How reliable was the Avro York
 

I've just been re-reading David Hedges' book "The Eagle Years". Reference is made to a series of long distance charters with the Yorks in the early 1950s and I just wondered how well the Yorks performed on these routes. Presumably Eagle didn't have servicing facilities at all the stops such as Bahrain, Karachi, Rangoon and so on. Did they rely on an RAF presence at these places or were the Merlins bombproof after so many hours use in the Lancaster? A pal of mine's father used to work on the LAC Yorks at Squires Gate (Blackpool) and didn't much enjoy it if I remember correctly.

I do remember reading somewhere that they used a particular mark of Merlin (can't remember which*) that was optimised for transport use.
Argonauts and Tudors used a development of that engine (the 620 series).

*edit: Possibly the Mk24.
.

I seem to remember an article in Aeroplane monthly about transatlantic flights after the war with Lancastrians. Apparently aircraft landing with two or three engines operating were not uncommon. This would suggest that reliability was not great.

Alec Lumsden's excellent book lists, variously, the Merlin 22, 24, 500, 501 and 502 used on the York I.

Reciprocating engines, be they in line or radial, were prone to failure when in use for hours on end . The range of problems was legion and started to appear with frequency during the longer range bombing trips and transatlantic deliveries during WW2. Things had improved, barely, by the time the last big piston airliners rolled off the line in the late 1950s. On the Atlantic, Prestwick, Shannon, Goose and Gander saw regular three engined landings until well into the 1960s and there were some engine failure hull and life losses over water around the world where more than one engine failed or prop(s) had run away. The Lancastrian and York were by no means exceptional in this regard.

My father was on 202 Sqn. flying met Halifaxs in 1947-1950. The job were the Bismuth trips where they flew a pattern around the North and East Atlantic taking weather observations. Aircraft returning on three engines after a eight or nine hour Bismuth trip was normal.

In 1963 when the Victors from Honington reinforced Singapore during the Indonesian Confrontation a York (Dan Air?) arrived to take Victor spares out. In the cabin they had a 44 gall. drum of engine oil which was to keep them going until they reached Singapore.

Sorry for the thread drift, but I was told the the Beverley had an oil consumption of 20 gph!

My boss rented a house on Cape Anne - NE of Boston, Mass.- either during the summer of 1952 or 1953. He said that it wasn't unusual to see transatlantic 'planes descending for Boston with one engine stopped. I guess these were the ones which made it beyond Goose or Gander. An advantage of getting to Boston was that there was a lot of domestic air service for the pax to continue their voyage.

Also at Khormaksar!
 

There was a Dan Dare York that came into Ksar and it would be there for 2/3 days undergoing engine repairs!I did notice a few missing Zeus fasteners where wire locking was used instead!!

My Dad was on 242 Sqn c. 1946-1947 and completed a number of trooping flights on Yorks, mainly between Lyneham and India though some went on to Singapore. His log book & letters home to Mum (before I was born)indicate that some of these trips were somewhat tortuous - "...awaiting spares".

Hence the saying "you can't get lost in a Beverley. Just follow the oil slick home".

I think it was closer to 1gph per engine, a total of 4gph.

If my fallible memory is correct, the tank carried 50 gallons.

Thanks for the comments chaps.It would seem that reliability was a bit patchy. Looking at "Stanwell's" comment in post*2 I remember overhearing one of the engineers, who looks after some of the warbirds at Duxford, saying that the "transport" cylinder heads are the ones to go for on the Merlin. Presumably these are the ones used on the Argonaut and the Tudor.
Somewhat ironically there is a reference in the Eagle book to one of the Yorks taking an Hercules engine to Lisbon for one of the Aquila flying-boats that had gone "tech". Those were the days!

My Grandfather was in a crash which I believe to be a York in Ceylon in the late 1940's (Army returning to UK)

Not sure of the serial No or the date, not everyone survived.

Arc

This is taken from Wiki. I don't have any more details, but I'm sure someone will be along with them.

If they lasted from 1943-1964 they must have been fairly reliable.
Dan Air operated a BEA freight service out of Renfrew in 1959 and I can still remember the roar of those 4 Merlins.

The aircraft at Negombo was MW198 of 51 Sqn and there were 11 fatalities.

Four of the flight deck crew were amongst those killed, as were five civilians, another RAF officer and a 'Captain' what sort is unclear.

There is some suggestion that in addition to the No: 4 engine which failed, the No: 3 might have been feathered.

The pilot was Flight Lieutenant Stewart Anning DFC & Bar who flew with 617 Sqn and had put a 12000 lb into the Tirpitz and later did much the same to the Lutzow.

Old Duffer

I was a passenger in a Beverley trainer out of Singapore up to Okinawa and Hong Kong way back in the early 60s, when I was flying helicopters in Malaya, and somewhere over a lot of water they shut down both engines on port side. Engineer disappeared into the wing, emerged after some time, and I'm sure some loss of height, before crew unfeathered and restarted both and we continued happily on our way. I gathered it was to top up oil ... is this feasible? Whatever, I was well impressed.

Engine oil pumping in the air was SOP for the Beverley. Though I never heard of the requirement to feather the engine.

It was done by means of a manual operated pump in 'the dog kennel', just aft of the flight deck.

Flt. Engineers that didn't top up in flight, were unpopular with groundcrew.

Standing upright was not possible in the kennel, so operating the pump in a crouched position was hard work.

In the fifties we had an ex Transport Command pilot transfered to our squadron, his comment on the York which he flew in the UK after compleating a tour in Bomber Command was" the JU52 was a better three engined aircraft than the York", {having flown a JU52 around Europe after the war flying VIPs of some kind} I think his comment sums up the question asked by the first post!