The Rolls-Royce RB.141 Medway was a large low-bypass

turbofan A turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft engine, aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a combination of references to the preceding generation engine technology of the turbojet and the add ...

engine designed, manufactured and tested in prototype form by

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

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 The Rolls-Royce Spey (company designations RB.163 and RB.168 and RB.183) 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 ...

, and the cancellation of the Armstrong Whitworth AW.681 military transport aircraft project.

Design and development

Alan Arnold Griffith Alan Arnold Griffith (13 June 1893 – 13 October 1963) was an English engineer and the son of Victorian science fiction writer George Griffith. Among many other contributions, he is best known for his work on stress and fracture in metals that ...

, the RB.141 was originally designed to meet a new propulsion requirement for the

de Havilland The de Havilland Aircraft Company Limited (pronounced , ) 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 ...

DH.121

airliner An airliner is a type of airplane for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. The modern and most common variant of the airliner is a long, tube shaped, and jet powered aircraft. The largest ...

project which later became the

Hawker Siddeley Trident The Hawker Siddeley HS-121 Trident (originally the de Havilland DH.121 and briefly the Airco DH.121) is a British airliner produced by Hawker Siddeley. In 1957, de Havilland proposed its DH.121 trijet design to a British European Airways (BEA ...

. The engine was later named after the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, West Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

in line with Rolls-Royce company tradition for jet engines. The DH.121 itself was being designed to a requirement and specification from

British European Airways British European Airways (BEA), formally British European Airways Corporation, was a British airline which existed from 1946 until 1974. BEA operated to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East from airports around the United Kingdom. The ...

issued in February 1958, and when this requirement was altered to that of a smaller aircraft, the Medway in its initial form was no longer needed. As a considerable amount of company funds had already been spent on development, the project was continued to rework the design for another future aircraft project, the Armstrong Whitworth AW.681

VTOL A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can takeoff and landing, take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust- ...

military transport aircraft. The rear section of the engine was modified to incorporate an internal thrust deflector to duct exhaust gases through swivelling nozzles; an idea similar to that used on the contemporary Bristol Siddeley Pegasus. Cancellation of the AW.681 project however also brought to an end further development work on the Medway with attention turning to the smaller, but very closely related, Spey turbofan, the Spey being basically a scaled-down Medway incorporating more recent technical developments. Another possible application for the Medway was the

Saab 37 Viggen The Saab 37 Viggen (''The Tufted Duck'', ambiguous with ''The Thunderbolt'') is a single-seat, single-engine multirole combat aircraft designed and produced by the Swedish aircraft manufacturer Saab AB, Saab. It was the first Canard (aeronautic ...

, but a lack of British government funding was stated as the reason for the cancellation of this order. By December 1963 the Medway had successfully completed over 1,700 hours of bench running.

Variants

;RB.140 * thrust, early development engine ;RB.141 Medway *Variant for DH.121 airliner use ;RB.142 Medway *Vectored thrust development for the AW.681. ;RB.174 Medway *Advanced civil development ;RB.177 Medway *Advanced military development of ~15,000 lb st dry, proposed for the Saab 37 ViggenFlightglobal archive - ''Flight'', June 1962
Retrieved: 5 December 2012

Projected applications

* Armstrong Whitworth AW.681 *

Bristol Type 200 The Bristol Type 200 was a proposal for a short-range aircraft by the Bristol Aeroplane Company in 1956. Although it was designed in response to a specification issued by British European Airways (BEA), the Type 200 was larger than the airline' ...

* de Havilland DH.121 *

* Sud Aviation Super Caravelle *

Vickers VC10 The Vickers VC10 is a retired mid-sized, narrow-body long-range British jet airliner designed and built by Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd and first flown at Brooklands, Surrey, in 1962. The VC10 is often compared to the larger Soviet Ily ...

Specifications (RB.141-3 Medway)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Gunston, Bill. ''World Encyclopedia of Aero Engines''. Cambridge, England. Patrick Stephens Limited, 1989.

External links

Thrust SSC - Medway/Spey development
{{RR aeroengines Low-bypass turbofan engines

Medway Medway is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in the ceremonial county of Kent in South East England. It was formed in 1998 by merging the boroughs of City of Roche ...

1950s turbofan engines