--- title: Science: Compound Endurance description: The Wright Aeronautical Corp. described this week its "Turbo-Cyclone 18 Compound Engine," designed for the utmost fuel economy. It has a conventional piston engine in front and three small... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6825001/science-compound-endurance/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 1950-05-29T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-13T06:05:16.280Z article:section: U.S. og:title: Science: Compound Endurance og:description: The Wright Aeronautical Corp. described this week its "Turbo-Cyclone 18 Compound Engine," designed for the utmost fuel economy. It has a conventional piston engine in front and three small... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6825001/science-compound-endurance/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Science: Compound Endurance twitter:description: The Wright Aeronautical Corp. described this week its "Turbo-Cyclone 18 Compound Engine," designed for the utmost fuel economy. It has a conventional piston engine in front and three small... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Science: Compound Endurance by [TIME](/author/time/) May 29, 1950 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) May 29, 1950 4:00 AM CUT The Wright Aeronautical Corp. described this week its “Turbo-Cyclone 18 Compound Engine,” designed for the utmost fuel economy. It has a conventional piston engine in front and three small turbines driven by the exhaust gases. The turbines add 20% more power, but use no extra fuel. When operating in the Navy’s Lockheed P2V-4 Neptune, the “18s” should enable the long-range patrol bomber to fly around the world at the 55th parallel (latitude of Belfast and Omsk) without refueling. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6825001/science-compound-endurance/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6825001/science-compound-endurance/"},"headline":"Science: Compound Endurance","datePublished":"1950-05-29T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-13T06:05:16.280Z","description":"The Wright Aeronautical Corp. described this week its \"Turbo-Cyclone 18 Compound Engine,\" designed for the utmost fuel economy. It has a conventional piston engine in front and three small...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6825001/science-compound-endurance/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6825001/science-compound-endurance/","name":"Science: Compound Endurance"}}]}] ```