enginehistory.org

rwahlgren · Joined: 15 Aug 2003 Posts: 324

Various stands were devised to position the engines to make it easier to work on them.
Here is a good example of one that worked great for positioning the engine to build up or take down parts on the outside of the engine such as the accessories, engine mount, cylinders, accessory section, etc. to go farther into the engine, the rest of the engine would need to be transferred to a nose up stand of some sort.

It is called the Whiting Stand.

http://www.enginehistory.org/Collections/R-4360-59B_1.jpg

http://www.enginehistory.org/Museums/CAFMidland/Fifi/Fifi.jpg
It is the dark one near the plane.

avasko · Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 37 Location: Ft Collins, CO USA

The Whiting stands were particularly useful for the Wright 3350 BA series as used on the Lockheed L049/149 Constellation series. The installation used Dynafocal mounts attaching the rear cylinder heads to the engine mount frame. When changing a rear jug on the aircraft, particularly an upper one, the engine would sag down as you removed the cylinder to mount bolts. You then went ahead and did the jug change (an often needed affair on that really poor engine), Completing that you had to boost the sagging engine up using a crane or often, a padded board acoss the rails of a hydraulically pumped up aerostand.
But in mid-fifties Delta bought four very tired L048/149's from Pan Am for their just awarded New York service. Unfortunately, turned out that many cylinders had to be change due to a Mandatory Service Bulletin. Spare engines first, and Whiting stand offered the easiest way to get to them. No load on the dynagocals. It was a Godsend in that application. The bad engines off the aircraft and serviceable ones on. Those removed engines then went into the Whitings.
Those L049 were very early and had underwing recognition lights showing they had been ordered as military C-69 in WW-II.

akambic · Joined: 09 Feb 2014 Posts: 10 Location: Fairfax, Virginia

At NASM Udvar-Hazy restoration shop, we have a Whiting stand and used it to complete the rebuild of both R-2800s of B-26 Marauder 'Flak Bait', once they had been torn down and all corrosion had been addressed.