I was taking to my Dad this morning about the Vulcan ... as you do... and he suddenly came over all nostalgic and told me that as a 17 year old he lived near RAF Cosford and he remembered seeing a Wellington Bomber do several passes over the aerodrome with a jet engine whining away where the tail gunner would normally be.
I was a bit sceptical .... but have Googled it and he's right - the animal did exist .... here are several very interesting quotes from various sources confirming that the one in the Wimpy went on into production as the Welland
Type 445 Wellington (I)
One Wellington was used to the Whittle W2B/23 turbojet engine, the engine was fitted in the tail of the aircraft.
By November 1940 Rover's work was considered of vital importance and from that point onwards there was no doubt that improvement and proving of the Whittle machine was of great national importance. The German Luftwaffe's attempt at obliterating Coventry's industrial area on the night of 14th/15th November had reinforced the decision to implement dispersal of production with manufacture being transferred to Clitheroe and Barnoldswick. Bankfield Shed at Barnoldswick had been a serious player in the textile industry, but had been closed in the gloomy days of the 1930's textile trade depression. Later Barnoldswick would become even more famous in Rolls Royce hands and today, modern Rolls Royce engines such as the RB2ll, carry the designation 'RB' for Rolls Royce Barnoldswick.
The first development engines were virtually unchanged from Whittle's 'W2' design, but used Rover's expertise for the accessory drives. There was serious trouble from surging and the failure of turbine blades, and the 'W2' proved to be seriously underpowered.
Rover was then asked to go ahead with development around Whittle's 'W2B' design which meant that they would undertake considerable mechanical design of their own. Misunderstandings and the difficult atmosphere between Whittle's firm 'Power Jets' and Rover deteriorated even further with Rover's development of the 'W2B'. Whittle himself became furious when the first Rover-built 'W2B's were running in the Lancashire factories in October 1941. This was due to the many design changes that Rover had made to his firm's original design layout for the 'W2B' Jet engine.
With the apparent success of the 'W2B', Rover were asked to plan for quantity production at Clitheroe and Barnoldswick, but Rover's engine designers had reached the conclusion that Whittle's WI' and W2' engines were aerodynamically inefficient because of the counter-flow arrangement of compressors, combustion canisters and turbines.
In August of 1942 one of the Whittle-type 'W2B's had been installed in the tail of a Wellington Bomber, and was test flown from the Rolls Royce flight test field at Hucknall, near Nottingham.
Even though Rolls Royce were fully committed to the manufacture of piston engines, they could not help but be intrigued by Rover's gas turbine jet developments, and decided to take a serious interest once the test flights of the 'Wellington Bomber' had proved a success. They quickly announced that as a matter of policy they would now like to become involved in gas turbine engine development. With their obvious commitment to successful aero engine development this new policy had to be taken seriously by the British Government.
A W.2B engine, plugged into the tail of a Vickers Wellington bomber, was test-flown that November, and after further improvements was test-flown in the second G.40 Gloster Whittle in March 1943. The W.2B was providing 1,600 lbf thrust by this time. Rolls-Royce worked with Whittle to finally get an uprated version of the W.2B engine in production asGloster E28 in Museum the "Welland I".
Gloster E28 screaming byThe Whittle WU, W.1, and W.2B were all "centrifugal-flow" engines, which used a turbine similar to a pump impeller to force air into a set of combustion chambers or "combustors" ringed around the engine. The flow of air went through the combustors from back to front, with such a "reverse flow" arrangement reducing the length of the engine. These engines had only the broadest resemblance to a modern military turbojet engine, but the same design concepts would not be out of place in a modern helicopter turboshaft engine.
Rolls-Royce Welland
The Welland was England's first production jet engine. It was designed by Frank Whittle's team at Power Jets, originally intended to be produced by Rover as the W.2B/23. Rover's continued delays in starting production, and Whittle's increasing anger over their failure, led to the project being moved to Rolls-Royce where Stanley Hooker joined the team from Rolls' supercharger division. The engine was renamed the Welland, and entered production in 1943 for use on the Gloster Meteor. It was beaten into the air only slightly by the Junkers Jumo 004. Unlike the 004, however, the Welland was a reliable and generally safe engine, due largely to England's better metallurgy and Rolls-Royce's considerable experience in the related field of superchargers.
