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Packard Merlin: How Detroit Mass-Produced Britain’s Hand-Built Powerhouse (2015)
- olivermarks 8y agoReno air races coming up in September! https://airrace.org https://airrace.org great opportunity to see and hear maxed out merlins pylon racing https://youtu.be/X6ClBodW_lc https://youtu.be/X6ClBodW_lc https://youtu.be/Xn805LoN6mw https://youtu.be/Xn805LoN6mw
- jacquesm 8y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyWUTXuXjr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyWUTXuXjr0 pretty disturbing end of a P51.
- olivermarks 8y agoThat crash resulted in major rule changes and course redesign. The Galloping Ghost had been too heavily modified for speed and failed in flight
- jabl 8y agoIf you don't have a fear of flying and want to acquire it, reading NTSB reports of aviation accidents is a good start. In this case, https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAB1201.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...
- osullivj 8y agoWonderful piece for those interested in early WWII aviation. There are lessons for software development in there. Brad Cox's classic Planning the Software Industrial Revolution [1] highlights the importance of gauges to Eli Whitney's project to built firearms with interchangeable parts, and asserts we need a similar technology in software to enable construction from reusable components. In Most Dangerous Enemy [2], Stephen Bungay points out that it took 2.5 times more man hours to build a Spitfire than an Me109. German production engineering was far better than British. This piece illustrates that perfectly. Rolls Merlin engine was a great piece of design engineering, but it was inefficient in terms of production engineering. What is intriguing about this article is the detail on the effort needed for Packard to port the Merlin design to their production engineering standards, and then for Rolls and Merlin to share design changes. Effectively sending each other pull requests! [1] http://bat8.inria.fr/~lang/hotlist/free/licence/papers/cox/CoxPSIR.html http://bat8.inria.fr/~lang/hotlist/free/licence/papers/cox/C... [2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Most-Dangerous-Enemy-History-Britain/dp/1845134818 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Most-Dangerous-Enemy-History-Britai...
- jernfrost 8y agoInteresting, given that I've read that Americans were far better at mass production than the Germans. My impression is that Germans engineered their hardware better than Americans but they were not as good at mass producing it fast. So if I understand correctly, the British was exceptionally slow at manufacturing compared to the Americans then.
- rleigh 8y agoIt depends upon your definition of "slow". At mass production, maybe. But maybe faster at changing and iterating on designs due to being more flexible and adaptable.
- WalterBright 8y agoI read years ago that the Spitfire required twice as many labor hours to produce than the Me-109. The Germans were pretty good at simplifying the design so it could be mass-produced.
- pjc50 8y ago> need a similar technology in software to enable construction from reusable components People have been attempting this for a long time with only moderate success. It's where object orientation came from: objects were supposed to be reusable. Similarly with UNIX pipelines. The new enthusiasm for package managers produces some absurd results (left-pad) but is generally heading in the right direction, as is the trend that everything that's popular enough becomes a language feature or in the standard library.
- eru 8y agoYeah, object orientation never really worked for making reusable lego-bricks. The functional programming people have been at this game for far longer (and are building on top of mathematics started around the 1940s). There's some encouraging developments, including some that are making it into mainstream languages. Yes, libraries (including standard libraries) do tend to work really well, too.
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- iguy 8y agoThis is part of a long and interesting story I don't have time to find the right links for... In the UK compared to the US, say 1850-1950, the premium commanded by skilled labour over unskilled was always much smaller. Or another way to say that is that they had a very large pool of skilled people. This was part of what allowed them to do many interesting things first (like railways), but also as time went on discouraged automation. For example lots of first world war UK munitions factories imported the latest American machines, suddenly needing to modernise once their skilled men were conscripted. This is, I believe, part of why Rolls-Royce were doing things described in the article -- call it a first-mover disadvantage relative to Detroit. There is lots of interesting data about all these things. If you want to think about robots taking jobs and all that, then understanding (for example) the cotton industry circa 1900 is actually a great place to start. If some factories employ 1/4 the workers of others, that sounds a lot like having 3 robots... transistors are not involved, but certainly dollars (and unions, and taxes, and shipping) are.
- jernfrost 8y agoThanks that is extremely interesting info. I have noticed when talking to Americans and reading about American manufacturing, I get the sense that workers are not expected to be particularly skilled and that production is designed with that in mind. I am from a Nordic country and we tend to follow the German style system of vocational training where you go in an apprenticeship and get a certificate. I have tried to understand the American model but it seems less formalized to me. It seems to be more company specific. You get trained to do a particular job at a particular company.
