Industry | Aerospace, engineering |
---|---|
Predecessor |
|
Founded | 1959 | by merger
Defunct | 1966 |
Fate | Purchased and merged into Rolls-Royce |
Successor | Rolls-Royce Limited |
Headquarters | , |
Products | Aircraft engines |
Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd (BSEL) was a British aero engine manufacturer. The company was formed in 1959 by a merger of Bristol Aero-Engines Limited and Armstrong Siddeley Motors Limited. In 1961 the company was expanded by the purchase of the de Havilland Engine Company and the engine division of Blackburn Aircraft. Bristol Siddeley was purchased by Rolls-Royce Limited in 1966.
Bristol Siddeley Engines Limited was formed by the 1 April 1959 merge of Bristol Aero-Engines and Armstrong Siddeley Motors. These were the aero engine manufacturing companies of the Bristol Aeroplane Company and the Hawker Siddeley Group. The share capital of Bristol Siddeley was held in equal proportions by these two parent organisations. At around the same time Bristol's aircraft manufacturing was being subsumed into the British Aircraft Corporation along with those of English Electric and Vickers-Armstrong.
Armstrong Siddeley Motors had been producing aero-engines and motor-cars since it had been formed in 1919 with the merger of Siddeley-Deasy and the Armstrong Whitworth Company. Bristol Aero-Engines had been formed in 1920 when the Bristol Aeroplane Company had taken over the assets of the Cosmos Engineering Company. [1]
On 6 May 1958 Bristol Siddeley Engines Limited was formed [2] as a pilot company to bring about an alliance between the Bristol and Coventry concerns, and a full merger took effect from the beginning of April 1959. The purpose of the new company was to combine the research, engineering and manufacturing resources of the two great component companies to meet the changing demands of the aviation industry.[ citation needed ]
The company was further strengthened in November 1961 when it acquired the full share capital of the de Havilland Engine Company Limited and Blackburn Engines Limited, both of which were formerly operating within the Hawker Siddeley Group. The aircraft side of Blackburn became part of Hawker Siddeley. [3] Both of these companies had long histories in the aero-engine industry.
The de Havilland Engine Company Limited had the de Havilland Sprite which was a rocket engine with a military type test certificate. In 1954, the company had produced the axial turbojet Gyron of 30,000 lbf (130 kN) thrust, from which was descended the Gyron Junior series. The de Havilland Engine Company's portfolio included the (licensed) Gnome turboshaft. The Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Company had entered the aero engine field in 1934 when the Cirrus-Hermes Engineering Company became part of the Blackburn and this became the Engine Division of Blackburn Aircraft and subsequently Blackburn Engines Limited. In 1952 an agreement was signed which enabled Blackburn Engines Limited to produce engines based on the Turbomeca range of small gas turbine engines. These were developed for use as airborne auxiliary power units for large aircraft and they were also used as a ground starter unit in the British services.
Bristol Siddeley was bought by Rolls-Royce Limited in 1966 for £63.6 million in order to prevent competition from a planned collaboration between BSEL, Pratt & Whitney and Snecma. [4] Bristol Siddeley retained its own identity and marketing organization. [5]
Bristol Siddeley Engines Limited is still a listed but dormant company within the Rolls-Royce group. [2]
The company was one of the largest of its kind in the world [6] [7] and offered a wider range of engines than any other manufacturer.[ citation needed ] Aero engines produced by the company included piston engines, turboprops, turboshafts, turbojets, turbofans, auxiliary power units, ramjets and liquid propellant rocket engines. Outside the aeronautical field its products were gas turbines for marine and industrial use, diesel engines, and automatic transmissions.
The Patchway factory in South Gloucestershire produced military aeroplane engines including the Olympus two-spool turbojet (from which the engine for Concorde was developed), the Orpheus turbojet for the Folland Gnat light fighter/trainer aircraft, the Pegasus two shaft medium bypass ratio vectored thrust turbofan for the Hawker Siddeley P.1127/Kestrel/Harrier VSTOL ground attack aircraft, the Proteus turboprop for the Bristol Britannia airliner and the Viper turbojet for the Hawker Siddeley HS.125. Bristol Siddeley had under development another vectored thrust turbofan, the "plenum chamber burner" (similar to an afterburner) equipped BS100, which was intended for the supersonic Hawker Siddeley P.1154 VSTOL fighter, but the project was cancelled in 1965. The two shaft BS143 was proposed for the MRCA (later the Tornado), but the takeover by RR caused the adoption of the three shaft RB199 instead. Hypersonics were explored in a shock tube near the High Altitude Test Plant (HATP) at Bristol, in support of BS1012 hypersonic engine thinking. High supersonic ramjets for long range defensive missiles were tested in the HATP (Ref TJ102 and TJ151/2).
