I was reading an article yesterday by the late Air Commodore Stan Quill, who was a top RNZAF fighter pilot, written in 1984. He mentioned some British engine names of the 1920’s and 1930’s and that they didn’t think they named engines any more like they used to. I have to agree with him, the names of the engines were so inspiring, sounding like the stuff that Boys Own stories were made of, and full of an air of daring do. here are some he mentioned…
The Eagle
The Goshawk
The Merlin
The Falcon
The Napier Lion
The Bristol Taurus
I wonder if the engine department boffins and Johnnies read a lot of those ppiffing boy’s comics in their lunchbreak. The names are so evocative of that great period too. I’ll add a few more
The Kestrel
The Sabre
The Centaurus
The Gipsy Queen
They are names you’d call a boat after, are they not? Can anyone think of other great British engine names?
By: Eric Mc - 1st March 2005 at 11:19
Rolls Royce started calling their aircraft engines after birds of prey with the World War One “Eagle”. We then had the more famous ones – Merlin, Kestrel, Griffon and the not so famous Goshawk, Exe, Peregrine and Vulture. They decided to call their jet engines after British rivers (Derwent, Tay, Trent, Dart, Nene, Tyne, Avon, Conway etc) Then they gave up on the river names and went down the boring “numbers” route – RB162, RB211 etc. More recently, the rivers have been resurrected although rather than find any new river names to use they have decided to recycle some of the old ones (Tay and Trent). Why have they never called an engine after the Thames or Severn I wonder?
Bristol engines were named from characters and places in Greek and Roman Mythology – Perseus (Greek), Taurus (Roman), Olympus (Greek), Centaurus (Roman), Pegasus (Greek) etc.
De Havilland seemed to call all their engines “Gypsy” – which was slightly coinfusing.
Napier were totally random, – Dagger, Sabre, Nomad, Elland.
Armstrong Siddeley named their engines after big cats – Jaguar, Cheetah,
By: dhfan - 1st March 2005 at 10:55
British jet enginess were named after UK rivers; thought I’ve yet to finjd an aircraft powered by the Orwell or the Thames (or Isis for the Oxfordian pedants). 😉
Only Rolls-Royce ones. 🙂
Armstrong-Siddeley (ex Metro-Vick) were precious stones, Sapphire, Beryl etc and Bristol (pistons too) were mythological, Olympus, Orpheous, Pegasus etc. Not having had a classical education I don’t know whether that was Greek or Roman, or even both.
Armstrong-Siddeley piston engines were named after big cats, Jaguar, Puma, Lynx…
By: JDK - 1st March 2005 at 04:01
RB-211?
Think you’ve got a good point there Dave.
The nadir of naming in aviation was the BAe FLA – for ‘Future Large Aircraft’. With such a lukewarm parenting no-wonder it failed, but if it had suceeded, what would they have called it? CLA for Current Large Aircraft? Or once it was obsolite would there have been a handbook amendment that the owners had to request parts for the ONQABOLOA – Obsolete and Not Quite As Big as Our Latest One Aircraft?
British jet enginess were named after UK rivers; thought I’ve yet to finjd an aircraft powered by the Orwell or the Thames (or Isis for the Oxfordian pedants). 😉
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March 1, 2005 at 3:22 am