Bristol Orion versus Rolls Royce Tyne?

Sorry to dig this thread up but I found this excellent picture today and thought that it was worthy of a post, i just hope the link works!

http://www.transportarchive.org.uk/getobject.php?rnum=G1984&searchitem=&mtv=G1&pnum=32

In addition does anybody have any details on the planned Bristol Britannia Series 4?

Thank you in advance sealordlawrence.

OK that link works and so does the UBB code to actually display the image let’s try putting the image’s URL (as found on the web page whose own URL you kindly provided) in between the simplified tags

BINGO

Sorry to dig this thread up but I found this excellent picture today and thought that it was worthy of a post, i just hope the link works!

http://www.transportarchive.org.uk/getobject.php?rnum=G1984&searchitem=&mtv=G1&pnum=32

In addition does anybody have any details on the planned Bristol Britannia Series 4?

Thank you in advance sealordlawrence.

Hi Scouse, You are of course correct, the CL-44 was Tyne powered, my brain must have been in neutral!

Were the Orion and Tyne ‘clean sheet’ designs or did they owe something to previous turboprops (Proteus/Orion and Clyde/Tyne)?

Keithmac, although the CL44 was supposed to be Orion-engined , when Bristol pulled the plug on the Orion Canadair switched to the Tyne, not the Poteus.

PMN1, remember the Tyne was a decade or so later than the Clyde. Bill Gunston’s Rolls-Royce book reckons the Clyde had the makings of an excellent engine, but applications were limited in the late 1940s at a time when the early Avons were soaking up a lot of engineering effort.

How did the Tyne compare to the Clyde?

Britannia XM497 “Schedar” of RAF Transport Command, photographed at Embakasi (Nairobi) during the Zambia Oil Lift in 1965.

I forgot to mention there is a very good book on the Britannia – its called “The Whispering Giant in Uniform” by David Berry. ISBN 0952771500. It was published in 1975, so it may be difficult to get your hands on in bookshops, but your local library may have a copy – mine has!

Cheers for your input, I will have to have a hunt!

I forgot to mention there is a very good book on the Britannia – its called “The Whispering Giant in Uniform” by David Berry. ISBN 0952771500. It was published in 1975, so it may be difficult to get your hands on in bookshops, but your local library may have a copy – mine has!

Canadair produced a piston engined maritime recce aircraft based on the Brit, it was the CL-28 Argus. 33 were built for the RCAF. They also built the CL-44 which would have had Orion engines, but as development was cancelled they were Proteus powered. 12 were built to equip 437 Sqn RCAF and named Yukon. They were followed by 28 CL-44D with a swing tail They were initially operated by Seaboard World, Flying Tiger and Slick Airways. There were 2 unbuilt Bristol projects, the Type 189, a maritime recce aircraft for RAF Coastal Command to replace the Shackleton, dropped in favour of the Nimrod and a cargo aircraft, the type 195, which would have been called “Britannic” which eventually ended up as the Belfast.

The Brit was a really nice aeroplane. I flew from Lyneham to Singapore in RAF Brits a number of times, they were quiet, comfortable aircraft and had very good reliability once the engine icing problems were overcome. RAF Brits had the seats facing backwards, which was standard RAF procedure in those days. I also flew Nairobi – Gatwick – Nairobi over Christmas 1965 in a Transglobe Brit, also a very good trip.

I’m working on cleaning up some Britannia Pics at the moment, when I’ve got them done I’ll post them on this thread.

Great photo thanks for posting!

Were there any plans for enlarged or extra ranged versions of the Britannia? It really is a gorgeous aircraft!

Thanks in advance sealordlawrence.

I’ve just dug out this picture of G-ALBO with the Orion in the Port outer position. I took it at St Athan in 1963 when the aircraft was used as a training aid on the Airfield Training phase a 4 school of Tech Training.

SLL: RR meddling (in pretty much everything, the SR.177 and P.1154

SR.177 would have been managed by (DH)Airspeed to follow their DH.110 at Christchurch, flown at Hurn. DH bought 33% of Saro in September,1956 to protect their Gyron Jr/Spectre prospect and to overcome the incredibility of the Cowes shed as a Weapon System source. Loss to Sandys pushed them to bid to Luftwaffe and Japan. By then Gy.Jr. had no other berth than Bucc 1, so it made sense to put in an RR scheme (RB.133, which went nowhere). D.Wood, Project Cancelled is vexatious to call this “a ploy”.