Bristol Siddeley also manufactured diesel engines under licence from the German company Maybach. These were for installation in British Rail Class 42 and Class 52 locomotives which were themselves based on licensed German designs but with as much British-built content as possible.[ citation needed ] The Maybach Diesel (MD) MD650, MD655 and MD870 series engines built by Bristol Siddeley were sophisticated in design, running at much higher speeds than normal diesels of their size and featured advanced construction such as a disc-webbed crankshaft that ran in large roller bearings, telescopic pipes to deliver cooling oil to the pistons and detachable piston crowns.[ citation needed ]
The MD engines produced by BSEL included 16 basic engines in the range, which covered powers from 380 to 3,000 horsepower, and includes 4- and 6-cylinder in-line units, and 8, 12 and 16 V units. Each of these were pressure-charged, with or without intercooling. They were used with hydraulic transmission systems, in the Type 4 locos (with two MD650 engines of 1,152 bhp each) hauled the express trains of the Western Region of British Railways - e.g. the Bristolian and the Cornish Riviera. Several hundred more orders were placed by British Rail.(Ref TJ102). MD series engines were widely used in base load, intermittent and standby electricity generating sets, and were transported by rail up to the nominal 1200 kW size for a complete generator set. They were also employed in oil rigs and pumping sets.(Ref TJ151/2).
When the company was formed it also included the motor car companies Armstrong Siddeley Motors and Bristol Cars. It was soon decided to stop production of Armstrong Siddeley cars, as it was becoming uneconomic, with production of the only product, the Star Sapphire, ending in July 1960. [8] In September 1960 Bristol Cars was sold. [9] Subcontracted production of the Sunbeam Alpine sports car continued at Bristol Siddeley Engines in Coventry until 1962.
Related lists
The Bristol Aeroplane Company, originally the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, was both one of the first and one of the most important British aviation companies, designing and manufacturing both airframes and aircraft engines. Notable aircraft produced by the company include the 'Boxkite', the Bristol Fighter, the Bulldog, the Blenheim, the Beaufighter, and the Britannia, and much of the preliminary work which led to Concorde was carried out by the company. In 1956 its major operations were split into Bristol Aircraft and Bristol Aero Engines. In 1959, Bristol Aircraft merged with several major British aircraft companies to form the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) and Bristol Aero Engines merged with Armstrong Siddeley to form Bristol Siddeley.
The Bristol Pegasus is a British nine-cylinder, single-row, air-cooled radial aero engine. Designed by Roy Fedden of the Bristol Aeroplane Company, it was used to power both civil and military aircraft of the 1930s and 1940s. Developed from the earlier Mercury and Jupiter engines, later variants could produce 1,000 horsepower from its capacity of 1,750 cubic inches by use of a geared supercharger.
The de Havilland Aircraft Company Limited was a British aviation manufacturer established in late 1920 by Geoffrey de Havilland at Stag Lane Aerodrome Edgware on the outskirts of north London. Operations were later moved to Hatfield in Hertfordshire.
Hawker Siddeley was a group of British manufacturing companies engaged in aircraft production. Hawker Siddeley combined the legacies of several British aircraft manufacturers, emerging through a series of mergers and acquisitions as one of only two such major British companies in the 1960s. In 1977, Hawker Siddeley became a founding component of the nationalised British Aerospace (BAe). Hawker Siddeley also operated in other industrial markets, such as locomotive building and diesel engine manufacture. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
The Rolls-Royce Pegasus, formerly the Bristol Siddeley Pegasus, is a British turbofan engine originally designed by Bristol Siddeley. It was manufactured by Rolls-Royce plc. The engine is not only able to power a jet aircraft forward, but also to direct thrust downwards via swivelling nozzles. Lightly loaded aircraft equipped with this engine can manoeuvre like a helicopter. In particular, they can perform vertical takeoffs and landings. In US service, the engine is designated F402.
The Rolls-Royce Olympus was the world's second two-spool axial-flow turbojet aircraft engine design, first run in May 1950 and preceded only by the Pratt & Whitney J57, first-run in January 1950. It is best known as the powerplant of the Avro Vulcan and later models in the Concorde SST.
