Engine News

Many a thoughtful Army airman has lately been disturbed by reports that Britain, whose heavily armed and armored pursuit planes are the world's most formidable, is no longer satisfied with its liquid-cooled Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. U. S. airmen found the report disturbing because the Army Air Corps has gone in up to its ears for a similar engine of similar horsepower --the 1,090-h.p., liquid-cooled Allison.

Fortnight ago, for reasons that no one seemed able to make plain to laymen, the Army laid out another $69,000,000 contract for Allison engines. The Army thus raised its bet on an apparently underpowered engine (and planes designed for it) to $159,500,000. And the Army also had $62.448,000 out in orders for Rolls-Royce Merlins (to be built by Packard).

Last week the Air Corps heard some more disturbing news. Into Washington trickled authenticated reports that Rolls-Royce had brought out a 2,000-h.p. job, and that it had pulled a new Hawker Typhoon, bristling with guns and loaded with armor, at better than 410 m.p.h. If this new, more powerful engine holds up in service, the Air Corps may have to revise its notions on horsepower.

Meantime the U. S. Navy felt no such pains in the head. It has bought an Allison-powered plane or two to keep up with the development parade but has stuck to the air-cooled engine for its fighter designs. Result of the Navy's unwillingness to abandon one design for another is that its newest fighter, the Vought-Sikorsky F4U (TIME, Dec. 9), is the fastest airplane built in the U. S.; its 2,000-h.p. air-cooled engine has power to burn.

If the Allison and Merlin should prove to be out-of-date, the Air Corps will have a lot of explaining, a lot of design switching to do. One possibility is that liquid-cooled engine manufacturers may have to switch over to manufacture of the new Rolls-Royce, with all the headaches that retooling and new airplane design would bring with it. Another is that Allison, whose production is now only 350 engines a month (with a schedule of 1,000 by next Nov. 1), may perfect the 2,000-h.p.-plus 24-cylinder engine now in its research division. But the brutal fact remains that between building an experimental engine and making it work is all the difference between starting to compose a symphony and hearing Toscanini conduct it.

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