The 'ramp head debacle' makes RR to cancel the Merlin. What now?

GrauGeist said:

The Historical timeline of the Merlin and V-1710 is fairly close.


However, in Tomo's proposal, the Merlin failed to go introduction - so why wouldn't Britain take a look at Allison's engine for a potential license?

Click to expand...

Not Invented Here?

I was unsure as to whether you meant that Allison would produce the engine or it would be produced in the UK.

Basically the Merlin was the 5-6th aircraft V-12 engine that RR had built in about 20 years.
V-1710 was Allison's first complete engine. They had modified some Liberty engine during the 1920s including inverting them and/or converting them to air cooling (reduced the bore to leave more room for fins). and in 1936 at the height of the ramp head crises Allison had built a total of 9 engines, one of which had flown.

Which company would you bet on?

Shortround6 said:

Which company would you bet on?

Click to expand...

The one that worked...

tomo pauk said:

The fellow forum member posted in another thread:

For sake of discussion, let's say that what is noted in the title happens. Waht are the RR's options, RAF's options, Allied options past 1939?


If we go with the weight figure of 1600-1800 lbs, perhaps power of ~1300 HP at 5 km might be expected for initial service use? Certainly worthy of the price increase, IMO.

Click to expand...

Itis evident from later correspondence that, perhaps in response toMaund's criticism of the size of his project, the AMSR (Dowding)suggested that the ambiguous "High Speed 1000 lb. Bomber"might be met by a single-engined aircraft powered by a newRolls-Royce engine. This was the Griffon, whichDowding said was being developed from the company's Schneider Trophyracing engines. (6)

(6)PRO: AIR 2/2745, Medium Bomber - Type Requirements specificationP27/32, DCAS to CAS, 21.4.32

Accordingto ArthurRubbra's memoirs, a de-rated version of the "R"engine, known by the name
Griffon at that time, was tested in 1933.This engine, R11,[1]whichwas never flown, was used for "Moderately Supercharged Buzzarddevelopment" (which was not proceeded with until much later),and bore no direct relationship to the volume-produced Griffon of the1940s

Had RR invested the same blood, sweat and tears on that project as on theMerlin, and achieved the same HP /Litre as the Merlin 111 on 100 octane fuel , it would haveproduced 1800 vs 1300 hp.

Why not develop the Griffon at that time?
Their biggest customer was Sydney Camm and his multiple flavours of the Hawker Hart using the Kestrel. They would have known where he was going next with the Fury monoplane, and that he needed an a 1000hp engine as close to the Kestrel as possible. Cutting the throat of your biggest customer is not good for business.
The RAF was essentially a Night Fighting airforce. The annual Air Exercises included night flying from 1924 onwards. The final exercise in 1938 was entirely a night fighting one.


Whether such powerfull engines would have been needed is questionable.

It would clearly have been handy to have a Spitfire Mk1 as capable as the MkXIV in time for the B.of B. Or Avro to bypass the Manchester, OrFairey produce a Battle with performance closer to the Firefly.

Tom Graham said:

Itis evident from later correspondence that, perhaps in response toMaund's criticism of the size of his project, the AMSR (Dowding)suggested that the ambiguous "High Speed 1000 lb. Bomber"might be met by a single-engined aircraft powered by a newRolls-Royce engine. This was the Griffon, whichDowding said was being developed from the company's Schneider Trophyracing engines. (6)

(6)PRO: AIR 2/2745, Medium Bomber - Type Requirements specificationP27/32, DCAS to CAS, 21.4.32

Accordingto ArthurRubbra's memoirs, a de-rated version of the "R"engine, known by the name
Griffon at that time, was tested in 1933.This engine, R11,[1]whichwas never flown, was used for "Moderately Supercharged Buzzarddevelopment" (which was not proceeded with until much later),and bore no direct relationship to the volume-produced Griffon of the1940s

Had RR invested the same blood, sweat and tears on that project as on theMerlin, and achieved the same HP /Litre as the Merlin 111 on 100 octane fuel , it would haveproduced 1800 vs 1300 hp.

