Originally Posted by
Jason Burry
B36's featured production, 4-row P&W R4360.
It was also used in Boeing 377, B50, C97, and the Flying Boxcar.
It was terribly maintenance intensive in all of them. But, yes, production 4-row radials existed, even, briefly, in civilian service.
As a Licensed Engineer/Mechanic I'd expect to allocate around 1 manhour to remove, clean, inspect, test and refit the 8 plugs on a small Cessna. By extrapolation, I'd make that about 42 manhours just to service the plugs of a B-36. That's a man-week. Compression checks and troubleshooting mag-drops must have been a hoot.