Those mail D18s didn't get the greatest maintenance! Our Jacobs 300HP R755(?) used less than a of oil pint and 16 gallons of gas an hour at 160 mph in the Cessna 195 (N9895A).
On 1/19/07, Rich Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
My college summer job was at the airport, a ramp rat. I used to fill up the old Beech D18 from a night of hauling the mail, would take a 5 gal can of oil up on each wing and pour in 3-4 gal in each radial engine. Not sure where it went once it went down the hole (I know where the part that missed the hole went!) but whatever the system was, it burned and blew out a LOT of oil. "Check the gas and fill the oil!" This was a lot of fun on a dark rainy night, oil and rain and skinny me on a sloping wing with a 50lb (or was it a 100lb?) bucket of oil... When the pilot fired those suckers up (and it was an art to get them to fire) every mosquito with a mile died. First one or two cylinders would catch and sputter, then a couple more, then all of them eventually, amidst much drama of belching smoke, backfires and starter protest. Sometimes you would get some gas/oil fire in the stacks, a blowtorch until the rpms came up and the props blew out the fire. The pilot would laugh like hell. I was outside the other day, and heard this sound that triggered memories -- looked up and there it was! A Beech D18 growling overhead at about 1000 ft! Nothing else sounds like one. Googling shows they are Pratt & Whitney R-985 AN-1 or AN-3 nine-cylinder, air-cooled radial, 450 hp each
-- OK Don, KD5NRO Norman, OK "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." Will Rogers '90 300D, '87 300SDL, '81 240D, '78 450SLC, '97 Ply Grand Voyager
