Rover This design was later to become the Derwent When Rover was selected for production of Whittle's designs in
1941 they set up their main jet factory at
Barnoldswick, staffed primarily by Power Jets personnel. Rover's
Maurice Wilks was also aware of the potential of a more efficient design that removed the Power Jets' "folded" layout with a straight-through airflow. It would also simplify production. This layout had already been used by Whittle in his drawings of the W2Y and W3X and was also being pursued by the
de Havilland Company with the
Halford H.1. Wilks set up a design office at Waterloo Mill,
Clitheroe with
Adrian Lombard leading the design of an engine with this configuration. The design was done in secret and was sanctioned by the
Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) but Whittle believed all effort should have been directed towards flight testing of the reverse-flow engine. While work at Barnoldswick continued on what was now known as the
W.2B/23, Lombard's new design became the
W.2B/26. .
Rolls-Royce By 1941 it was obvious to all that the arrangement was not working; Whittle was constantly frustrated by what he was seeing as Rover's inability to deliver production-quality parts for a test engine and became increasingly vocal about his complaints. Likewise, Rover was losing interest in the project after the delays and constant harassment from Power Jets in the critical testing process stage, where testing new designs and materials to breaking point is vital. Earlier, in
1940,
Stanley Hooker of
Rolls-Royce had met with Whittle and later introduced him to
Ernest Hives. Rolls-Royce had a fully developed
supercharger division, directed by Hooker, which was naturally suited to jet engine work. Hives agreed to supply key parts to help the project along. Eventually, by mutual agreement between the Minister of Aircraft Production and the boards of Rover and Rolls-Royce, the Rover jet factory at
Barnoldswick was exchanged for the Rolls-Royce
Meteor tank engine factory in Nottingham. Lombard was retained as supervising engineer and went on to become the chief engineer of the Aero Engine Division of Rolls-Royce. Subsequent Rolls-Royce jet engines would be designated in an "RB" series, the /26 Derwent becoming the RB.26. Problems were soon ironed out, and the original /23 design was ready for flight by late 1943. This gave the team some breathing room, so they redesigned the /26's inlets for increased airflow and thrust. Adding improved fuel and oil systems, the newly named
Derwent Mk.I entered production with 2,000 lbf (8.9 kN) of thrust. Mk.II, III and IV's followed, peaking at 2,400 lbf (10.7 kN) of thrust. The Derwent was the primary engine of all the early Meteors except a small number of Welland-equipped models which were quickly removed from service. The Mk.II was also modified with a cropped impeller (turbine unchanged) and a reduction gearbox driving a five-bladed propeller. It was called the
Rolls-Royce RB.50 Trent and was the first
turboprop to fly. Two were installed in a Meteor I.
Mk.V The basic Derwent concept was also used to produce a redesigned and larger 5,000 lbf (22.2 kN) thrust engine known as the
Rolls-Royce Nene. The Nene was such an advance over the Derwent that Derwent development effectively ended. The Nene was, however, larger in diameter and so could not fit into the nacelles of the Meteor. The next Derwent version, the
Derwent Mk.V, was instead produced by scaling down the new Nene to the diameter of the previous Derwent, specifically for use on the Meteor. Several Derwents and Nenes were sold to the
Soviet Union by the then
Labour government, causing a major political row, as the Nene was the most powerful production turbojet in the world at the time. The Soviets promptly
reverse engineered the Derwent V and produced their own unlicensed version, the
Klimov RD-500. The Nene was reverse-engineered to form the propulsion unit for the famous
MiG-15 jet fighter. The Derwent Mk.V was also used on the Canadian
Avro Jetliner, but this was not put into production. On 7 November 1945, a
Meteor powered by the Derwent V set a world
air speed record of 606 mph (975 km/h)
true airspeed. ==Applications==