Electra Craft
Posted in Uncategorized on 05/15/2009 08:57 am by adminA look at what is currently available on eBay
Aircraft Efficiency: Bristol Britannia-Twin Engine?
Could a Bristol Brattania be converted to a twin engine for fuel efficiency? Here is what I had in mind:
1. It is already one of the more successful and efficient crafts every produced (love those elliptical wings). I suppose this would also work on the Electra.
2. Each engine had about 4,000 SHP (16,000 combined total)
3. Replace those 4 with two of the Europrop TP400's (down rated to 9,000 shp from 11,000; this will give max. power at higher alt.) for a combined total of 17,000 SHP.
4. Convert the props to contra rotating props. This will allow shorter slower turning props and hence slower tip speed for quiet operation.
It seems to me this should offer comparable performance, maybe slightly improved with new prop technology, even greater range, and a lower seat cost.
Yes, it could be probably converted, but you're overlooking several important facts. The first is that ageing aircraft suffer from all sorts of maintenance issues (intergranular corrosion being among the biggies) so any savings in your plan,which would be quite expensive in and of itself, would be wiped out by high maintenance costs of keeping them airworthy. On top of that, the money required to bring these old birds into line with modern safety standards and updated avionics would be quite high and the cost of re-engineering the wing to handle the additional stresses imposed by the more powerful engines, then conducting exhaustive flight testing and gaining CAA approval would be enormous. Bottom line, it's less cost effective to re-engineer an old design than to design a new one.
