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It should be noted that the project engineer at Packard was Nils Joel Skrubb, a Finn, educated in Engineering in Helsinki who emigrated to the US to work for the the Packard Motor Company in the 1930's. He completely revised the Rolls Royce design to American Standards after spending six months of detailed study and memorization and conversion. The Brits found it difficult to accept that the Packard version was superior. A common misconception was that it simply was the Rolls design. It was completely revised and redrawn.–– 71.238.187.240 ( talk) 06:05, 25 December 2010 (UTC) [1]
This may be correct but needs editing into an encyclopedic form and better references. 122.107.58.27 ( talk) 08:21, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Note that I've added several sentences to the lead paragraph that may address concerns about an adequate summary of contents and the need for an accessible overview.
˜˜˜˜ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yankees98 ( talk • contribs) 18:50, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Yes... It's funny how Rolls-Royce are still in business and Packard aren't. Packard's manufacturing standards were excellent and RAF mechanics liked the Packard engines, particularly because of the toolkits supplied with them, but the performance of each Packard model was about the same as the Rolls-Royce pattern it was based on. Performance of the Spitfire LF.IX (RR Merlin 66) was rated exactly the same as the LF.XVI (Packard Merlin 266). On the Lancaster, the Pilot's and Flight Engineer's Notes: Lancaster, A.P.2062A, published by the Air Ministry (pp.27-33), show little difference between RR and Packard units. The bomber would perform just the same, and the only significant difference was that Packards gave slightly lower fuel consumption at low power (for instance 200 gallons per hour at 2,000rpm +7psi high altitude cruise compared to the Rolls-Royce unit's 212 gallons -- p.32) and markedly higher fuel consumption at high power (420 gallons per hour at 2,850 +9 maximum climb compared to the Rolls-Royce unit's 380 gallons -- p.33). Khamba Tendal ( talk) 18:19, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
I think at one point Packard were allowed to make a change to the oil-feed piping and it didn't work and RR had to make them change it back. At another point Packard Merlins started blowing up and RR found that the Americans had never implemented a conrod mod that they were ordered to make because RR had detected a potential cause of failure. The failure would only occur if there were slight metallurgical flaws in manufacture, but RR ordered a design mod to stop it happening and Packard ignored it. RR looked at some Packard conrods and found that not only did they not conform to the mod, but they were pointlessly over-polished. They looked great, as if anyone was going to look at them when they were powering a Lanc over Germany, but the over-polishing increased the chance of metallurgical failure. So words were had, and Packard had to agree to behave in future.
The idea that Packard 'improved' the Merlin is rah-rah stuff and is not correct. When they chose the Wright blower drive for the two-stage version (which is why Mustangs and Spit XVIs whistle in that weird way) it wasn't any worse, but it wasn't any better either. Later they tried to design their own blower drive and, if you've ever seen the drawings for that thing, you will have concluded, 'Either the bloke who drew that was on drugs or I am.' Only two of those engines were ever actually built, and they never flew, which is probably just as well. Khamba Tendal ( talk) 19:43, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
References
The +6 figure in the table figures seems to be a bit off. The conversion factors shown would support this.
Inches of mercury (inHg) absolute pressure |
Pounds per square inch of boost
[1] gauge pressure | |
80 inHg= | +25 lbf/in² boost | 80.8 inHg |
67 inHg= | +18 lbf/in² boost | 66.6 inHg |
61 inHg= | +15 lbf/in² boost | 60.5 inHg |
46 inHg= | +8 lbf/in² boost | 46.2 inHg |
44.5 inHg= | +6 lbf/in² boost | 42.1 inHg |
The others are close.
AMCKen (
talk) 20:05, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
References
"and Packard Motor Car Company was eventually chosen because the parent British company was impressed by its high-quality engineering"
What does this passage mean, who is the "parent company" and what are they parent of? It seems to be implying that Packard had a parent company in the UK, or that Rolls was that parent, yet I do not believe either is true. I believe the statement is simply trying to say that Rolls was impressed by Packard, but the wording implies something else. Maury Markowitz ( talk) 13:57, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
The second sentence of the very first paragraph is at variance with my understanding.
