By: alertken - 17th October 2006 at 00:00
1938/9. Whittle, a distinctive personality, is undermining all that reciprocists know and love. A venture capitalist puts up some seed £ and asks A.M to suggest a deliveror. In despair at sloth on big power (Centaurus, Deerhound, Sabre, Vulture) for the crucial long range, big payload types, they firewall aero-engineers, mired already. Of course he (and RAE, with Griffith’s axials) went to Rover, Vauxhall, and to the only practitioners of spin, MetroVick/AEI/BTH.
When we sent W.1 to US, MAP suggested they do the same, so they chose turbineers Allis Chalmers (bad move), Westinghouse (so, so) and supercharger-ers GE (inspired). There was no basis in dynamics to presume that pistoneers would command this metallurgy quicker than marine/power compressorists – it’s about internal flow of hot gas, not external flow of cold air. In early-1943 Hives came from behind and the swap was done, tanks for gyres, good for Rover, while Fedden at MAP persuaded Ministers that turboprops could be done with spare Bristol resources. What then happened? RR/Bristol delayed assorted Pennines/Centaurus while learning to screw. It was Halford at empty little DH that got on with it – (to be) Meteor first flew on (H.1, to be) Goblin.
If A.M had been so myopic as to put ASM/Bristol/Napier/RR into bed with Whittle in 1938, we would have neither big piston nor W.1/H.1. Fresh resources were essential.
By: PMN1 - 16th October 2006 at 21:54
John Golley’s book ‘Whittle, the true story’ says there was a lot of friction between Power Jets people and Rover and Bill Gunstons books plus others say more or less the same thing.
Rolls had done over 400 hours testing in January 1943 compared to Rover’s 24 hours in December 1942, though I suppose Rolls did have the advantage of a working engine straight away.
By: springbok - 16th October 2006 at 08:14
Rover did a good job in making the Whittle jet ready for production.
RR should be greatlfull for their work. They no doubt helped the development of the jet engine in the UK.
By: Scouse - 15th October 2006 at 19:21
In effect they did. It’s well documented how Rover and Rolls-Royce agreed mid-war that the jet project would be better off under RR’s wing, and a swap of factories and projects (and some personnel) was done.
So maybe the answer is that development would have been a year or so faster. Hmmm…Meteors in service in 1943 – that’s an intruiging bit of ‘what if’ history.
William
Sign In
October 15, 2006 at 3:14 pm