Centaurus me old
We'll never see the like of them again.
Each of the Starliners have four piston powered Curtiss-Wright, turbo-compound engines, designated as R3350-98TC18EA-2. They were some of the most powerful and advanced engines ever built. Each radial engine has two circles of cylinders, one in front of the other, similar to two large wheels with the cylinders radiating from the center like spokes, making a total of 18 cylinders per engine. Each cylinder has its own ignition coil and two spark plugs. The Flight Engineer, with an ignition analyzer, keeps track of the 18 coils and 36 spark plugs on all four engines. Using 115/145 octane fuel, the engines can produce 3,400 horsepower each. They have two-stage super-chargers, direct fuel injection, manual spark advance, an auto-feather system for the propellers and three power recovery turbines on each engine, which in effect make the engines hybrids; part piston powered and part turbine powered.
The longest passenger flight was a few minutes short of 24 hrs.
Eh Eh I bet they wish they had one of Chuckles electronic whizbang analysers