- stephengillie 8y agoThe American system is to have no overarching system. Our empire is too large - we have to accept people from numerous systems and varying levels of ability. Alaskans and Alabamans have to work alongside Germans and (both kinds of) Georgians. So the company trains you to do what they need.
- iguy 8y ago
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoHere's some info about the guy that played an important role in figuring out the fuel mixture that made these power outputs possible. It's an equally interesting read. http://www.enginehistory.org/Biography/FrankWalkerWeb1.pdf http://www.enginehistory.org/Biography/FrankWalkerWeb1.pdf
- mannykannot 8y agoAnd let's not forget Beatrice Shilling's contribution to the performance and combat-safety of the Merlin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Shilling%27s_orifice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Shilling%27s_orifice
- arethuza 8y agoIf you like this then I can recommend "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: Churchill's Mavericks" by Giles Milton - it starts with British inventors creating an important new weapon (the limpet mine) from sweets, condoms and bowls from Woolworths in a shed (of course)... The boffin/craftsman side of things seemed particularly important to the UK effort in WW2.
- rurounijones 8y agohttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4314039-station-12-aston-house https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4314039-station-12-aston... is another good one. Mostly diaries and interview from people who worked on the boffinry side of things.
- iguy 8y agoIn this vein, R V Jones "Most Secret War" is great if you haven't read it -- about the cat & mouse game of radar development, from a guy deeply involved: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0033806QY/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0033806QY/
- gargravarr 8y agoReading around, the stuff R V Jones got up to during that period makes for some entertaining stories! E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Beams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Beams
- arethuza 8y agoThe book mentions Fairburn and Sykes - who I was only familiar from the name of the knife - turns out they were quite "interesting" characters: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/38/a4544138.shtml https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/38/a4544...
- WalterBright 8y agoWhat other engine would have a book written entitled "Sigh For A Merlin"? https://www.amazon.com/Sigh-Merlin-Spitfire-Alex-Henshaw/dp/0947554831/ https://www.amazon.com/Sigh-Merlin-Spitfire-Alex-Henshaw/dp/... The Boeing Museum of Flight once offered rides in a Merlin-powered P-51. I was first in line that day, and was smiling for a week afterwards. From the book: "One day I happened to be chatting near my home with an RAF Wing Commander (retired) now dressed in dark grey slacks and Norfolk jacket. Suddenly out of the blue and on its way to Coningsby was a fighter of the Battle of Britain Flight right over our heads. We both stopped talking and looked up--the crisp steady note of the old Merlin as joyous a sound as ever it was all those years ago. The ex-Wing Commander said absolutely nothing-- then he sighed. It was such a poignant sigh. I felt it must have invoked so many memories of the days when the Wing Commander was young, daring and vigorous and like a Knight of the Crusade had leapt onto the Spitfire and its Merlin to ride into the pages of history. The silence was still uninterrupted. Thoughts and memories began to flicker through my mind. I remembered crashing badly and the terrifying sound of things being torn apart; closing my eyes as the ruptured earth flung pieces of metal over my crouching head; the peculiar smell of oil, petrol and glycol and damp earth hanging in my nostrils. Then the panic as I struggled out of parachute, harness and shattered cockpit--and then the silence. An almost deathly silence. As I prayed a word of thanks over the crumpled wreckage and the large black mass buried in the soft ground--once a powerful, gleaming engine--I heard this sigh. It may have been a pressure-relief valve, or glycol, or oil on hot metal, but in the emotion of the moment it became a sound I shall always remember. What better epitaph to a wonderful machine and a magnificent engine than to call my book Sigh for a Merlin?"
- arethuza 8y agoI agree that Merlin powered planes do sound lovely, but there is also something about the Vulcan howl that is impressive (and a bit disturbing). Mind you - in both cases recordings really don't do them justice.
- WalterBright 8y agoI agree. Recordings not only don't do them justice, they don't have any similarity at all to how they sound. I recall standing in a field and a P-51 went by overhead, at minimum altitude and full throttle. If one hasn't heard that, one can never understand :-)
- phasetransition 8y agoThe story of the Merlin V12 is really the story of E.J. Houdry, a Frenchman who came to the US in 1930 and, with plenty of help at Standard oil, perfected fluid catalytic cracking of hydrocarbons. FCC gave the US AVgas with octane as high as 150 by the end of the war. This allowed much higher engine manifold pressures than the Germans before detonation, who had mostly 87 octane fuel throughout the war. Engine power is roughly proportional to manifold pressure. Source: a long rabbit trail of trying to understand why the Daimler Benz DB 605, while seemingly far more advanced on paper, was never better than parity with the smaller Merlin during WW2. Houdry being in occupied France at the wars' start would make an interesting alternate history.
