Oddball engines and prototypes

[J.A.W.]

This period 'Flight' article features R-R's monstrous 'Chinese copy' of the Napier Sabre H-24..

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchi...0-%200626.html


It flew - a few times - but not for long.. R-R seemed to overlook some of the subtle ( but needful) sophistications designed into the Sabre..

[WilDun]

This period 'Flight' article features R-R's monstrous 'Chinese copy' of the Napier Sabre H-24..
It flew - a few times - but not for long.. R-R seemed to overlook some of the subtle ( but needful) sophistications designed into the Sabre..

The Eagle although it had an 'H' configuration was much like the Bristol sleeve valve radials which was also four stroke.
Bristol also manufactured the sleeves for Napier's Sabre as they had got the manufacture of them down to a fine art!
The RR Cre'cy V12 was actually an innovative sleeve valve two stroke! - all these engines were very successful but manufacturing the Merlins which were desperately needed and actually up and running, took priority.

I've been told that the mechanics didn't take kindly working on any of the engines like Sabres, after being used to working on Merlins etc.

[J.A.W.]

Bristol were forced to help Napier with the sleeves,
& coincidentally (perhaps) the Sabre sleeve was a close size match for one of the Bristol mill sleeves..


The Eagle & Sabre were inline engines, & apart from being 4Ts-using sleeve valves, were nothing like the Bristol radials.

Service mechanics were required to do their jobs competently, so not 'taking kindly' might get you arrested - for sabotage..
& I've heard that those working on Sabres were proud to be working on such a fabulous mill & would lord it over the
blokes fettling the archaic & piddly Merlins..

Too many Merlins were made, for too long, & too few Sabres.. sure, Mosquitos & Mustangs made good use of Merlins,
but untold airframes of dubious war fighting value soaked up plenty too, & Bomber Command were exporting hundreds of Merlins
to Germany every month, (along with bombs & unfortunate airmen)..

Crecy was interesting, but R-R never seemed to be able to get its innovative mills working well,
& did best by methodical development of their older conventional V12s, rather than their X-types & sleeve-valves.

Of course R-R got Frank Whittle's turbine, & that was that - for big Brit recip's, even the highly efficient Napier Nomad 2T C.I.-compound mill..

[WilDun]

The Eagle & Sabre were inline engines, & apart from being 4Ts-using sleeve valves, were nothing like the Bristol radials.
Of course R-R got Frank Whittle's turbine, & that was that

That's all I was trying to say, ie they were four stroke sleeve valve engines.
Need to go back and check! The eagle was an H24 and the Sabre was an H24.

Whittles jet engine was given to the USA to help pay off Britain's "lend lease" debt to America - unfortunately, America invested it in Japan and Germany - who won?

[J.A.W.]

Not the poor bloody Poms anyhow..

Churchill freely gaveaway their best stuff.. gas turbines, radar, sonar, metallurgy & etc, to both Stalin & Roosevelt..
..those bastards got their war aims done.. Britain just got done..

A pity, since - for all their 'nuts 'n' bolts' insanity, Poms did come up with a lot of good stuff, that worked, given 1/2 a chance..

[WilDun]

Not the poor bloody Poms anyhow..

Churchill freely gaveaway their best stuff.. gas turbines, radar, sonar, metallurgy & etc, to both Stalin & Roosevelt..
..those bastards got their war aims done.. Britain just got done..

A pity, since - for all their 'nuts 'n' bolts' insanity, Poms did come up with a lot of good stuff, that worked, given 1/2 a chance..

No, me old Ocker mate, - Not Churchill!, it was given away by the following Labour government, who saw selling the family jewels as an easy way out of their post war financial woes. If only you could ask Frank Whittle himself, he was quite (read 'very') pissed off about it in a TV interview I saw many years ago!
The Poms led the world in the industrial revolution and up till the last big war, then had it all taken away, but in saying that, they did fleece a lot of other poor people in the world in order to get there in the first place!

[J.A.W.]

Was Churchill.. the "1/2 American, Jew-raddled drunkard" - as uncle Adolf described him.. see "Tizard Mission"

Ol' Winnie sent the Brit's future across the Atlantic to obtain loans - once he'd squandered all their liquid assets..

& hey, rich capitalist money-men have never given a damn about the poor bloody worker.. not that Stalin did either..


Mind you, BSA got 'Hitler's revenge' in the form of the Bantam, from DKW..

[husaberg]

Was Churchill.. the "1/2 American, Jew-raddled drunkard" - as uncle Adolf described him.. see "Tizard Mission"

Ol' Winnie sent the Brit's future across the Atlantic to obtain loans - once he'd squandered all their liquid assets..