He also has RR on P.1154 swinging “into action to try and get BS.100 out”. Well, natch: they faced extinction as Lightning/Avon 200 ran out. RAF thought one fat engine with PCB would do; RN wanted 2 overwater, so: deflected Twin Spey. It was RN, not RR, that sold (Tory) Ministers on F-4K/Spey and thus let BS.100 onto P.1154(RAF).

RR, sad loser in 1963, “meddled” no more than HS.Group, BSEL, Ferranti…any, all of them. Except 1967-71, when, through buying BSEL, they owned 20% of BAC. Govts’ denial of Launch Aid to BAC 211, then 311, was influenced by RR, who knew they could not do L1011, A300 and a BAC concurrently. In that sense it is right to say RR “worshipped at the US shrine”.

MoS funding for both was 1950 for (R.2/48) R.112D MR, won by Saro P.162 flying boat, which drifted in vague scheming into 1955. Tyne was taken up by RR-devotee GR.Edwards for Viscount Major. (Vanguard) was, uniquely in UK, wholly risk-financed, but RR extracted 50% MoS Launch Aid, making them credible to be baseline in the NBMR competitions that became C.160 and Atlantique.

Bristol, too, extracted 50% MoS Launch Aid to aid negotiations to licence Britannia 400(Orion) into Convair for TWA. keithmac’s sanguine view of Proteus was not then shared by TW’s owner Howard Hughes, or anybody else. When that prospect was finally seen as barren, MoS staunched our spend in January,1958 (writing off £4.75Mn) and Bristol quit theirs. Convair subsidiary Canadair then took Tyne for their Super-Britannia CL-44. No point in speculating: the White family did not believe their product would sell against Tyne.

My previous answer is the “official” published reason. Of course there were those at Bristol who were convinced that the Orion was a better engine than the Tyne and that stings were pulled by Rolls Royce who wanted the Tyne to go into production – which of course it did!

You can choose which version of the “truth” you wish to believe!

Speculating about which was the better engine will of course be just that.

Once the problems with the Proteus icing were sorted it was a good reliable engine, and Big turboprop aircraft like the Britannia were rapidly becoming obsolete as the Turbofan filled the flight range that the bigger turboprops would have filled.

Well the rumors about RR meddling (in pretty much everything, the SR.177 and P.1154 both come to mind instantaneously) are fairly prevalent and it is the only surviving aero-engine company in the UK.;) Either way I would be interested to hear any speculation on how good the Orion could have been?:confused:

My previous answer is the “official” published reason. Of course there were those at Bristol who were convinced that the Orion was a better engine than the Tyne and that stings were pulled by Rolls Royce who wanted the Tyne to go into production – which of course it did!

You can choose which version of the “truth” you wish to believe!

Speculating about which was the better engine will of course be just that.

Once the problems with the Proteus icing were sorted it was a good reliable engine, and Big turboprop aircraft like the Britannia were rapidly becoming obsolete as the Turbofan filled the flight range that the bigger turboprops would have filled.

Thank you very much Keith.;)

The Orion was a straight through flow engine with a free power turbine,(that is the Turbine which drives the prop is not mechanically connected to the gas generating part of the engine). It was being developed because the Proteus engines in the Britannia were insufficiently powerful to get the best from the aircraft, not to mention the fact that they had an icing problem caused by the reverse flow layout. Both the RAF and BOAC were operating the Brit with the Proteus. The Ministry of Supply decided to order the RAF second batch of Britannia’s with the Proteus, and BOAC decided that they did not want to continue alone and requested to be removed from their obligations to support development funding. So basically with all funding removed from the project in 1958, it was cancelled. The Tyne which was also being developed (and funded by the MoS) at the same time benefitted from the decision and development work continued on it with successful results.

There was originally funding for 6 prototypes for bench and flight testing, the first bench run was on 10 Dec 1955, and the first flight test was on 31 August 1956 in the port outer position on G-ALBO.

I last saw the Orion in that location in G-ALBO at St Athan in December 1963. G-ALBO was broken up at St Athan sometime later, what happened to the engine I don’t know.

Just a quick addition, whilst attempting further research on these two engines I have come across a reference that the Tyne was the preferred choice for the APT-E (Advanced Passenger Train- Experimental) however it was either not available or to expensive so 4 Leyland truck gas turbines were used instead.:eek: