>>>"W. Ray Gibbons" said:
> On Thu, 12 Jan 1995 TATERRY@aol.com wrote:
> But wait a minute, didn't the B29 have four engines? With one engine out,
> there would still be 3 huge engines to call upon. Wouldn't a tiny 4
> banger be sort of superfluous? And the thought of 4 little Crosley
> engines in the wings... Anyway, it makes a good story. I guess we could
> look it up somewhere, but wotthehell. Roland is real old, maybe he will
> know.
More likely, the Crosley's were used as APUs -- Auxiliary Power Units. These
tend to be used to provide electricity and hydraulic pressure when the main
engines are not running (or have failed). If you look at the ass end of a
747, you can see the exhaust pipe of the small (relatively -- I think it's a
P&W PT6) turbine APU.
--berry (yeah yeah I should look it up already)
Berry Kercheval :: kerch@parc.xerox.com
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