- raverbashing 8y agoAnd before anyone asks, FCC stands for Fluid catalytic cracking
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- sdfx 8y agoCan you point me to any books on this subject? Sounds like a fascinating story to dive into in more detail.
- phasetransition 8y agoNot specifically about this topic, but "Oil & War: How the Deadly Struggle for Fuel in WWII Meant Victory or Defeat" is the most definitive account of the overall fuel supply factors that I am aware of.
- Steve44 8y agoThat book probably covers the operation to get fuel across the Channel for the D Day invasions. I'm fairly sure Brenzett Aeronautical Museum had a section about it along with some pipe and equipment when I went a few years ago. There were so many astonishing developments in the background to support the front end fighting which are so easily overlooked. Thanks for the book info, I've flagged that to get at some point.
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- Knacker_Hughes 8y agoBecause Detroit built the Merlin engine in World War II - today, we don't have to say "Vorsprung Durch Technik"
- lovemenot 8y ago>> we don't have to say "Vorsprung Durch Technik" And yet apparently, some actually do have to regurgitate 1980's-era copy from a German automobile makers' successful advertising campaign in (at least) the British market. As though doing so were some kind of victory. Leaves me so sad.
- arethuza 8y agoDoesn't Audi still use Vorsprung Durch Technik in their UK advertising?
- emmelaich 8y agoHow about a 5 litre v-twin motorcycle cut off a Merlin engine? http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2015/08/19/4296075.htm http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2015/08/19/4296075.htm
- baybal2 8y agoAn interesting fact is that former Packard engineers were fathers of archetypal "American V8s." Some solutions they saw on Merlins were replicated 1-to-1 in their own works like cylinder head designs.
- TomMasz 8y agoAs a kid I remember reading an article in a hot rod magazine about a drag racer powered by a Merlin engine. It was quick, as you'd imagine, but easily overpowered the tires of the time so not as quick as it could have been. I wonder what happened to it.
- csours 8y ago> That the Merlin outperformed the Allison at high altitude is hardly a condemnation of the American-designed engine. In its element (up to about 15,000 feet), the V-1710 was robust and reliable – utilizing fewer than half the number of parts found in a Merlin. It was also extremely adaptable to different configurations of gearing, rotation direction, accessories, etc. The Allison engine is a showpiece of modular design. --- Engineering is finding the best compromise for a particular set of requirements.
- msisk6 8y agoTangentially related to this article is Simon Winchester's latest book "The perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World". One of the chapters in this book is about the differences between the hand-built cars of Rolls Royce (and their origin story which I never knew) and Henry Ford's production line that required interchangeable precision parts.
- Theodores 8y agoDuring a childhood visit to a car factory I noticed how the panels for the small, mass-market, fairly horrid hatchback went together perfectly whilst the panels for the luxury low-volume saloon needed lots of men with actual hammers to bash into shape. The tooling used to make the hatchback had cost a fortune and was the finest German stuff. The tooling used for the luxury saloon was a lot older and therefore worn. There were no backup dies in the worn tooling so over time the panel fit only got worse with once fine details no longer sharp. The executives driving their luxury saloons would probably have been horrified if they had known that it was the cheap cars that went together properly in an exact manner with their cars being the ones needing to be bashed to 'look right'. They would also have been horrified to see the same facility used for making panels with everything being 'just being a bit of tin' to the staff rather than their pride and joy. Having had the reality of luxury exposed as it being hand made, bashed into shape at such a formative age I have always wanted the robot built products, e.g. the mass market car rather than the bashed into shape expensive version. The deluxe cars of today are still very much 'bashed into shape' in ways that they always have been. The BMW car brand 'Rolls Royce' very much hand-craft cars as they always have, they are not doing it wrong by not re-designing their products to make it so a rival can churn out millions of identical clones. The original aerospace 'Rolls Royce' was in the same position, making a modest amount of engines and not in 'total war' mode. Their less than precise drawings were fine for what they were doing, they had people to bash stuff into shape, 'luxury auto style', with that making economic sense. The war changed everything though.