Sea Fury Powerplants

[Wyvernfan]

VR930 is awaiting funding as I understand it.

[Dave Hadfield]

A friend of mine flies Sea Furies for a collection in the States. He very much likes the R-2800 conversion. The aircraft becomes vastly simpler and cheaper to support because of the far more common spare parts for that engine.

And it's lighter in weight, so the overall performance doesn't change much -- particularly since in the modern peacetime flying regime you never draw anything like full power.

Dave

[Mike]

And it's lighter in weight, so the overall performance doesn't change much --

I believe the Sanders' experience with Argonaut showed a loss of about 20 mph in average lap speed at Reno - around 420 mph with the R-3350 against 400 mph with the R-2800.

[GRNDP51]

And it's lighter in weight, so the overall performance doesn't change much --

I believe the Sanders' experience with Argonaut showed a loss of about 20 mph in average lap speed at Reno - around 420 mph with the R-3350 against 400 mph with the R-2800.

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think Argonaut was one of the 3350 Furies that ever made 420+. The first year they had the 2800 in it Mark qualified a little over 400. Of course they could still run it that fast if they needed to, but in the less competitive Unlimited field it's unnecessary (even though Sherm qualified at 380 last year, which would be ~390 on the old timing).

I think the best it ever did with the 3350 was a little over 410. So yes, probably slower, but after seeing CJ Stephen's mayday play out I think there's a good tradeoff. I bet if they tuned that 2800 like Czech Mate they could have a really fast plane on their hands that's relatively stock, and much more reliable. Maybe that's something the Thibodeau's can try out?

[Dave Hadfield]

Right. Only a 20 mph loss. Good trade-off.

[Lon Moer]

Sanders Aeronautics has a write-up of the R-2800 Powered Sea Fury Conversion

From that article;

In 1994 Sanders Aircraft installed the R3350-26WD in “Argonaut”. We did this because we had two R-3350’s in stock and a conversion kit was available from Nelson Ezell. Some operators have had good luck with the R-3350…we are not one of them.

In the past, numerous people have asked about the possibility of installing the Pratt & Whitney R-2800, well known for its outstanding record of dependability. After doing a comparison between the two engines <>, we decided to convert “Argonaut” to an R-2800 CB16/CB3.