Land Rover's straight six ingenium engine, clean diesel now a thing.

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Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

The turbo-compound Wrights were another complex horror. The turbochargers drove the crankshaft via shafts and gears and fluid couplings. They must have taken lessons on oil leaks from, Rolls Royce and Land Rover.

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At least they made it into production, but yes, that is the sort of engine I was thinking of when I said that the claim of the Nomad to be the most complex aircraft engine ever built was a bit doubtful.

Some of the ones that did not make it into production were even more complex.

The first aircraft to use these engines was the B-29. In the early days it was rare for one to return from a mission with all four engines running, and it is probably these engines that led to the saying "three turning, one burning". Engine fires caused more losses than enemy action. By the time they appeared in Super Constellations they were reasonably reliable. It is likely that the money the US government threw at them was the only reason they managed to hang on to powering airliners for so long after turboprops became an obviously superior power unit.

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Originally Posted by JDNSW

Yes. The Deltics seem to have been quite successful as locomotive engines - I don't know how they went in minesweepers.

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The RN chose Deltics for the Ton class, and their replacement, the Hunt class minesweepers, because their low magnetic signature lent itself to mine countermeasure operations. The engines were de-rated to prevent engine stress. The Ton class had a pair of Deltic 18's and an additional Deltic 9 for their magnetic influence sweep. The Hunt class had three Deltic 9's, two for propulsion, one for power generation with a hydraulic pump integrated for bow thrusters. The RAN Ton class were used for patrol and interdiction during the Indonesian Confrontation, at least a couple had fencing wire barriers set up abaft the bridge and sweep deck to deflect hand grenades thrown from small fast boats operated by the Indonesians. However the Ton class did not loiter very well, and were very expensive to run. This was the reason for the Attack Class boats coming in to being.