WRIGHT 3350 RADIAL

[SteveZ]

Heres a question for some of the guys here that may know of this type engine or may have worked on them.

 

During the Second World War in the Pacific, the new B 29 Superfortress was equipped with this massive radial engine and I often hear, when viewing documentaries on the tube, that there were some ' teething ' problems with this engine.

They often quit or caught fire. ( not due to damage by enemy fire )

 

After the war, my father flew Lockheed Neptunes for the US NAVY for years and this aircraft was also powered by the R 3350 but I never heard if this engine continued to be a problem with reliability. I guess they got the bugs out the design.

 

Anyone know what the major problem was during the war and was it fixed later as the engine evolved ? Perhaps a design flaw ?

 

Many Thanks, Steve

[US82Bravo]

This site will give you some of the answers to your questions -

 

http://www.aviation-history.com/engines/r3350.htm

 

 

Larry

 

 

 

 

 

[TBMflyer]

Steve, it seems the main problem with the engine was cooling, overheating of the exhaust valves. Boeing and Curtiss tried all sorts of things to cool the engines. The fire issues were really due to the magnesium that was used in the engines, when a valve was swallowed by the engine and fire got to the magnesium, it usually led to the loss of the a/c.

That is a very basic overview of the issues, I know the 3350 was used for many years after the war so all the mods must have worked.

Steve Birdsall's great book "Saga of the Superfortress" goes into more detail on the problems and solutions to those.

Hope this helps a bit,

Mark

[northcoastaero]

I am almost certain that the 3350 engine was also used with the Consolidated B-32 Dominator. NACA Lewis

(Now NASA Glenn) may have contributed to fixing some or all of the problems with the engine. Some

B-29 Superfortress parts were built at a large facility that was also located at the Cleveland Municipal airport.

Hope this helps.

[bobatl]

I've heard that the post-war engines had very few parts in common with the wartime engines. One parts dealer told me that he had a new crankshaft and had determined that there was no use for it as everyone needed the later design crankshafts. The R-3350 never achieved the reliability of the R-2800 and people called the Douglas DC-7 with it's four R-3350's the world's best tri-motored airliner. That said, my father flew DC-7, L-649/749/1049 and he didn't complain about the engines other then mentioning that sometimes the Power Recovery Turbine would decide to come apart and the shrapnel would pepper holes in the wing. Someone with B-29 experience mentioned that the B-29 was the last large aircraft to have fuel and oil lines connected with hose clamps and they had a lot of problems with loose hose clamps causing leaks which then ignited on some hot surface.