ET,
I Remember about 14 or 15 years ago, I was standing on the edge of the taxiway at College Park Airport Maryland. It was our annual airshow there. A T-28 taxied by and the amount of noise coming out of that radial engine was horrendous. As the pilot made his low crowd pleasers during his demo, the engine reminded me of an out of maintenance washing machine. It made sort of a "Jing Jing Jing BANG!" "Jing Jing Jing BANG!" sound. I'll never forget that.
Is that your experience with the aircraft?
If you will notice, the 28 has no "collector" exhaust ring and has a common exit point for the exhaust gases. So what you were listening to was each individual cylinder firing and expelling his own exhaust gases straight out of the cylinder, instead of putting it in a "collector" ring. On the ground, when turned into the wind for engine runup prior to takeoff, sometimes the fumes were terrible, unless you had your oxygen mask on, which most people did as a matter of practice. Of course back in those days, I don't guess there was anything like a carbone detector like they have now. At night, when taxiing, it was not uncommon at all to see the blue exhaust gases around the engine nacelle. You couldn't see them from inside the aircraft, but if you were watching from flight line or what ever, they were very pronounced. The "stacks" by which the exhaust was expelled front he engine had 4 going out on the right side of fuseledge and 3 on left. Here is a picture of the Navy T-28C in flight showing the exhaust streaking area on the fuseledge.
Here is a list of the comparisons between the "A" model and all the other models produced. The one I trained in was the "A" model, with the R-1300, 800HP version, with a 2 blade, "paddle" prop. All the other models produced were the "B" and other models of the 28. The Navy even had some equipped with tail hooks for "traps" aboard a carrier. It had a slightly shorter version of the 3 bladed prop on it for carrier landings.
T-28A Spec's
Engine: Wright R-1300-1, 7-cylinder radial, 800 hp
Propeller: Aero Products 10' 2-blade, constant speed
Wing Span: Wing Span: 40' 1"
Length: Length: 29' 6"
Height: Height: 12' 8"
Normal Gross Weight: 6800 lbs.
G Loading: +4.5, -2
Controls: Dual
Number in Civilian Registry: 50 (approx.)
Average Number Sold per Year: 5
Later Versions of the T-28
Typical "Big Engine" T-28 (B, C, D, & FENNEC)
Engine: Wright Cyclone R-1820, 9-cylinder radial, 1425 hp
Propeller: Hamilton Standard Hydromatic 3-blade, constant speed
Wing Span: 40' 6"
Length: 32' 9"
Height: 12' 7"
Normal Gross Weight: 8600 lbs.
G Loading: +4.5, -2
Controls: Dual
Number in Civilian Registry: 300 (approx.)
Average Number Sold per Year: 25
As you can see by the number sold each year, this is a pretty popular military surplus aircraft, which is relatively cheap to operate for the performace that you get.
With a cruise of 235MPH, the B and C models are most popular, but because of the big engine, cost a lot more to operate that a A, but the B gives the owner a feel for WW2 type fighters and I guess that is what they are after.
