Here's the story:
My father-in-law bought some containers at auction a couple weeks ago. He deals in scrap and used equipment and does this stuff all the time. He had a friend go pick up the container and haul it to the junk yard. He never saw it, and was expecting a check for the scrap value of the steel container from his friend. He gets a call from his friend that when they ripped off the top of the container with the steel shears at the junkyard, they revealed a jet engine inside the container. It was damaged by the shears and was junked. The good thing is that he bought two of the containers. He had the other one taken to his lot and there it sits.
The engine is a Pratt and Whitney J57
Pratt & Whitney: About Us - Classic Engines - J57 (JT3)
This thing was put away in the container with some care by the military. All the open ports were capped off with custom covers, hoses were capped and there were about 100 large desiccant bags in the bottom of the container. The container is sealed with a 1/2" O-ring, so the engine was well protected from the elements.
There were no maintenance records with it.
I called Pratt and Whitney and they were very helpful. They told me that there are a couple of non-aviation related uses for this engine. One was that they were used to heat orange groves down in Florida. I haven't been able to find anything on this in my google searches. The other thing they used them for was for snowblowers on the Alaska Railroad. I found some pics of it here:
BR21 Jet Snow Blower
I'd like to see that thing at work!
I called the Alaska Railroad and got transferred to one of their maintenance departments, but haven't got a call back yet.
I put it on craigslist with pics too:
Pratt & Whitney J57 Jet engine for sale
Anyone have any ideas on what do do with this thing to make some money besides strapping it to a pickup truck and winning a darwin award?
My father-in-law bought some containers at auction a couple weeks ago. He deals in scrap and used equipment and does this stuff all the time. He had a friend go pick up the container and haul it to the junk yard. He never saw it, and was expecting a check for the scrap value of the steel container from his friend. He gets a call from his friend that when they ripped off the top of the container with the steel shears at the junkyard, they revealed a jet engine inside the container. It was damaged by the shears and was junked. The good thing is that he bought two of the containers. He had the other one taken to his lot and there it sits.
The engine is a Pratt and Whitney J57
Pratt & Whitney: About Us - Classic Engines - J57 (JT3)
This thing was put away in the container with some care by the military. All the open ports were capped off with custom covers, hoses were capped and there were about 100 large desiccant bags in the bottom of the container. The container is sealed with a 1/2" O-ring, so the engine was well protected from the elements.
There were no maintenance records with it.
I called Pratt and Whitney and they were very helpful. They told me that there are a couple of non-aviation related uses for this engine. One was that they were used to heat orange groves down in Florida. I haven't been able to find anything on this in my google searches. The other thing they used them for was for snowblowers on the Alaska Railroad. I found some pics of it here:
BR21 Jet Snow Blower
I'd like to see that thing at work!
I called the Alaska Railroad and got transferred to one of their maintenance departments, but haven't got a call back yet.
I put it on craigslist with pics too:
Pratt & Whitney J57 Jet engine for sale
Anyone have any ideas on what do do with this thing to make some money besides strapping it to a pickup truck and winning a darwin award?