Re: New "What Ifs?"

Posted by Steve203 On 2014/8/20 0:17:15

I am talking about were not aircraft, but rather automotive gas turbines.

Problem is gas turbines have never caught on for surface transportation. I remember the Chrysler and Rover turbine cars. In the early 70s, Ford was experimenting with a turbine in a long haul truck. Union Pacific had a few turbine powered freight engines. Then there were the Turboliners that Amtrak had in the early 70s. They all went away when fuel prices rose.

Where gas turbines caught on in a big way, and where Packard had a good start was for aircraft.

Packard's XJ49 was one of the most powerful jets of it's day, with takeoff thrust of 12,000lbs. That makes it the equal of the Pratt J57, which first ran 4 years later, and being a turbofan, the XJ49 probably had fuel consumption 20-25% lower than the J57.

Being developed sooner, and being more fuel efficient, which translates into more range and/or more payload, it could have been used instead of the J57, or it's civilian variant JT3C, on several subsonic platforms, namely the early models of B52, KC135, 707, DC8 and several other less well known military and civilian aircraft. Pratt built over 20,000 J57/JT3Cs. That business could have been Packard's, if they had had the resources to develop and produce the XJ49.