly placarded

“Chips in oil”

Moggy

Ot vinta!

On the subject, see the attached image. This is part of the instructions given to Yak-3 pilots at the end of the war.

It indicates words to the effect of:

…at 4000 meters, adjust your mixture until the flame from the exhaust looks like the lower picture (normal mixture).

Upper flame is “rich”, middle is “lean” (its intent, I don’t know the exact meaning).

Note that the Russians refer to the mixture control as an “altitude corrector”.

– Hamtech.

SHOULD NX611 HAVE FLAME DAMPERS FITTED IF IT IS TO BE AUTHENTIC?

I have that B-25 documentary on video. The film was made in 1978 and shown on TV in 1982. I think it was called “B-25s Do Fly in IMC”.

The DC-4 had Pratt & Whitney radials and, as I said above, the exhaust flames were pretty obvious.

During WW2 most aircraft used at night had their exhaust stacks covered in shrouds or blocked by plates. The purpose was two fold, to prevent the crew from being blinded by the glare and to reduce the visibility of the exhausts to enemy night fighers. I don’t think the exhaust glow could be blanked out completely as many ex-German night fighter pilots will testify.

In the documentary ‘B25 s (or Mitchell’s, I cant remember) do fly on IMR’ the TV documentary in the early ’80’s on flying 5 B25’s to the UK in ’79 (?) for the film ‘Hanover Street’, I think the final shots are of one or more of the B25’s landing at Little Riss. at night, the flames & popping coming from the exhaust as the engines are throttled back to reduce power on landing are really great to watch for a petrol head like me.

Top Fuel dragsters ( 6000 BHP ) will have 3 foot flames coming from each exhaust pipe ( 1 per cylinder, all pointing up) during a run, a totally spectacular event to watch.

You will get flames from short exhaust pipes/stubs on full power or throttling back (leaning out)

Thanks Guys!

I had imagined the glow was slight, but I guess with the boost turned up, to do an attack run, the enemy must have been able to see them coming a few miles off.

Interesting point about bombers, I was going to ask about them, but my main question was for fighters. How about radial engines, what sort of effects do you get from them at night. I would guess very little as the engine is shrouded, and they have only one, or two large exhaust pipes generally, which must be easier to suppress?

When Aer Turas operated their DC-4 EI-ARS in the 1970s, I used to love when it would pass over my house at night. Apart from the red anti-collision beacon. the only visible evidence of the aircraft were the flickering blue flames coming from the exhaust stacks.

It was not only a “glow”! Fire did come out of the exhaust pipes, esp when they doubled as jets, as they did on the German planes.

Off topic: In 1948 the Buick Roadmaster convertible had socalled “portholes” and behind them installed amber lights attached to the distributor. The lights, flashing on and off, suggested an unusually powerful engine with flaming exhaust.

Once bummed a ride alongside the pilot of an Anson doing night circuit practice. On take-off I was alarmed to see the bright red exhaust collector ring in the engine. Although I knew I should have kept quiet at this time of concentration for the pilot I couldn’t help asking if what looked like an imminent fire was normal. ‘Yes’, he said, ‘I’ve got one like it on my side as well’.

In the circuit he throttled back to cruising revs and the glow died down to become scarcely visible.

I’ve just finsihed reading Geoff Wellum’s book “First Light”,in which he describes flying Spits at night from RAF Pembrey in south Wales in defence of Bristol.The glow from the exhausts were apparently very bright,those plates you see on nightfighter Hurri’s and things like that were absolutely essential for night flying,the glare would’ve blinded the pilot otherwise.
To stray slightly from the original question,the exhaust glare on RAF bombers was bright enough for German nightfighters to home in on as they came in for the kill.Experienced Luftwaffe crews could even recognise the type of bomber by the pattern of it’s exhaust flames-even with the exhaust shrouds,the glow could still be seen from a reasonable distance from directly behind.

Exhausts at night certainly did emit a glow, although whether the glow was the gases themselves, the glow caused by the heat of the stubs, or a combination of both, I couldn’t really say.

I do know that when NX611 carries out night taxi runs at East Kirkby and runs the individual engines up, you tell which engine’s running at the higher power setting because the trail of sparks behind the aeroplane is highly visible. I’m not sure whether such a visible trail of sparks would have come from operational Lancasters, as I believe they all had flame dampers fitted and NX611 hasn’t.

Hope that helps.