The Pratt & Whitney XT57 (company designation: PT5) was an axial-flow turboprop engine developed by Pratt & Whitney in the mid-1950s. The XT57 was developed from the Pratt & Whitney J57 turbojet.
Design and development
One XT57 (PT5), a turboprop development of the J57, was installed in the nose of a JC-124C (BuNo 52-1069), and tested in 1956.
Rated at , the XT57 was the most powerful turboprop engine in existence at the time, and it remains the most powerful turboprop ever built in the United States. The engine had a split-compressor (also known as "two-spool") design.
Intended for use on the Douglas C-132 aircraft, the XT57 turboprop used a Hamilton Standard Model B48P6A propeller with a diameter of , which was the largest diameter propeller to be used in flight at the time. The single-rotation propeller had four hollow steel blades, a maximum blade chord of , a length of , and a weight of .
In the late 1950s, the XT57 was studied for use in a United States Navy-proposed, nuclear-powered conversion of a Saunders-Roe Princess flying boat. Despite not having entered service, the engine was selected because it had passed a Pratt & Whitney 150-hour testing program, which involved running the engine for 5,000–7,000 hours.
Variants
T57/PT5 A turboprop engine driving a Hamilton Standard Turbo-Hydromatic propeller, turboprop to be used on the Douglas C-132, a Mach 0.8 speed military transport aircraft.
Engines on display
The XT57 engine is on display at the Pratt & Whitney museum in East Hartford, Connecticut.
Applications
T57 turboprop
Douglas JC-124C Globemaster II testbed
Douglas C-132 (not built)
Specifications (XT57-P-1)