B-24 oil

[Finn]

Looks like the engines on the Liberator put out a lot of oil, check the tail:

 

 

Jari

 

[Antoine]

As always, very interesting picture, Jari.

A lot off oil, maybe, or not.

The tailplane was not exactly easy to reach for a clean-up, or the operation tempo was too high for maintenance team to spend much time on cleaning.

Also, there are only a few hinges there, it's not really vital to keep this area clean to help detect leaks, cracks or other defect.

[NAVY870]

Radial engines are built around an oil leak.

[Hoppy]

Only time to worry about a radial leaking oil is when it stops, means you've run out. 🛢

[Work In Progress]

For a non-aerobatic aeroplane, that is definitely a lot of oil on the tail. Of course they were predominantly flown and maintained by people who had minimal experience by commercial standards, and sometimes treated the engines badly. And mechanics usually had more operationally important things to do after a mission than chase down oil leaks. As long as it carried enough oil for the duration of the flight it would do.

 

Post war, the P&W R-1830 has always been exceptionally dependable, as has its big brother the R-2800, and both can be made pretty leak-tight especially if flown regularly. The oil _consumption_ of a big radial though (that which passes through rather than leaking out of the system) is always significant. But that doesnt lead to liquid oil all over the tail.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

If a radial isnt leaking oil then you should worry ... its empty.

    With several cylinders upside down on a radial the oil naturally finds its way down and out through them. Thats why you hand turn a radial before starting the engine. It helps to move the oil out of the cylinder and back into the crankcase. If you didnt youd bend the piston rods, blow your seals, and could crack the cylinder head shaft. 

[Marvel Onkey]

Looking at the picture I'm curious about the pattern of the oil across the wings- to me the flow on the starboard wing seems to tend inboard as it goes across the wing, but the port wing it looks like it flows straight back...or is it just my eyes?

[JPuente54]

Some things never change, B-52 pilots doing their pre-flight checks also have to look for oil leaking from their engines; and, for the same reason: No oil dripping means no oil in the engine! That's progress for ya!

[Work In Progress]

14 hours ago, Marvel Onkey said:

Looking at the picture I'm curious about the pattern of the oil across the wings- to me the flow on the starboard wing seems to tend inboard as it goes across the wing, but the port wing it looks like it flows straight back...or is it just my eyes?

Possibly because while the slipstream works in the same sense on both sides, the spanwise flow (the origin of the tip vortices) is handed. The spanwise flow drifts the air inboard as it passes front-to-rear across the upper surface of the wing, outboard on the lower surface. So the two forces may counteract each other on the port wing, and complement each other on the starboard wing. Spanwise flow is not huge on a high aspect ratio straight wing in the cruise but there still is a bit.