bdk wrote:
Saville wrote:
Given that, how does one handle maintenance? These are complex airplanes. What if something needs work - even something relatively simple. How is this handled?
Probably about the complexity of a civilian piston twin and less complicated than a T-28 I'd think. Military Technical Orders are usually quite thorough, better than civilian manuals. The engines are very reliable.
Civilian Piston twins do not have superchargers on the backs of their Merlin engines.
I would think that a Merlin is much more complicated than the Lycomings you see on civilian twins. Does one check and/or set the magneto timing the same way in a Merlin as on a Lycoming?
P-47 landing gear struts, and landing gear operations, are a bit more complicated than your average Aztec or Navajo. I would think the timing is a little more complex.
And civilian piston twins have a pretty good parts supply.
Don't know anything about T-28's but I include them as war birds and so my question pertains to them as well.
Dunno - seems hard to believe that you could take your average 10 year experienced A&P and do everything that may need to be done on a P-51, P-47, F4F, F8F, in terms of regular maintenance and occasional repair/replacement. I'm not talking about changing the oil or filling the oil and typical maintenance stuff like that.
But I'm happily willing to be convinced otherwise.