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The life expectancy of wartime emergency power depended greatly on the altitude when it was applied. At sea level it would be minutes, but in most cases it was applied only on max load take offs in B17s, and just long enough to get off the ground at the end of a takeoff. Wright Cyclone radial.
One B17 Pilot whose plane was shot up bad and had only one engine left actually skipped his plane across the English channel to reach the coast and barely cleared the 100 foot cliffs of Dover.
Another time a tail gunner was in the rear of a B17 and the Germans shot the tail section off the plane at the waist gunner position (weak point). The gunner had lost his parachute and he actually flew the tail section to a landing and survived.
The B29s were notorious for engine failures, until they fuel injected that same engine in later models (not B29s but the same basic engine).
I remember reading about a P51 pilot whose cooling system was shot up and all his coolant was gone. He made it back to England (barely) by pumping the primer and using the extra fuel to keep the Packard built Merlin from melting. He wore his hand down almost to the bone.
The Merlin was an OHC 4 valve per cylinder engine and made the dog A36 Allison powered predecessor of the P51 the war winner it was with a much better engine.
regards
Mech
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