I flew from California to Connecticut in early July to attend the 3rd AEHS convention. The AEHS has several hundred members, with a fair number based overseas. Three attendees flew over from the UK and another arrived from Italy. The convention venue in Connecticut, just southeast of Bradley International Airport, was near Pratt & Whitney (P&W) HQ in East Hartford and the New England Air Museum (north side of airport in Windsor Locks), which we did explore at length. Around 55 hard-core aero engine enthusiasts ("motor heads") attended.

Upon the Thursday July 6 PM arrival, the group got acquainted over drinks, and an outdoor "Tiki Barbecue" at the Ramada hotel pool.

After introductory remarks on Friday AM July 7 by noted aero piston engine author/historian Mr. Graham White (who is also VP of the AEHS, as well as Torque Meter journal editor), the program began. All morning, the audience was enthralled with a panel session of P&W engineering retirees in their 80s, including Bob Toft, Bill McGaw, Phil Hopper, and Larry Carlson. Most of the panelists began at Pratt during the piston era in the early 1940s and retired in the jet era around the early 1980s. The panel was moderated by engineering retiree Jack Connors, who was hired in 1948 to work on Pratt gas turbines (Jack did a nice talk on the P&W J57 program at the 2005 AEHS convention in Kalamazoo, Michigan). Each retiree provided favorite recollections/ war stories, followed by an audience Q&A session.

The afternoon was devoted to an interesting guided tour of P&W’s Customer Training facility (many production turbofans on display, such as PW 4168, PW 4090, PW 4460, PW 4000, PW 2037, and JT8D cutaway), followed by an unguided tour of the private P&W museum in East Hartford—not open to the public. I visited the East Hartford engineering offices around 1995 on official business as an aerospace consultant researching jet engine seals, and my father worked there from December 1941 to August 1945 in flight test as an engineering test pilot. That background qualifies me as a devoted P&W enthusiast.

Most of P&W’s piston and early turbine engines were on display in the hidden Pratt museum, including the company’s first water-cooled engine, the R-2060 "Yellow Jacket", a 20-cylinder/4-row radial. Not seen (stored away) were Pratt’s experimental sleeve-valve water-cooled engines (such as the Navy XH-3130/3730, and Army X-1800) tabled in the early 1940s. Most convention attendees were particularly fond of the impressive and dependable P&W air-cooled radials on display, from the first R-1340 Wasp single-row radial of 1925, to the mighty R-4360 Wasp Major (4 rows of 7 cylinders)—the largest aircraft piston engine to reach mass production (in development all during World War II), and the exemplary R-2800 Double Wasp--which found volume post-war civil airliner markets (such as the DC-6 and Convair twins). Installed in latter P-47s with wartime emergency power (ADI), the R-2800 pulled 2,800 hp for 5-10 minutes, however one retiree panelist (Larry Carlson) ran one on the test stand up to 3,600 hp around 1944-1945 (engine survived). Got to love that high performance. The subsequent civil airliner R-2800 CA/CB series rated 2,500 hp at take off (water-methanol injection/ADI). The venerable R-2800, along with the R-1340 Wasp, finally went out of production in 1960. Warbird operators today have difficulty finding decent original WW II R-2800 engines to rebuild, so many civil R-2800s have been pressed into service.

On Saturday the 8th, 9 AM through lunch was dedicated to three excellent speakers:

• Dave Birch (Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust) spoke on Merlin V-12 supercharging
• Kim McCutcheon (AEHS President) spoke on the liquid-cooled engines of P&W
• Pete Law (see bio below) did a slide show on the Red Baron P-51 Reno racer Merlin-to-Griffon conversion project

