Originally Posted by
megan
The Lancaster I/III during war time was produced with the RR Dash 22, or Packard Dash 28/Dash 224. Canadian built Hurricanes similarly had Packard (Dash 29).
It was said a Lancaster you were flying could have each engine produced by a different manufacturer - RR, Packard, Ford, Continental.
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During WW2 there were several reports of uncommanded feathering of all four engines in Lancasters that resulted in the loss of crews. In April 1996, I talked to a Lancaster crew member Chris Jarrett who was in a Lancaster that lost all four engines after the pilot ordered his flight engineer to feather the propeller of an engine that failed in flight. The crew member managed to bale out through the front hatch and was later captured and spent the remaining war days as a POW.
Circa 1958 I experienced this phenomena on one occasion in a Lincoln Mk 31 (RAAF) during an engine run as part of a propeller change. On feathering a propeller as part of the testing required before removal of a propeller during scheduled servicing, the adjacent engine experienced an uncommanded feathering. In other words two propellers feathered instantaneously by the press of one feathering button. The fault was traced to a short circuit between the day/night switch on each of the feathering buttons and its protective metal cage.
The book "Flight of the Halifax" by Captain Geoff Wilkner, who was a ferry pilot during WW2, describes his experience flying a Lancaster in England on a delivery flight. He was feathering each propeller one at a time en route Strathaven to Scampton when multiple uncommanded featherings occurred.
He later learnt that four Lancasters had crashed at different times and all the crews killed. Investigators found the airscrews in the feathered positions.