If anyone has read the true history of the R-3350 -57 AM they will know that the issues suffered by the first of the mass-produced Sabres were nothing in comparison. The R-3350 almost bought the entire B29 project to a grinding halt, and indeed even as last as August 1945 Colonel Paul Tibbets refused to fly the Atomic mission unless his aircraft was equipped with specially modified engines. The Sabre once they understood how to manufacture the sleeves correctly only needed to be managed correctly, a task a few courts martial soon sorted out. A family friend flew some 60 missions from the Normandy beach heads and beyond without an abort, hardly the record of a poor engine.

I believe that in the not too distant future the true side of John McCain will become very apparent. The truth of what happened on the USS Forestal has not been published, and nore what happened to McCain whilst in a POW camp. A bit like the dark side of George H W Bush. Just because these guys we aviators and we are all aviation enthusiests it does not follow that all aviators who put their lives on the line are paragons of virtue. I suggest everyone does some deep research before they are too fulsome in their praise of John McCain. Just saying and dont shoot the messenger before you look hard. By the way McCains death was telegraphed a few days before he died, so those fully awake and fully aware of whats going on in this mad world of ours were not suprised in the slightest.

Those underwing stars and bars on European based thunderbolts are problematic to get right. To help with recognition it was decide by the brass to had oversize under both wings. But some outfits only painted an oversize under the port wing leaving the starboard one as is. And there also appears to be different sizes for different outfits.

As stated above the issues of why one engine was better than the other was entirely different for the two aircraft. The Halifax is the more interesting as when you investigate it the Halifax issue was drag. The airframe was cleaned up to reduce the drag, but the major issue was with the Merlin Engine and the way it was mounted high on the wing with the exhaust stubs in line with the centre of the wing, requiring a large manifold to route the hot exhaust over the wing. This manifold was both heavy and draggy and glowed in the dark and acted like a magnet to night fighters. A fully laden Merlin 20 or 22 powerewd Halifax II had to use full throttle to maintain airspeed just above the stall, and evasive action such as the corkscrew would likely result in a stall. Could it be that many of the over rudder issues were the result of pilots inadvertently stalling the aircraft?

Another fact was the high load factor on the engines caused service issues and accentuated problems that could otherwise have been managed, the radiators being one such issue. Handley Page and Rolls Royce never saw eye to eye over the engine mounting position, and the fitting of the Hercules, combined with all the other improvement resulted in a much better aircraft.

But a Halifax was flown with Merlin 22 or 24’s in what RR considered the correct location and a marked improvement was achieved. Also Merlin 60 series where flown and showed better performance than the Lancaster (as they would) But Handley Page was not interested by then and was content to just fit the Hercules

The R2800 came in two very distinct base versions, a B series in such aircraft as the P47D, Hellcat and F4U-1. It was 2000hp or there about’s and had an emergency rating with water injection of about 2300hp. The other version was the C Series in such late war aircraft as the P47M & N, F4U-4 F8F Bearcat etc It was 2300hp with a top rating of 2800hp in the P47M. Few bit are interchangeable between the engines. The C Series was the basis of the post war commercial engines and I suspect is the version going into the Seafury. The Centaurus is considerably larger in cubic capacity and had a normal rating of 2500hp.

As for the Beaufighter, a pair of R2600’s would be the closest to a pair of Hercules. Both 14 cylinders

I think the issue regarding the FB11 and wanting to assess the cause of the T20 engine failure is that the root cause of the T20 failure can not as I understand it be established with any degree of confidence as it destroyed itself and all the evidence.

the sanders have been running an R2800 in argonaught for a couple years now and i haven’t heard of any problems with power…qualified at reno 2014 at 372 mph..and ran laps in the 380mph class…the big advantage according to them is reliability…it’s a CB3 in argo

The CB3 is a Civil Double Wasp engine DC6 would have been its most popular application 2300hp dry and 2500hp wet (water methanol injection). So as I thought not the same engine as a P47D or F4U-1. Perhaps similar to the F4U-4 or some Bearcats perhaps, and not far off a stock Centaurus.