The Rolls-Royce Spey is a low-bypass turbofan engine originally designed and manufactured by Rolls-Royce that has been in widespread service for over 40 years. A co-development version of the Spey between Rolls-Royce and Allison in the 1960s is the Allison TF41.
Armstrong Siddeley was a British engineering group that operated during the first half of the 20th century. It was formed in 1919 and is best known for the production of luxury vehicles and aircraft engines.
The National Museum of Flight is Scotland's national aviation museum, at East Fortune Airfield, just south of the village of East Fortune, Scotland. It is one of the museums within National Museums Scotland. The museum is housed in the original wartime buildings of RAF East Fortune which is a well preserved World War II airfield. As a result of this the entire site is a scheduled monument with no permanent structures added by the museum. The hangars, control tower and stores were designated as Category B listed buildings by Historic Scotland, but this designation was removed in 2013 as they were already covered by the stricter scheduling.
The de Havilland Engine Company was an offshoot of the de Havilland aircraft building company, which started life as the 'Engine Division of the de Havilland Aircraft Company' in 1926 producing the famous de Havilland Gipsy aero-engine. The company was merged with Bristol Siddeley (BSEL) engines in 1961 with BSEL subsequently becoming part of Rolls-Royce Limited in 1968.
The Bristol Siddeley BS.100 is a British twin-spool, vectored thrust, turbofan aero engine that first ran in 1960. The engine was designed and built in limited numbers by Bristol Siddeley Engines Limited. The project was cancelled in early 1965.
The de Havilland Spectre is a rocket engine that was built by the de Havilland Engine Company in the 1950s. It was one element of the intended mixed power-plant for combination rocket-jet interceptor aircraft of the Royal Air Force, such as the Saunders-Roe SR.177.
Rolls-Royce Limited was a British luxury car and later an aero-engine manufacturing business established in 1904 in Manchester by the partnership of Charles Rolls and Henry Royce. Building on Royce's good reputation established with his cranes, they quickly developed a reputation for superior engineering by manufacturing the "best car in the world". The business was incorporated as "Rolls-Royce Limited" in 1906, and a new factory in Derby was opened in 1908. The First World War brought the company into manufacturing aero-engines. Joint development of jet engines began in 1940, and they entered production in 1944. Rolls-Royce has since built an enduring reputation for the development and manufacturing of engines for military and commercial aircraft.
The de Havilland Gyron Junior is a military turbojet engine design of the 1950s developed by the de Havilland Engine Company and later produced by Bristol Siddeley. The Gyron Junior was a scaled-down derivative of the de Havilland Gyron.
The Hawker Siddeley HS-121 Trident is a British airliner produced by Hawker Siddeley. In 1957, de Havilland proposed its DH.121 trijet design to a British European Airways (BEA) request. By 1960, de Havilland had been acquired by Hawker Siddeley. The Trident's maiden flight happened on 9 January 1962, and it was introduced on 1 April 1964, two months after its main competitor, the Boeing 727. By the end of the programme in 1978, 117 Tridents had been produced. The Trident was withdrawn from service in 1995.
The Gatwick Aviation Museum is located in the village of Charlwood, in Surrey, United Kingdom on the boundary of Gatwick Airport.
The Rolls-Royce RB.162 is a lightweight British turbojet engine produced by Rolls-Royce Limited. Developed in the early 1960s, it was specially designed for use as a lift engine for VTOL aircraft but was also used in a later variant of the Hawker Siddeley Trident airliner as an auxiliary boost engine. A smaller related variant, the RB.181 remained a design project only, as did a turbofan version designated RB.175.
The Rolls-Royce RB.141 Medway was a large low-bypass turbofan engine designed, manufactured and tested in prototype form by Rolls-Royce in the early-1960s. The project was cancelled due to changes in market requirements that also led to the development and production of the smaller but similar Rolls-Royce Spey, and the cancellation of the Armstrong Whitworth AW.681 military transport aircraft project.
The Hawker P.1121 was a British supersonic fighter aircraft designed, but never fully completed, by Hawker Siddeley during the mid-1950s. It was designed by a team headed by Sir Sydney Camm.
The Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust is an organisation that was founded in 1981 to preserve the history of Rolls-Royce Limited, Rolls-Royce Holdings and all merged or acquired companies. Five volunteer led branches exist, three in England, one in Scotland and a North American branch.