In the search for new, more efficient engines, have we overlooked a great old idea?

By Paul Lamar

The Lockheed Constellation was among a number of planes that used the Curtiss-Wright R3350 turbo-compound engine.

It might surprise you to find out that there is a 20% more fuel efficient aircraft piston engine sitting on the shelf that nobody is building. It’s called a turbo-compound engine. Some 9000 were built in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and they have experienced more than 7.5 million flight hours. When jets came along, development on this engine stopped dead. Jets were simpler and expedient at the high power (thrust) levels required, so this made up for the fact that their brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) was atrocious. People wanted to fly faster and higher, and fuel was cheap. …

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