The entire afternoon was dedicated to a walking tour of the New England Air Museum. This museum paid special homage to luminaries in Connecticut aviation history, with much on Sikorsky as well as P&W. A listing of its impressive collections can be seen at www.neam.org. I visited there many years ago while at P&W (1995), and many new exhibits were evident now. Among the less common aircraft on display, was a well-restored gleaming B-29 bomber. Other warbirds on display indoors included: P-47, F6F, F-86, F-100, F-14, and more. Many engines (piston and turbine), were also on display—including some P&W engines NOT seen at the P&W museum (one example: R-1535 Twin Wasp Junior). I was impressed with a clean Hall-Scott A-2 pushrod 60 hp V-8 of 1910 on display, built in Berkeley, CA. That engine (along with the V-8s of Glenn Curtiss) competed directly with my family’s Rinek model B-10, a 60 hp water-cooled pushrod V-8 of 1910 (one example survives today in the Yorkshire Air Museum, UK).

We got a private tour to see some un-restored engines/airframes in storage, including a rare GE I-16 (Whittle-type) centrifugal-compressor turbo jet, that brought the U.S. into the jet age around 1944, as well as the hot P&W J58 that powered the Mach 3+ SR-71. Another ultra-rare engine in storage (only one built, it ran once and then seized) was an Allison air-cooled V-12 built under contract for the Army. This was reportedly the first Allison aero engine design.

Kevin Cameron, technical writer and tech editor of Cycle World as well as columnist for the quarterly AEHS Torque Meter, was the esteemed after-dinner speaker for the annual banquet on Saturday night. He is renowned for his clear articulation of technical issues, such as the details of engine design and related materials of construction, so that everybody can understand them—while interjecting some humor to such tech topics.

Sunday July 9th began with a flourish as Mr. Pete Law, Lockheed Skunk Works veteran and an annual legend in the pits at the Reno National Air Races spoke at length. Pete worked on engineering thermodynamics challenges for the SR-71 program, among others at the Lockheed Skunk Works, and he knew top bosses Clarence (Kelly) Johnson and Ben Rich fairly well. At Reno, dating from the present back to 1964 origins, Pete became the go-to-guy for engineering problems on carburetors, cooling, ADI (water/methanol injection) systems, and ram air recovery designs. Countless teams have relied on Pete, including Darryl Greenamyer’s famous modified F8F Bearcat unlimited gold champion, the Rare Bear (stuffed with an enhanced Wright R-3350 radial, and still the world speed record holder for piston-driven propeller aircraft), the Red Baron P-51 Mustang (stuffed with a R-R Griffon), a Super Corsair, and Tsunami, among others. Pete gave an unforgettable overview of Reno’s unlimited racers, from 1964 to 2005.

After Pete Law’s show on air racers, the convention ended on Sunday AM the 9th with:

• Viewing of a Rolls-Royce 30-minute video Contribution to Victory featuring V-12 Merlins being built in the UK during World War II
• An auction of aero engine memorabilia
• A discussion on AEHS health (good)
• Review of future convention site options

AEHS plans more conventions at other venues: most likely at Dayton, Ohio near the Air Force Museum in late July 2007, and then a convention on the West Coast/Southern California—probably near the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino. All together, a well-received gathering this year, and attendance was up over 2005.

2006 Convention Presentations

Presentations by Pete Law

Unlimited Class Air Racing, Part 1: Introduction (378K PDF)
Unlimited Class Air Racing, Part 2: Bearcats (320K PDF)
Unlimited Class Air Racing, Part 3: Corsairs (119K PDF)
Unlimited Class Air Racing, Part 4: Specials (301K PDF)
Unlimited Class Air Racing, Part 5: Mustangs (1,782K PDF)
Unlimited Class Air Racing, Part 6: Sea Furys (458K PDF)
Unlimited Class Air Racing, Part 7: P-38s, P-63s, F7Fs (288K PDF)
Unlimited Class Air Racing, Part 8: Yaks, etc. (440K PDF)

 

The Story of Red Baron's Conversion from Merlin to Griffon

 

The Liquid-Cooled Engines of Pratt & Whitney - by Kimble D. McCutcheon (2.0M PDF)