Rolls Royce Merlin 140

No worries Pete. The props are RA10274 which i think are unique to the Sturgeon. I do incidentally have two complete props blades – front airscrew but minus their ruberloid coating. They were found in a house in Malta in the seventies by an RAF techie, and having taken a fancy to them had them flown home stowed on a Vulcan. He did also mention a third damaged blade that didn’t make the trip back but I don’t think there was any sign of the contra prop assembly. But you never know!

Rob

Hi Rob. Is 3 years an acceptable wait for an answer?!
I have done some research, and the 140 is actually closer to the 600 and 700 series civilian engines, but with a universal crankcase (the type with the Coffman starter / cabin blower drive), making the crankcase unique to that engine. Whether you would modify a Merlin 114 crankcase or a 600/700 would come down to availability and which required the least welding to do the mod. It would be quite possible to modify an engine to run with contra-props. They are Rotol, but I don’t know which type. Perhaps similar to the Gannet?
There are other features specific to the 140, one of which is the rocker covers.

Pete

Thanks Pete. I think i’m right in thinking that the 140 was only used in the Sturgeon!? The vast majority of the 28 Sturgeons built were scrapped at Lossiemouth and Hal Far, and with no major crash sites on land or at sea i thought it probably a long shot that any RR 140’s had survived.

Interesting what you say about midifying a 130 though. Do the two types have similar dimensions, apart from obviously the contra-prop reduction gearbox?

Quick question, are there any still around in preservation?

I’ve never come across one, and as far as I’m aware Rolls-Royce don’t have a front end for one either, but it would be fairly straightforward to make one if it wasn’t going to fly. I assume it is a 6/4 shaft, so you could use a set of modified Griffon 58 shafts. There are a few 130 series engines about to use as the basis.

Pete