Inside the Rolls Royce factory...

LVSteve

LVSteve

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... but not where they make cars. This is the aircraft engine plant and RR were showing off their latest Trent engine. Check out some of the amazing numbers the host quotes. Less than 1mm clearance between the fan blades and the casing and a 50:1 pressure ratio in the core. I need to check that second number as it seems awfully high to me.

What really caught my eye is that the turbine exhaust is not so much a tube as an annular ring. Fascinating stuff.

BBC News - Airbus A350 Rolls Royce XWB engine: Close up look
 
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Some of those close tolerances scare me, the general lack of caring in manufacturing these days would make me worry. They can't make everything and some of the parts are likely coming from the lowest bidder. Glad I don't fly much these days, I would like to see a few thousand hours on them before I buy a ticket.
 
I havent read your path yet. I worked as a lockheed guard 1965 to 2,000. Traditionaly lockheed only built military AC for this country or others since the 1930s. They decided to try a commercial attempt with the L 10-11 airliner in the early 1970s. It used rolls royce engines. Rolls soon went bankrupt or hand england I guess save them. We couldnt get the engines and also almost went bankrupt. Lockheed finaly got a goverment backed loan and pulled through dispite wisconsin senator proxmyere fighting the goverment and lockheed every step of the way. The goverment didnt have to lay out a dime and lockheed paid them hugely for the backing. I knew a test pilot and a friend that got rich on buying lockheed stock at the very bottom for a few bucks back then. I dont know how many times its split since then but I think several times. I have a story about the rep we had for rolls royce in those days. He flew mosquittos durring the war. I had a GF that was a war orphan. Her father had got killed flying a spit. Her mother got killed in a bomb that fell short at the victors plant at newcastle. I told the story to the rep and he almost started to bawl. Turned out he was part of the incident. He said one bomber got through them and that was the one that the bomb fell short of the victors plant and hit a residential area that her mother got killed in! Small world! A few years after talking to him about it I was present when she died on me. She had no family other than me and died of lung cancer. She begged me to get her out of the hospital to come home by me and died a few days later. Just remembering.
 
Amazing

Wow, super technology. I fear, however that even in a minor mishap, those close tolerances and very high heat will end up spitting molten metal out of the back of the engine. Rolls Royce is up to the task and will prove that I'm being 'alarmist'.:)
 
That is some story

feralmerril said:
I havent read your path yet. I worked as a lockheed guard 1965 to 2,000. Traditionaly lockheed only built military AC for this country or others since the 1930s. They decided to try a commercial attempt with the L 10-11 airliner in the early 1970s. It used rolls royce engines. Rolls soon went bankrupt or hand england I guess save them. We couldnt get the engines and also almost went bankrupt. Lockheed finaly got a goverment backed loan and pulled through dispite wisconsin senator proxmyere fighting the goverment and lockheed every step of the way. The goverment didnt have to lay out a dime and lockheed paid them hugely for the backing. I knew a test pilot and a friend that got rich on buying lockheed stock at the very bottom for a few bucks back then. I dont know how many times its split since then but I think several times. I have a story about the rep we had for rolls royce in those days. He flew mosquittos durring the war. I had a GF that was a war orphan. Her father had got killed flying a spit. Her mother got killed in a bomb that fell short at the victors plant at newcastle. I told the story to the rep and he almost started to bawl. Turned out he was part of the incident. He said one bomber got through them and that was the one that the bomb fell short of the victors plant and hit a residential area that her mother got killed in! Small world! A few years after talking to him about it I was present when she died on me. She had no family other than me and died of lung cancer. She begged me to get her out of the hospital to come home by me and died a few days later. Just remembering.
Click to expand...

It's incredible how small the world is, especially when people are thrown together as a result of war, and how tragic it can as well. Thank heaven for the good stuff that makes it all worthwhile.
 
The thing that ticks me off about Rolls is their givng or selling their Nene engine to the Soviets, who were having trouble developing a good engine for the then-new MiG-15. With the British engine (which they copied, of course), the MiG becme a formidable foe. I understand that a Commie rep talked a man at Rolls into a biliard game, the idea being that if the Brit lost, he had to sell the Russians the engine! This just boggles the mind. I'm pretty sure they had been drinking, but still...:rolleyes:

As for Merrill's story about the bomb that fell short of what I think he means to be the Vickers plant, I mourn for what happened. Probably even the German crew felt bad about such things, although Allied bombers also killed many German civilians.

But his mention of this again reminds me of a story by Robt. C. Ruark that appeared in, "Playboy" not too long before his death in 1965. It was called, "Sheila", if memory serves. It was about an American Navy or Merchant Marine officer who was seeing a girl named Sheila in London. He went to see her one day while he was in England and there was just a bomb crater where her apartment had been.

This would have been in the early to mid-1960's. I was just old enough to buy the magazine, which fits with that dating.

Did any of you read that story? Gad, I miss Ruark. We lost Ian Fleming in 1964 and Ruark the next year, and two of my favorite authors were gone. Yes, I began reading novels at a young age.)

Anyway, accounts like Merrill's make me wonder if Ruark had in fact lost anyone dear to him from just such a bombing. I know he was escorting ships across the Atlantic in those days (1940-42) , taking supplies to war-ravaged England. One of his articles about that left a very sobering impression of just what those convoys faced: the U-boats and the weather were both pretty rough antagonists.
 
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The Company I work for is making Gears for the Trent and other Rolls Royce engines. We supply both Rolls Royce Plc in Derby England and Rolls Royce Corp in Indianapolis, Indiana (The older Allison Aircraft Engine) We also supply Pratt Whitney and Hamilton Sundstrand as well as Robertson Helicopter, Enstrom, Sikorsky and others.

And yes, we hold very close tolerances.

It is a Global economy.
 
The ladys name was martine. We shared the same day brithday but she was a number of years older than me. She was a very petite, sharp woman. She was a divoricee. I was going through a extreamly bad, bitter divorice. At the time I had 7 year old daughter and I was fighting to get custody. Since I was assigned graveyard and working every drop of ot to pay supports etc I was litteraly working about 70 hours a week. Even just to get visitation I needed someone at the house. I put a ad in the paper for a nanny/housekeeper and thats how we met. It worked for both of us as she also was in bad straights. Our personalitys did clash though. We ended up living together for about 12 years to her death. Born in england, married and then her and her ex lived in south africa and then to the states. He had something to do with englands space or satelights program as a engineer. She was well educated and traveled. Since she was a orphan england put her in boarding schools.
 
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