Jun 30, 2026 · 41 min · 11 segments
The most monstrous WWII aircraft engine that you have never heard of is called the Studebaker XH-9350. A truly mind boggling project that Studebaker was the last option for when it began in 1942, it's…
Brian LohnesHost
As is always the case around here, rather than just dive into the engine itself, we have to talk about how it came to be or even foreseen as a project worth pursuing.
And to do that, we have to travel back to the 1930s, when military planners in the US came to a stark realization after getting hold of a British Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine.
The United States had done a stellar job on the development of air-cooled engines, and that was where they had chosen to most heartily invest their money.
But it became clear that ever larger radial engines became ever larger aerodynamic impediments, and more tightly packaged liquid-cooled engines were going to be ultra important in the pursuit of performance in the air.
Now, here's where I need to take a minute and mention the sources for where the majority of the information in this video is coming from.
Books like Herschel Smith's A History of Aircraft Piston Engines; The Secret Horsepower Race by Calamy Douglas; The Development of Piston Aero Engines by Bill Gunston; the 1950 Harvard Business School paper, Development of Aircraft Engines; and Development of Aviation Fuels by Robert Schlafer and S.D. Heron; and finally, the definitive tome on the history, development, and adventure of the XH-9350, a book called Studebaker's XH-9350 and Their Involvement with Other Aircraft Engines by William Pierce; The High-Speed Internal Combustion Engine by Harry Ricardo; and other books.
If this video interests you, the Studebaker XH-9350 book will enthrall you, as it's done to a level that I could never match in this medium, and like all the resources listed, should be on your bookshelf.
When we talk about how little investment the Army Air Corps had put toward the development of liquid engines, consider that their budget in the early '30s was about $30 million per year.
Out of that, the average spend per year on liquid-cooled development was about $150,000.
Another stark fact here is that Wright Aeronautical and Pratt & Whitney, both private companies, had research and development budgets that were 10 times larger than this, and you can begin to understand the problem here.
As it turns out, the true beginning of the story of the monstrous American engine actually starts with an Englishman.
Sam, or more commonly known as S.D. Heron, was one of the leading engineers at Wright Field who was working in the power plant branch.
But in 1930, he was put on a project to test various cylinder designs in order to increase the power output of liquid-cooled engines.
Yes, the feverish hunt to solve America's lack of liquid-cooled horsepower was absolutely led by a man from England.
Sir Harry Ricardo's impact on the development of the internal combustion engine is immeasurable.
In many ways, he's one of the most recognized authorities on the basic theories engines still run on today.
And like all guys on the bleeding edge of figuring stuff out and building engineering projects to principles to describe, explain, and instrument things, he wasn't always right.
As is always the case around here, rather than just dive into the engine itself, we have to talk about how it came to be or even foreseen as a project worth pursuing.
And to do that, we have to travel back to the 1930s, when military planners in the US came to a stark realization after getting hold of a British Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine.
The United States had done a stellar job on the development of air-cooled engines, and that was where they had chosen to most heartily invest their money.
But it became clear that ever larger radial engines became ever larger aerodynamic impediments, and more tightly packaged liquid-cooled engines were going to be ultra important in the pursuit of performance in the air.
Now, here's where I need to take a minute and mention the sources for where the majority of the information in this video is coming from.
Books like Herschel Smith's A History of Aircraft Piston Engines; The Secret Horsepower Race by Calamy Douglas; The Development of Piston Aero Engines by Bill Gunston; the 1950 Harvard Business School paper, Development of Aircraft Engines; and Development of Aviation Fuels by Robert Schlafer and S.D. Heron; and finally, the definitive tome on the history, development, and adventure of the XH-9350, a book called Studebaker's XH-9350 and Their Involvement with Other Aircraft Engines by William Pierce; The High-Speed Internal Combustion Engine by Harry Ricardo; and other books.
If this video interests you, the Studebaker XH-9350 book will enthrall you, as it's done to a level that I could never match in this medium, and like all the resources listed, should be on your bookshelf.
When we talk about how little investment the Army Air Corps had put toward the development of liquid engines, consider that their budget in the early '30s was about $30 million per year.
Out of that, the average spend per year on liquid-cooled development was about $150,000.
Another stark fact here is that Wright Aeronautical and Pratt & Whitney, both private companies, had research and development budgets that were 10 times larger than this, and you can begin to understand the problem here.
As it turns out, the true beginning of the story of the monstrous American engine actually starts with an Englishman.
Sam, or more commonly known as S.D. Heron, was one of the leading engineers at Wright Field who was working in the power plant branch.
But in 1930, he was put on a project to test various cylinder designs in order to increase the power output of liquid-cooled engines.
Yes, the feverish hunt to solve America's lack of liquid-cooled horsepower was absolutely led by a man from England.
Sir Harry Ricardo's impact on the development of the internal combustion engine is immeasurable.
In many ways, he's one of the most recognized authorities on the basic theories engines still run on today.
And like all guys on the bleeding edge of figuring stuff out and building engineering projects to principles to describe, explain, and instrument things, he wasn't always right.
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