Chris M…"“In my air racing experience these big bore engines fail and are damaged quickly. When it failed, vibration, structural elasticity, and general catastrophic violence could have made everything from the points adjustment, spark plug clearances, detonation damage and the P-Lead stabilizing fix worn to ground happen in a very short period, like in seconds.”
In my experience fixing airplane engines and racing engines, when low compression radials, opposed 4/6 cylinder piston engines fail to develop rated power or even suffer catastrophic failure of a rod, crank, crankcase, piston, or cylinder, even at full throttle, I have never seen point adjustment changes, plug gaps change, or contribute to magnetos being out of service limits. I have helped perform NTSB investigative tear downs on a variety of aircraft engines that have been augured in or came apart due to something internally breaking and have never seen your description attributing the condition of the ignition system, plugs, or magnetos the NTSB found on the Collings B-17. I have seen weak and out of service limits magnetos, performing less then optimum ignition timing, and lack of accurate timing contribute to detonation damage over long periods of time.
The FAA description of the condition of the ignition system and the cylinders came from poor maintenance. Not only was it poor maintenance, someone went to the extent of doing a Rube Goldberg repair to the loose P-leads. Both engines three and four had similar issues. One engine was mid-time the other low time. Then, logbook entries lied about both the discrepancies and the repair of both engines. None of that happened as a result of “big bore engines fail and are damaged quickly”.
I have seen detonation damage, magneto failures, plug/valve/piston/cylinder destruction to racing engines who are being pushed so hard, developing two to three times their rated original power running manifold pressures that are mind boggling, turning RPM’s 30-40% past stock, with the addition of ADI operating on 130+ octane fuel with timing advanced well past any stock parameters. To suggest those two radial on the Collings B-17 was pushed to anywhere near those limits, had any ability to develop those kind of manifold pressures, and that catastrophic failure occurred to contribute to a worn out, purposefully jury rigged ignition system followed with pencil whipped log entries does not line up with any of the evidence. Have you read the FAA report?
Collings Foundation lost their LHFE because they lost control of the day to day maintenance of that particular airplane. They trusted a long-term DOM/chief pilot was being truthful handling all maintenance aspects of that airplane including accurate and complete documentation of the discrepancies and what should have been their subsequent repair… They trusted the flying credentials and the judgement of the DOM/Chief pilot that every flight would be safe and flown under LHFE compliance. Their LHFE was rescinded because they failed to verify.
Investigation of their overall operation will reveal if this was standard operating procedures for the remaining Collings Foundation LHFE warbirds. Award winning, high dollar restorations being poorly maintained and managed through a show season cannot be tolerated. I would like to think that what has previously appeared to be first class operation simply let this one airplane get away from LHFE procedures and their own Safety Manual Systems. We all wanted to “say it ain’t so”. The evidence is overwhelming regarding this particular airplane. There is nothing to defend.