< The engine was licensed in order to provide a 1500 hp-class design at a time when US engines of this rating were not considered ready for use . . . >
It says (to me) that the engine was licensed by Packard from R-R for the US. I suggest that it is nearer the mark to say that it was licensed from R-R to Packard for the UK. 86.18.201.189 ( talk) 00:34, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't have cites, so this appears on the discussion page. In 1940 the number of engines required was more than RR could produce. They contracted Packard to copy their engines, as they found the Packard parts were interchangeable with their own. (This engineering requirement is not as simple as it sounds.) The State Dept intervened in Jan 1942, stopping the export of all supercharged engines. It was ploy to confiscate many hundreds of engines which had already been paid for by the British govt. RR ceased Merlin production in Aug 1944, and all subsequent Merlins were made by Packard. RR had taken the jet engine contract from Rover, and they were also retooling their factories for the Griffon engine. 220.244.76.70 ( talk) 10:30, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Some false credit to the Luftwaffe for intake cooling design and its MW 50 used during WW2. The did use water/alcohol in some planes during the war but infact the master of this technology was Pratt & Whitney who got better results than the Germans. The German system (Wassereinspritzung) was direct injection of water/alcohol into the cylinders which did give benefits but not as good as the Pratt & Whitney system which injected into the intake just down stream of the supercharger. This allowed the fluid to evaporate in the intake and cool the incoming charge creating a denser charge of the cylinder and resulting in more power. The ADI (Anti-Detonate Injection) system in the entry is injection into the intake, as the P&W system was so any reference to the MW 50 (Wassereinspritzung) system is completely mis-credited. A Pratt & Whitney engineer, Frank Walker did most of the development work on this and if you look you will find this well documented www.enginehistory.org/Frank%20WalkerWeb1.pdf . 66.159.206.125 ( talk) 01:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Pontiac Division of GM is given credit for the Indium coated bearings. This is an innovation usually credited to Pratt & Whitney. I'd like to see some documentation on this. If Pontiac Division of General Motors did develop this, don't you think that Allison (another division of GM) would have been the first to get it? Actually I suspect that people at Pontiac were the go-betweens from P&W and Allison and this was transfered to the Packard-Merlin program as well. Corumplex ( talk) 02:34, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
The lede has been trimmed down of the following content, which goes beyond the scope of the lede for the subject of the article. Either it should remain excised or a section on the V-1650's use in the Kitty Hawk and Mustang integrating it should be created.
User BilCat please note editing changes made to the above improving the original passage.
Wikiuser100 ( talk) 12:07, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
The lead is all wrong in any case, since the Packard Merlin was not built because of a lack of American engines in that power class but simply because the customer, the British Ministry of Supply, wanted a shadow plant to produce Rolls-Royce Merlins beyond the range of German bombing and without making calls on British manpower. (And Packard was about to go bust and needed the work, so the hands across the sea weren't only extended one way.) The lead is also wrong to suggest that the original use of the Packard Merlin was the insignificant P-40F when the original Packard Merlins were actually built, to British order and at British expense, to power RAF Lancaster Mk IIIs. Khamba Tendal ( talk) 19:19, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
I edited a paragraph which said "The engine also filled a gap in the U.S. at a time when similarly powered U.S. made engines were not available." I changed it to similarly powerful. Engines are not powered, they create power. But engines can be similarly powerful. My edit was reverted. Maybe it wasn't optimal, but I believe it was light years better than the original. Any comments. Moriori ( talk) 02:34, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
It should be noted that the project engineer at Packard was Nils Joel Skrubb, a Finn, educated in Engineering in Helsinki who emigrated to the US to work for the the Packard Motor Company in the 1930's. He completely revised the Rolls Royce design to American Standards after spending six months of detailed study and memorization and conversion. The Brits found it difficult to accept that the Packard version was superior. A common misconception was that it simply was the Rolls design. It was completely revised and redrawn.–– 71.238.187.240 ( talk) 06:05, 25 December 2010 (UTC) [1]
This may be correct but needs editing into an encyclopedic form and better references. 122.107.58.27 ( talk) 08:21, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Note that I've added several sentences to the lead paragraph that may address concerns about an adequate summary of contents and the need for an accessible overview.
˜˜˜˜ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yankees98 ( talk • contribs) 18:50, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Yes... It's funny how Rolls-Royce are still in business and Packard aren't. Packard's manufacturing standards were excellent and RAF mechanics liked the Packard engines, particularly because of the toolkits supplied with them, but the performance of each Packard model was about the same as the Rolls-Royce pattern it was based on. Performance of the Spitfire LF.IX (RR Merlin 66) was rated exactly the same as the LF.XVI (Packard Merlin 266). On the Lancaster, the Pilot's and Flight Engineer's Notes: Lancaster, A.P.2062A, published by the Air Ministry (pp.27-33), show little difference between RR and Packard units. The bomber would perform just the same, and the only significant difference was that Packards gave slightly lower fuel consumption at low power (for instance 200 gallons per hour at 2,000rpm +7psi high altitude cruise compared to the Rolls-Royce unit's 212 gallons -- p.32) and markedly higher fuel consumption at high power (420 gallons per hour at 2,850 +9 maximum climb compared to the Rolls-Royce unit's 380 gallons -- p.33). Khamba Tendal ( talk) 18:19, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
I think at one point Packard were allowed to make a change to the oil-feed piping and it didn't work and RR had to make them change it back. At another point Packard Merlins started blowing up and RR found that the Americans had never implemented a conrod mod that they were ordered to make because RR had detected a potential cause of failure. The failure would only occur if there were slight metallurgical flaws in manufacture, but RR ordered a design mod to stop it happening and Packard ignored it. RR looked at some Packard conrods and found that not only did they not conform to the mod, but they were pointlessly over-polished. They looked great, as if anyone was going to look at them when they were powering a Lanc over Germany, but the over-polishing increased the chance of metallurgical failure. So words were had, and Packard had to agree to behave in future.
