Paul J. Adam wrote:
Packard cleaned up the castings, milled the mating faces approximately
flat (at least, compared to a metal-metal seal) and put a gasket between
them. I don't recall hearing tales of P-51s routinely or regularly
falling from the skies when their engines failed, nor of the Packard
Spitfires being execrated for unreliability (or, for that matter, lack
of horsepower).

Uh, I don't know about "regularly falling," but here is the best
reference I could find (skip down to the Mk XVI part):

http://www.spitfire.dk/chapter3.htm

I always figured this happened because of the difference between British
manufacturing (production tolerances designed for hand-fitted assembly,
ie. not all pistons will fit well in all cylinders) vs American
manufacturing (production tolerances matched for mass production, ie.
all pistons will fit well enough in all cylinders).

Then again, the article I cited suggests it may have been a problem
limited to just one batch rather than the different industrial
philosophies between Henry T. and Henry Royce.

Was this thread about the F-35?