Comments by "Gort" (@gort8203) on "North American ETF-51D; The “Sea Horse”" video.

  1. No mention of why the Navy wanted to explore fighters with liquid cooled engines. Perhaps for the same reason the European powers used liquid cooled engines in their carrier aircraft? Liquid cooled engines in general can produce more power per unit of displacement, per unit of frontal area, and sometimes even per unit of weight. Basically, superior cooling allowed use of higher manifold pressure. The liquid cooled engines were also generally more fuel efficient, allowing an airplane to carry less fuel or fly longer on an equivalent amount of fuel. The countries using the liquid cooled engine were not deterred by the supposed drawbacks commonly attributed to them, so how serious could they be? For example, do radials really require so much less maintenance that the difference is significant enough to outweigh the superior performance of liquid cooled engines? Eliminating the need to maintain a cooling system (and the stores to service it) is a benefit, but then you have more spark plugs to check and change, more valves to adjust, maybe more bolts and connections to check for security considering all the separate cylinders and the wider temperature cycle of the air cooled engine. I would like to hear from a maintainer of these WWII engines on this subject. Perhaps the Navy preference for radials is due as much to the usual factor that drives the Navy – tradition -- as it is to these perceived advantages of the radial. Between the wars, radials were pretty much king in the U.S., and inline engines more favored in Europe. It was natural for many U.S. fighters to have radial engines, even the land-based Army fighters. It was only after the excellent Allison V-1710 arrived that the P-40 was developed out of the radial engine P-36, and outperformed it. (Note, as aircraft speeds increased the advantage of lower frontal area was magnified.) In the run up to WWII the U.S maintained an edge in radial development and Europe had an edge in inline development, so perhaps the superior potential of the liquid cooled engine was not really perceived by many in the U.S. Perhaps the Navy just stuck with what they knew rather try to put that engine developed for the Army into one of their fighters. Food for thought?
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  2.  @dukecraig2402  Thanks for repeating all the usual narratives, but I guess you couldn't tell from my post that I have heard them all, and they don't answer the question of why the Navy suddenly wanted to explore the possibility of a liquid cooled fighter. That was the subject of this video, if you recall. But if you come up with any original thoughts that are not a repeat of the usual "liquid cooling bad" mantra it might be interesting.
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