& hey, rich capitalist money-men have never given a damn about the poor bloody worker.. not that Stalin did either..


Mind you, BSA got 'Hitler's revenge' in the form of the Bantam, from DKW..

Sidenote the Whittle Jet used Nimonic 80 in its internals. The steel was developed especially for it.
This same steel was What BSA used in the Goldstar Exhaust valves.
Later used by everyone.

Most of the currently developed alloys still used are Rolls Royce inspired.

The range of alloys were produced in the R.R.50 range.These could be worked by casting or forging, but they were not intended for rolling as sheet or general machining from bar stock.

R.R. 50 General-purpose sand casting alloy
R.R. 53 Die-cast piston alloy Additional silicon content, to improve flow when machine casting
R.R. 56 General-purpose forging alloy
R.R. 58 Low-creep forging alloy for rotating impellers and compressors[18]
R.R. 59 Forged piston alloy

The number of alloys expanded to support a range of applications and processing techniques. At the Paris Airshow of 1953, High Duty Alloys showed no less than eight different Hiduminium R.R. alloys: 20, 50, 56, 58, 66, 77, 80, 90.[19] Also shown were gas turbine compressor and turbine blades in Hiduminium, and a range of their products in the Magnuminium alloy series.

R.R.58, also Aluminium 2618, comprising 2.5 copper, 1.5 magnesium, 1.0 iron, 1.2 nickel, 0.2 silicon, 0.1 titanium and the remainder aluminium, and originally intended for jet engine compressor blades, was used as the main structural material for the Concorde airframe, supplied by High Duty Alloys, it was also known as AU2GN to the French side of the project

Later alloys, such as R.R.66, were used for sheet, where high strength was needed in an alloy capable of being worked by deep drawing. This became increasingly important with the faster jet aircraft post-war, as issues such as transonic compressibility became important. It was now necessary for an aircraft's covering material to be strong, not merely the spar or framing beneath.

R.R.350, a sand-castable high temperature alloy, was used in the General Electric YJ93 jet engine and was also used in the General Electric GE4 intended for the later cancelled American Boeing 2707 SST project

[J.A.W.]

'Stellite' too, a trick alloy steel, as used in hard-duty cam-followers, ( & originally developed - for dentures!).

[WilDun]

Hey, hey, just watch what you say about the Bantam, it was the first 'fast' bike I ever had! - I managed to convert it from PO bike trim (probably 45 mph to almost 80mph - not bad for an amateur in those days!

Should've been the Japs and Germans trying to obtain loans ............... anyway are you still saying the Sabre and Eagle were inline engines? maybe you were getting mixed up between them and the Gypsy Major in the Tiger Moth?

[pete376403]

I love this thread because it touches on so many different things - now its on to various alloys developed in Britain. OK here's one for you. Anyone ever heard of a metal known as "Colmonoy"?
Its a low temperature hard facing metal. Can be put onto steel at a low-ish temperature like solder. I first heard about it many years ago when riding speedway, this stuff was used to put hard facing onto the steel shoe worn on the left boot. It was very "slippery" on dirt. Even though it was made for a far higher purpose http://www.wallcolmonoy.com/nickel-based-alloys/

[J.A.W.]

@ W-D.. inlines.. yeah, of course they are.. as H24s - they both have a pair of crankshafts that would be familiar to anyone who's seen a CBX/6 apart..

Radials have a massive 'master-rod' with slaves pivoting from it..& they all whirl about the same big-end - like a bloody merry-go-round..

[husaberg]

I never knew that RR did a doubled up Kestral V12
Rolls-Royce Vulture W24 42.5 liters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Vulture

[J.A.W.]

Yeah, they tried quite a few X-types.. Vulture was an X..( all 4 banks hangin' off the same crank) but they didn't work out..

Yet the Napier Lion, a W - actually 'broad arrow' shape, (3 x 120`banks) worked well, must've been a harmonics/inertia thing..

[husaberg]

Yeah, they tried quite a few X-types.. Vulture was an X..( all 4 banks hangin' off the same crank) but they didn't work out..

Yet the Napier Lion, a W - actually 'broad arrow' shape, (3 x 120`banks) worked well, must've been a harmonics/inertia thing..

According to RR the Vulture was a success, it was just not needed.
To save development time it was decided to use 4 merlins in the Lancaster and the Sleeve Valve Bristol Napier sleeve valve was chosen for the English Typhoon.