Why not develop the Griffon at that time?
Their biggest customer was Sydney Camm and his multiple flavours of the Hawker Hart using the Kestrel. They would have known where he was going next with the Fury monoplane, and that he needed an a 1000hp engine as close to the Kestrel as possible. Cutting the throat of your biggest customer is not good for business.
The RAF was essentially a Night Fighting airforce. The annual Air Exercises included night flying from 1924 onwards. The final exercise in 1938 was entirely a night fighting one.
View attachment 752292

Whether such powerfull engines would have been needed is questionable.

It would clearly have been handy to have a Spitfire Mk1 as capable as the MkXIV in time for the B.of B. Or Avro to bypass the Manchester, OrFairey produce a Battle with performance closer to the Firefly.

Click to expand...

I suspect the answer to that is probably to be found in looking at the various Air Ministry specifications being prepared in the early 30`s. None called for an engine of that power (or weight) and so it would be very unlikely that any firm would invest vast sums in a considerably over-spec`d engine. Its chicken and egg because engines took years to develop, and specifications tended to be looking at what was either available immediately, or imminently. Such as F.7/30

Its easy to look back now to see what could have been done differently, but, also, I would say that the Merlin was good enough to more or less see out the piston
age as it was. So its not necessarily a definite judgement to say that having a Griffon earlier would have been a massive step forwards, its big, heavy and very thirsty.

wuzak said:

Go all in on the Peregrine?

Click to expand...

Peregrine to Griffon. Not an impossible leap.

Meanwhile, give Frank Whittle and Power Jets everything they need to get the Rolls-Royce Welland into service asap.

Define "service"?

Do you have


There was quite a bit of stuff going on other places in England like Hadfield steel, H. Wiggin company (Nimonic Alloys), Firth-Vickers and the Jessop company for materials to make the turbine blades, combustion chambers and the turbine disks.

There is also the fact the Whittle engines were being worked on in 3/4/5 locations in late 1941. The Power Jets/Rover combo (1/2 locations), GE Lynn Massachusetts in the Autumn of 1941 had gotten the W.1X engine, W.2B drawings and a small team of Power Jet engineers (3rd location) and RR was involved with parts fabrication and research support after Hooker visited the Power Jet shop in the summer of 1940. Hooker convinced Hives and RR was fabricating turbine blades, gear cases and other parts in late 1940/early 41., Location 4.
IN 1941 they were helping with compressor surging with the W.2 turbojet by building a test rig powered by a 2,000hp Vulture engine.
Part of the factory swap that took place in Dec 1942 was do to the fact that RR had no spare factory space or personnel to devote to the jet engine project/s much as they wanted to.
Swapping the tank engine works for Rover's jet engine works gave RR the square footage, machinery and personnel to get into the jet engine business in a big way.
The other thing that helped was that Hives sent Hooker (as Chief Engineer) to the ex Rover factory in Jan 1943. So now you had the best compressor designer in England working on the engine.
We may want to think about that one for a minute. RR hooks up with Whittle in 1939, Hooker goes to Power Jets. No Merlin XX or 45 and no two stage supercharged Merlins?

Meanwhile, Joseph Lucas Ltd and been working on the combustion problems since 1940. They had started with a compressor powered by a 750hp motor but in 1941 they had moved to a new location with more air flow, sheet metal and mechanical work shops, chemical and physical laboratories and the ability to build prototype combustion chambers.
DH gets into the Jet engine business in Jan 1941with about 50 people headed by Frank Halford (of Sabre fame). Maybe not location 5.

A lot of stuff was going on from 1940 onward, and it was all stuff that had to be done/solved before an effective, servable engine could be built. Perhaps things could have been speeded somewhat in the late 30s but there was not the 2-3 year gap between 1940 and Dec 1942 that some people think. There was also a lot of investment and work being done on basic stuff, like the needed alloys. RR did NOT do it alone.

Why go with Power Jets?

Why not go with the Metrovicks turbine project, which was initially a turbo-prop?

Maybe the F2 becomes airworthy earlier and is reliable enough to start service with the Meteor.

wuzak said:

Why go with Power Jets?