The idea that Packard 'improved' the Merlin is rah-rah stuff and is not correct. When they chose the Wright blower drive for the two-stage version (which is why Mustangs and Spit XVIs whistle in that weird way) it wasn't any worse, but it wasn't any better either. Later they tried to design their own blower drive and, if you've ever seen the drawings for that thing, you will have concluded, 'Either the bloke who drew that was on drugs or I am.' Only two of those engines were ever actually built, and they never flew, which is probably just as well. Khamba Tendal ( talk) 19:43, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
References
The +6 figure in the table figures seems to be a bit off. The conversion factors shown would support this.
Inches of mercury (inHg) absolute pressure |
Pounds per square inch of boost
[1] gauge pressure | |
80 inHg= | +25 lbf/in² boost | 80.8 inHg |
67 inHg= | +18 lbf/in² boost | 66.6 inHg |
61 inHg= | +15 lbf/in² boost | 60.5 inHg |
46 inHg= | +8 lbf/in² boost | 46.2 inHg |
44.5 inHg= | +6 lbf/in² boost | 42.1 inHg |
The others are close.
AMCKen (
talk) 20:05, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
References
"and Packard Motor Car Company was eventually chosen because the parent British company was impressed by its high-quality engineering"
What does this passage mean, who is the "parent company" and what are they parent of? It seems to be implying that Packard had a parent company in the UK, or that Rolls was that parent, yet I do not believe either is true. I believe the statement is simply trying to say that Rolls was impressed by Packard, but the wording implies something else. Maury Markowitz ( talk) 13:57, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
The second sentence of the very first paragraph is at variance with my understanding.
< The engine was licensed in order to provide a 1500 hp-class design at a time when US engines of this rating were not considered ready for use . . . >
It says (to me) that the engine was licensed by Packard from R-R for the US. I suggest that it is nearer the mark to say that it was licensed from R-R to Packard for the UK. 86.18.201.189 ( talk) 00:34, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't have cites, so this appears on the discussion page. In 1940 the number of engines required was more than RR could produce. They contracted Packard to copy their engines, as they found the Packard parts were interchangeable with their own. (This engineering requirement is not as simple as it sounds.) The State Dept intervened in Jan 1942, stopping the export of all supercharged engines. It was ploy to confiscate many hundreds of engines which had already been paid for by the British govt. RR ceased Merlin production in Aug 1944, and all subsequent Merlins were made by Packard. RR had taken the jet engine contract from Rover, and they were also retooling their factories for the Griffon engine. 220.244.76.70 ( talk) 10:30, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Some false credit to the Luftwaffe for intake cooling design and its MW 50 used during WW2. The did use water/alcohol in some planes during the war but infact the master of this technology was Pratt & Whitney who got better results than the Germans. The German system (Wassereinspritzung) was direct injection of water/alcohol into the cylinders which did give benefits but not as good as the Pratt & Whitney system which injected into the intake just down stream of the supercharger. This allowed the fluid to evaporate in the intake and cool the incoming charge creating a denser charge of the cylinder and resulting in more power. The ADI (Anti-Detonate Injection) system in the entry is injection into the intake, as the P&W system was so any reference to the MW 50 (Wassereinspritzung) system is completely mis-credited. A Pratt & Whitney engineer, Frank Walker did most of the development work on this and if you look you will find this well documented www.enginehistory.org/Frank%20WalkerWeb1.pdf . 66.159.206.125 ( talk) 01:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Pontiac Division of GM is given credit for the Indium coated bearings. This is an innovation usually credited to Pratt & Whitney. I'd like to see some documentation on this. If Pontiac Division of General Motors did develop this, don't you think that Allison (another division of GM) would have been the first to get it? Actually I suspect that people at Pontiac were the go-betweens from P&W and Allison and this was transfered to the Packard-Merlin program as well. Corumplex ( talk) 02:34, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
The lede has been trimmed down of the following content, which goes beyond the scope of the lede for the subject of the article. Either it should remain excised or a section on the V-1650's use in the Kitty Hawk and Mustang integrating it should be created.
User BilCat please note editing changes made to the above improving the original passage.
Wikiuser100 ( talk) 12:07, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
The lead is all wrong in any case, since the Packard Merlin was not built because of a lack of American engines in that power class but simply because the customer, the British Ministry of Supply, wanted a shadow plant to produce Rolls-Royce Merlins beyond the range of German bombing and without making calls on British manpower. (And Packard was about to go bust and needed the work, so the hands across the sea weren't only extended one way.) The lead is also wrong to suggest that the original use of the Packard Merlin was the insignificant P-40F when the original Packard Merlins were actually built, to British order and at British expense, to power RAF Lancaster Mk IIIs. Khamba Tendal ( talk) 19:19, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
I edited a paragraph which said "The engine also filled a gap in the U.S. at a time when similarly powered U.S. made engines were not available." I changed it to similarly powerful. Engines are not powered, they create power. But engines can be similarly powerful. My edit was reverted. Maybe it wasn't optimal, but I believe it was light years better than the original. Any comments. Moriori ( talk) 02:34, 6 February 2018 (UTC)