FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0755.PDF
FLIGHT, 3 June 1955 753 :>;<• •'•i'-z. A Blackburn-Turbomeca Turmo 600 undergoing endurance testing. The output gearbox is partially hidden by the sloping exhaust duct, and the dynamometer brake is off to the right (see drawing on p. 756). BLACKBURN-TURBOMECA An Outstanding Range of Small Gas Turbines A FTER World War 2, Blackburn and General Aircraft, /% Ltd., decided that their ultimate aim must be to enter the field of gas turbine manufacture. Previously the company had established a world-wide reputation for small piston engines, having in 1934 taken over the business of Cirrus Engines, Ltd., the first unit of whose family had run in 1925. Owing to Blackburn concentration upon small piston enginesit was natural to turn to the consideration of small gas turbines. By about 1950 the designs of M. Szydlowski, president of theSociete Turbomeca, of Bordes, France, were attracting consider- able attention, and it was quite evident that they were morefully developed than any other engines of their class anywhere in die world. The British company eventually decided to pur-chase a licence for the development, manufacture and sale of all units of the Turbomeca range; the years of toil and troublewhich must precede the introduction of any wholly new gas turbine were thus largely circumnavigated and, at a guess, Black-burns may have saved at least three years by adopting an existing product. The initial liaison with the Turbomeca company was theresponsibility of G/C. H. J. ("Willie") Wilson, C.B.E., A.F.C., manager of the engine division, who joined the Yorkshire com-pany as sales manager (engines). By September, 1952, a Palouste air-compressor engine had been shipped to the Blackburn worksat Brough, East Yorks, and the actual licence was signed the following month. The Palouste was running, in a former piston-engine cell, in November, 1952. The acceptance of a basic French design was, however, onlythe beginning of the British company's work. The original Turbo- meca gas turbines comprised units intended to produce propulsivethrust, shaft-power or compressed air. All the earliest French engines were turbojets, and these—alone of the range—werealmost "bread-and-butter" articles by the time Blackburn bought their licence. But any need for small turbojets in Britain alreadypromised to be met adequately by axial engines such as the Arm- strong Siddeley Viper and Rolls-Royce Soar; for this reason, andon other grounds, it appeared to Blackburns that the overall future for Turbomeca turbojets was likely to be less extensivethan that for shaft-drive engines and air compressors. This implied a considerable amount of work before productioncould start, and the company accordingly decided to establish a first-class design staff capable of extracting the utmost from theobviously sound basic French conception. As chief designer (engines) Mr. F. R. Bell was secured; he had previously been incharge of research on the Rover gas-turbine car, and before that had specialized on axial compressors with Rolls-Royce. Hisassistant is Mr. W. B. Mathison; in charge of the development of Blackburn-Turbomeca gas turbines, he was formerly a CirrusEngine Division man and a product of the company's apprentice- ship scheme. These two engineers formed the core of the teamwhich is now at full pressure on gas-turbine development. By mid-1953 Blackburns were able to start a comprehensiveprogramme of redesign, not only to "Anglicize" the engines but to effect a number of significant improvements. Initially, ofcourse, everything had to be converted to British dimensions, standards, tolerances and fits. Material specifications had to beselected, drawings prepared, Unified threads adopted and a com- prehensive range of material suppliers and sub-contractors estab-lished. At the same time, detail redesign was undertaken along two main lines. First, the Blackburn engines had to meet Ministry (Left) A Palouste stripped on the bench. In the foreground are a combustion chamber casing and air-bleed yolute; on the right-hand side of the bench are the diffuser and combustion chamber liner, and the engineers are examining the rotating assembly and intake casting. (Right) A Blackburn-Turbomeca Palouste 500 on test at Brough. The intake is on the left, the exhaust on the right and the air-bleed pipe leaves from the centre.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
