Most distinctive and charismatic engine sound?
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Most distinctive and charismatic engine sound?
The title says it all - which aircraft engine has a sound like no other, is instantly recognisable and has an interesting and varied repertoire of sounds like no other? I have one in mind and and I'll be impressed if I can be proven wrong.
That drone of those four P&W radials on a B-17 going overhead is music to my ears (although I'd probably feel differently if I'd been at the receiving end of a mission).
The two P&W radials on the DC-3 also sound wonderful to me - there is a vintage DC-3 based at the Historic Flight museum at Paine field just a few miles from my house. It flies overhead occasionally during the nice weather months. Whenever I hear 'that sound' I rush outside to take a look at listen
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The two P&W radials on the DC-3 also sound wonderful to me - there is a vintage DC-3 based at the Historic Flight museum at Paine field just a few miles from my house. It flies overhead occasionally during the nice weather months. Whenever I hear 'that sound' I rush outside to take a look at listen

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Dart starting,
At the Brooklands Museum there's a bit of a Dart you can pretend to start, and it makes the memorable sound perfectly to my ears. Could play with it for ages.
At the Brooklands Museum there's a bit of a Dart you can pretend to start, and it makes the memorable sound perfectly to my ears. Could play with it for ages.
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I concur with the majority- there's no sound like the shriek of a Dart. At LBA in the 70s and early 80s, we didn't hear much else!
The sound of a Spey painfully groaning its way through the start process is almost as memorable.
The sound of a Spey painfully groaning its way through the start process is almost as memorable.
Argus pulsejet in a V1 Doodlebug. Never heard one live (of course) but surely they were unique, including the enigmatic sound of silence during terminal phase ? UAV/UAS but nevertheless an aircraft.