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Charles S Rolls was the co-founder of the Rolls-Royce company. In 1910, Rolls made the world's first there-and-back flight across the Channel, without landing, a monumental feat in its day. He took off from Swingate near the Duke of Yorks school, and just over an hour later he landed back in Dover after circling French soil by air. He was given a hero's welcome when he landed, as he had become a true aviation pioneer.
Charles Rolls
Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce is a set of several companies, all deriving from the automobile and aero-engine company founded by Henry Royce and Charles S. Rolls in 1906. Rolls Royce plc, by far the most significant in economic terms, is a British engineering firm these days specializing in turbine-based products, particularly aero engines, but providing a wide range of civil and military engineering products and services. Official site: http://www.rolls-royce.com/
Their most famous engine is the Merlin. This motor was essential to Britain`s war effort, it not only powered the Spitfire, but also the Hurricane, Lancaster and Mosquito. The Spitfires in the Battle of Britain were fitted with the Merlin III of 1,030 horsepower.
Designed by Rolls-Royce as a private-venture, the Merlin was able to take advantage of the new 100 octane fuel developed in the U.S.A. The Merlin only had one disadvantage when compared with German engines, the latter were fitted with fuel injection to deliver a precise charge of petrol to the combustion chamber. The Merlin still used a carburettor, which had the advantage of being much simpler and needing much fewer components, but it did cause the Merlin to "conk-out" if negative G forces were applied.
Thus a German pilot with a Spitfire on his tail could simply pull negative G nosing into a dive and the Spitfire would fall behind until the engine picked up, only a matter of a second or two, but that second was all the German needed. Spitfire pilots developed a way around this by doing a half-roll before following into a dive. This meant that the force of gravity acted in the opposite direction and the Merlin was unaffected. In 1941 a carburettor modification, developed by Miss Tilly Shilling, enabled the Merlin to carry on working with short periods of negative G, a vital stop-gap until the introduction of true negative G carburettors in 1943.
Rolls Royce Merlin Engine
One thing that is often forgotten is that the capacity of the Merlin was quite small when compared to the opposition. The Merlin had a capacity of 27 litres, whereas the DB601 of the Messerschmitt was 39 litres and the BMW801 engine of the Focke-Wulf 190 had 42 litres. The superiority of the later Merlin engined Spitfires (ie Mk IX) over these Luftwaffe aircraft is all the more remarkable when this is remembered.
ROLLS-ROYCE MERLIN ENGINE. TYPE- TWELVE CYLINDER 60 DEGREE UPRIGHT VEE LIQUID COOLED INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE. BORE x STROKE= 5.4in x 6in (137.3mm x 152.5mm) CAPACITY= 1,647 cu in (27 litres) MERLIN III TAKE OFF POWER: 880 HP AT 3,000 REVS INTERNATIONAL RATING: 990 HP AT 2,600 REVS AT 12,250 FT. MAX POWER: 1,440 HP AT 3,000 REVS AT 5,500 FT. WEIGHT: 1,375 LBS. MERLIN 66 TAKE OFF POWER: 1,315 HP AT 3,000 REVS MAX POWER: OVER 1,650 HP. WEIGHT: 1,650 LBS
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