It doesn't matter to me if Setright actually had any document or not. That piece is such a biased collection of nonsense it deserves to be enshrined in a Wikipedia article on how NOT to write technical articles.
" Power had long been Napier's stock-in-trade. The company's design and development team was tiny but rich in talent. Other riches had escaped them, and their hopes of getting something done about it were not much better, for the aero-engine business at the time was viciously competitive and the Air Ministry persistently refused to give them any encouragement. Rolls-Royce, having since the previous decade considered Napier a very real threat, employed its powerful lobbying facilities to ensure that its competitor was kept at bay."
Bolded part actually tells us nothing and actually goes against the facts. The Lion was a powerful engine in it's day but hardly head an shoulders ahead of some it's competition, Curtiss and Packard V-12s, The Rolls Royce Condor was certainly more powerful, the Mid to late 20s saw Hispano suiza stretch their V-8 into a V-12 of similar HP to the Lion. The
Lion stagnated while other engines grew. The Napier Rapier was hardly a power house by anybodies definition so the "stock-in-trade" seems to have left the building. The Dagger was has hardly a front line engine either.
The part in italics needs more than little explaining. The company didn't have much of design and development team. Not to take away anything from the poor guys who did the grunt work but you had Halford in an office in his own design company (with one or more assistants?) designing engines on contract for Napier.
BTW he was also designing engines for De Havilland at the same time. He may have been talented but he may not have been as focused on the Sabre as a designer inbedded in the company might have been.
"Unable to make headway with the production of the Sabre, Napier concentrated on its technical development. Employing a few little twin-cylinder research engines and some very complex and precise instrumentation of their own manufacture, Napier's engineers worked away perfecting the basic design, their ideas running further and further beyond the original concept of 2,000bhp - a remarkable feat when at the time R-R Merlin was just breaking into four figures."
design work started in 1935 according to most accounts. Engine first ran in Jan 1938. Mr. Setright gives no dates so it is hard to judge.
I would note that P & W started work on an R-2600 engine in 1935 and then bumped it to 2800 cu in in march of 1937 when they heard about the Wright R-2600. They had a 9 cylinder test rig running in Feb 1938. Please note this is P & W 4th twin row radial engine and 8th engine from the start of the company. It took until July of 1939 to pass a type test and get an engine into a test bed aircraft. By Feb of 1940 they had 5000 hours on the test engines. This is just to give perspective on the time it took to bring a new engine into service without tales of being blocked or conspiracies.
I would note that the Merlin broke into four figures around 1936-7? and comparing a 37 liter engine to a 27 liter engine? Maybe he is referencing the Merlin because he figures his readers have heard of it but don't know what the Vulture is? RR was aiming for 2000hp at the same time, they just weren't planning on the Merlin to do it. Bristol also had the Centaurus on the drawing boards and in fact ran one in July of 1938 so the concept wasn't exactly novel. Across the pond the americans were working on the R-2800 and R-3350.
By the time the Sabre passed it's first type test the Merlin had held 1600hp for over 10 hours when testing for the Spee
Spitfire, and had hit someting over 1800hp?
There seems to be a bit of confusion on how aircraft engines were rated.
"To this day it is fashionable to doubt the supposed power of the Sabre. My information came from the wartime R&D department at Napier, and refutes the popular opinion. In its first production form, for the Hawker Typhoon, the Sabre was modestly rated for combat at 2,615bhp at 3,850rpm and about 151b/in2 boost. Later it was given water/methanol injection, raising that to 3,055bhp at 171b/in2 - still a shadow of its real ability, for it was known to be capable of a sustained 3,750bhp. That was actually the most it was ever set to deliver in service, though there had been experimental engines built (featuring much higher boost from a three-stage supercharger - the production Sabre was quite modestly boosted, never being envisaged as a high-altitude engine) that it could deliver 5,5OObhp at 4,20Orpm, running at a boost of about 451b/in2 and a b.m.e.p. of 4671b/in2.
Nor was that 3,750bhp service a typical combat rating that might be maintained for only 15 minutes. It w
could be sustained hour after hour, day after day: Napier tested the Sabre at that rating for 175 hours non-stop. The company's usual endurance test was more varied: 10 hours at cruise rating, three hours at climb rating, one hour at take-off power, and one hour at combat maximum, with the whole 15-hour cycle being repeated non-stop over and over again."
according to the RAF data card the Sabre II was rated at 2180hp at sea level at 3700rpm at 9lbs boost in 1944. Test of the Typhoon in Nov 1942 used 7lb boost as a limit. By July of 1943 the boost had been changed to 9lbs but rpm remained 3700rpm.
Something over 1200 Typhoons had been built before they got the IIA engine so I have no idea where the Sabre ratings Setright is quoting come from.
ANd the IIA was nowhere near his figures. The IIA was allowed 3750rpm, and the IIB 3850rpm.
I will say that the numbers he quotes match up very well for the Sabre V used in the Tempest?????
However the quite modestly boosted, never being envisaged as a high-altitude engine part takes bit of swallowing
rewrite of history).
I would note that in US practice no WEP rating was approved until a test engine had run at that power for 7 1/2 hours, done in 5 minute spurts to allow for cooling in between. I would also note that most companies did NOT set their own test standard/cycle. The government or buying agency TOLD the manufacturer how many hours at each level of power woul
be required and while a company might choose to exceed those requirements (like run an engine longer at the high levels without using the cooling off period) the total number of hours would not change. The tests were much more severe than one might think because they were trying to ensure that the WORST engine in a batch would meet the standards in service. One can look at any number of engines that failed to make it to overhaul life or stopped running on take-off, etc to see the wisdom of allowing for some head room between test stand results and service ratings.
These are not formula I car engines. You can't walk back to the pits after blowing up an engine on the back straight.
