Hey Earl I seem to remember reading a display placard on a big multi row radial at Evergreen's museum that said that you could shut down a perfectly good engine and next time you went to start it there'd be something wrong with it. Also it said or implied that the cost per hour was really high compared to turbines. Got any comparisons between the last and biggest piston engines and the early turbojets or turbo props?
I just don't know, I just know that we flight planned the 29 at 300 gal per hour, just for flight plan purposes, but we always had plenty of fuel left when we would rtb. I would hate to guess what that R-4360 burned per hour, but had to be at least 80 gal per hour times 6 is 480 gal per hour. Then you throw in the J-47 jets on the B-36, wow, don't have a clue. I know on the 29, we had around 16 hours maintenance for each hour flown, but that counted regular sch maintenance as well as on demand when parts broke.