Why not go with the Metrovicks turbine project, which was initially a turbo-prop?

Maybe the F2 becomes airworthy earlier and is reliable enough to start service with the Meteor.

Click to expand...

Metropolitan-Vickers had been teamed up with REA (Royal Airforce Establishment) team in the summer of 1940. The REA, under A.A. Griffon had been working on turbine engines since at least 1926 but mostly on paper until about 1936. REA had rather limited manufacturing capability although a better word might fabrication capability. They had built an an 8 stage compressor and gotten good results but it was only 6in in diameter but much work was done with it until it was destroyed by a German bomb on the 13th of Aug 1940. It was then they were teamed up with Metropolitan-Vickers as they had the capacity to build parts in the sizes needed for a full scale engine. Now please note that at this time the REA team had not built a combustion chamber or power turbine (or at least not assembled them into a complete engine) and it was somewhere in 1938(?)39 that C.A. Persons Lrd, was drawn into the research work. Now the team under Griffon had lot of good ideas, perhaps too many as there were a proliferation of drawings of unbelievable complexity, like a contra rotating, contra flow ducted fan turbojet.
REA had a 2nd designer Hayne Constant and MV had been involved with this project well before the summer of 1940. It was this engine that may have formed the basis of the MV engine or there may have been overlap. At any rate the turbo prop idea seems to have been put aside for a while?
As with a lot of things in Britain at the time, there was only so much money/effort to go around and in 1940/41 Whittle was getting better actual results so it seems (to me anyway) that REA and MV were kept on the back burner a bit incase Whittle failed ( the REA and MV efforts looked very expensive for one thing).
The MV F.2/1 turbojet used a 9 stage compressor and two stage turbine ( to help keep rpm and centrifugal forces down). This was pretty much the engine that flew (at 1800lbs thrust ) in the rear of a Lancaster in 29th June 1943.

It was taking a lot of time and effort to turn drawings into working hardware. You can draw a picture of a 9 stage compressor, what the actual air flow and pressure ratio were needed to found by test running and modification.

Shortround6 said:

Metropolitan-Vickers had been teamed up with REA (Royal Airforce Establishment) team in the summer of 1940. The REA, under A.A. Griffon had been working on turbine engines since at least 1926 but mostly on paper until about 1936. REA had rather limited manufacturing capability although a better word might fabrication capability. They had built an an 8 stage compressor and gotten good results but it was only 6in in diameter but much work was done with it until it was destroyed by a German bomb on the 13th of Aug 1940. It was then they were teamed up with Metropolitan-Vickers as they had the capacity to build parts in the sizes needed for a full scale engine. Now please note that at this time the REA team had not built a combustion chamber or power turbine (or at least not assembled them into a complete engine) and it was somewhere in 1938(?)39 that C.A. Persons Lrd, was drawn into the research work. Now the team under Griffon had lot of good ideas, perhaps too many as there were a proliferation of drawings of unbelievable complexity, like a contra rotating, contra flow ducted fan turbojet.
REA had a 2nd designer Hayne Constant and MV had been involved with this project well before the summer of 1940. It was this engine that may have formed the basis of the MV engine or there may have been overlap. At any rate the turbo prop idea seems to have been put aside for a while?
As with a lot of things in Britain at the time, there was only so much money/effort to go around and in 1940/41 Whittle was getting better actual results so it seems (to me anyway) that REA and MV were kept on the back burner a bit incase Whittle failed ( the REA and MV efforts looked very expensive for one thing).
The MV F.2/1 turbojet used a 9 stage compressor and two stage turbine ( to help keep rpm and centrifugal forces down). This was pretty much the engine that flew (at 1800lbs thrust ) in the rear of a Lancaster in 29th June 1943.

It was taking a lot of time and effort to turn drawings into working hardware. You can draw a picture of a 9 stage compressor, what the actual air flow and pressure ratio were needed to found by test running and modification.

Click to expand...

Hi
I take it you mean the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) which was previously the Royal Aircraft Factory (RAF) until the Royal Air Force was formed in 1918 and it changed the name and therefore initials for obvious reasons.

Mike