The W.2 was basically a larger version of Whittle's original flying design, the Whittle Supercharger Type W.1, or simply W.1, which flew in 1941 in the Gloster E. 28/39 experimental testbed aircraft. The engines used a single double-sided centrifugal compressor, or impeller, with the compressed air being taken off at several ports around the extreme outer edge of the compressor disk. They both used Whittle's "reverse flow" design, in which the flame cans were placed around the turbine to produce a shorter engine. This required the heated air to flow forward before entering the turbine area, which consisted of a single turbine fan. For the W.2, the impeller was 19 inches (480 mm) in size, and powered by 10 flame cans. Air was bled from the compressor and fed into the inner portion of the turbine for cooling. The entire engine weighed about 850 pounds (390 kilograms).
The first examples produced by Rover had serious problems with "surging", in which the speed of the engine would suddenly increase out of control. Maurice Wilks eventually delivered a solution, by adding a set of 20-vane diffusers to the exhaust area. This solved the surging, but they now found that they had serious problems with the turbines failing, due to heat. J.P. Herriot of A.I.D. was sent to Rover to provide improved turbine materials, and soon the engine achieved a 25-hour test at 1,250 lbf (5.6 kN) in November 1942. Meanwhile, the prototype Gloster F.9/40, soon to be known as the Meteor, was ready for flight, although the engines were not. Taxi tests were started by test pilot Jerry Sayer on July 10, 1940 while the flight-quality engines waited. A real flight-test of the engine itself took place on August 9, 1942, attached to a Vickers Wellington bomber.
Whittle was constantly frustrated by Rover's inability to deliver production-quality parts, and became increasingly vocal about his complaints. (Whittle accused Rover of "tampering" with the design of the engine—about which Rover knew very little—in order to avoid patent fees and enable Rover to claim the design as their own. Unfortunately, Rover's numerous "improvements" to Whittle's design had the consistent effect of making the engine no-longer capable of running) Likewise, Rover was losing interest in the project after the delays and constant harassment from Whittle. Earlier, in 1940, Stanley Hooker of Rolls-Royce had met Whittle, and later introduced him to Rolls' CEO, Ernest Hives. Rolls had a fully developed supercharger division, which Hooker directed, which was naturally suited to jet engine work. Hives agreed to supply key parts to help the project along. Eventually, in early 1943, Spencer Wilkes of Rover met Hives and Hooker, and decided to trade the jet factory at Barnoldswick for Rolls' tank engine factory in Nottingham. A handshake sealed the deal, turning Rolls-Royce into the powerhouse it remains to this day.
Rover handed over a total of 32 W.2B/23 engines to Rolls-Royce as well as four "straight-through" W.2B/26 engines, developed by Adrian Lombard. Rolls named their engines, and the continuous flow of air through the jets inspired Hooker to name them after the flow of British rivers. The W.2B/23 became the Welland, and the W.2B/26 became the Derwent. Stanley Hooker took over the task of ironing out the remaining problems, and things soon improved. A flight-quality /23 was fitted to a Gloster G.40, an updated version of the E.28 that had flown the W.1, and was flown by on John Grierson March 1, 1943. Starting in April, the ratings had been improved to 1,526 lbf (6.79 kN) thrust, and passed a run at 1,600 lbf (7.1 kN) on May 7, 1943. The prototype F.9/40 was finally fitted with 1,700 lbf (7.6 kN) engines and was flown by Michael Daunt on July 24, 1943.
Two Wellands were installed in the first production Meteor Mk.1, EE210/G, (the "/G" signifying that the aircraft was to have an armed-guard at all times while on the ground) which was test flown by Daunt on January 12, 1944. This Meteor was then sent to the US in exchange for a General Electric J31 (Power Jets W.1) powered Bell XP-59A Airacomet, RG362/G. The Meteor was first flown at Muroc AFB by John Grierson on April 15. Several test flights followed, and by December it had been shipped back to the UK. Production of the Meteor continued, with EF211 to 229 and 230 through 244 entering service No. 616 Squadron RAF in May 1944. The Wellands were rated at 1,600 lbf (7.1 kN), with 180 hours between overhauls. The Jumo 004, entering service only a few weeks earlier, was rated for only 10 hours. Flying from RAF Manston, near the English Channel, the 616 first saw action against the V-1 flying bombs en-route to London on July 27, 1944.
From October 1943, a total of 167 Wellands, were dispatched from the Rolls-Royce facility at Barnoldswick. By this point, Lombard's straight-through design, the Derwent, had proved to be both more reliable and somewhat more powerful, and production of the Welland ended.
Interesting eh
