Dale wrote:

In article , "Bill Kambic" wrote:

It was one noisy SOB. I don't think I would have wanted to go very far on
it without GOOD hearing protection.

I was told about 110 db in the cockpit. Pretty loud whatever it is.

IIRC, the engines were an earlier version of the same Wright Cyclones that
powered the S2 series. The S2, in fact, had a larger weapons/stores
capacity than the Liberator did (but could not go quite so farg).

The Wrights are on the B-17. The Liberators used the P&W 1830.

FWIW, last year I went down to Moffett field to have a look at the Collings
Foundation B-17 and B-24. Tried to talk myself into ponying up the $350 they
wanted for an hour ride, but (perhaps fortunately) they were already fully
booked. Anyway, one of the things I noticed was how much quieter the B-24's
Twin Wasps were compared to the B-17's Cyclones during taxi, take-off, and
passing overhead. A lot smoother sounding, too, presumably due to the former
being a 14-cylinder twin-row versus the latter's 9-cylinder single row, of
roughly the same size (1830 vs. 1820 c.i.) -- the B-24 purred, the B-17 roared.
The turbos on the Collings B-24 had been blanked off, so the noise level and
quality may not be indicative of the typical B-24.

Actually, a later model B-25 seems a lot louder than either (due, I believe, to
the single-cylinder exhaust ports on the R-2600 nacelles), although I don't know
what the actual decibels are for each. Former B-25 pilots are renowned among
their contemporaries for their hearing loss, even in a field in which it was
pretty routine, and it is the one negative thing about the a/c that B-25 crewmen
always mention. The earlier B-25 models had a single exhaust on the outboard
side of each nacelle which was apparently much quieter (at least inside the
fuselage) than the individual cylinder exhausts, but also apparently more
maintenance trouble.

Guy