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Old 12th March 2008 | 04:30
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Old Fella
 
Joined: Feb 2008
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From: Wingham NSW Australia
Wright 3350 Engine

I guess Wright 3350's were little better or worse than P&W's or Bristol's however I do remember one event in early 1959 when a RAAF P2V5 Neptune, on a final test flight before departure on an overseas flight, was lost with all 10 persons on board perishing.

The cause of the crash, which happened near RAAF Base, Richmond, was the uncontained failure of a Power Recovery Turbine. When the turbine failed and broached the casing it severed fuel lines and initiated a fire which burnt through the wing spar before the aircraft could be recovered to Richmond.

The sight of the aftermath has stayed with me for almost fifty years. It would be unfair for me to accuse Wright's of building inferior engines because of this one event. I have also had to dis-mantle many P&W Twin Row Wasps with broken articulating rods, cracked cylinder heads, sheared cam pack gears etc and on one occasion had bits of a Bristol Hercules engine come through the cargo compartment wall of a Bristol Freighter when a sleeve valve actuating crank let go. Also had JT3's fail and RB-211's suffer turbine failures, let alone numerous Allison T56 engine and gearbox failures, so I guess any engine can have problems. At least these days the DFDR's can enable a look back over the history of the engine and sometimes find evidence of operating abuse as a contributory cause.
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