Quote:
Originally Posted by Barrie Yates
Quite true, they were never able to come up with a decent liquid cooled engine , most of their aircraft used radial engines. The P-51, one of the best of them all because of it's range was because they changed the original Allison engine to a Merlin - the same applied to the -P-38 & P-40, although I am not sure that the P-38 was ever re-engined.
Having said that, the radial engines were good and could take more punishment e.g. flak, than a liquid cooled engine.
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One place today where you can still see the influence of the radial engine air cooled concept is in the two-cylinder engine of a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
The engine from a Harley can be thought of as two cylinders from a radial engine.
In a Harley, both pistons share a single connection point to the crankshaft, like in a radial.