The Turbomeca Palouste is a French

gas turbine A gas turbine or gas turbine engine is a type of Internal combustion engine#Continuous combustion, continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas gene ...

engine, first run in 1952. Designed purely as a compressed air generator, the Palouste was mainly used as a ground-based aircraft engine starter unit. Other uses included rotor tip propulsion for

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

Design and development

Designed and built by Turbomeca, the Palouste was also built under license in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the River Ribble, Ribble Valley, east of Preston ...

and

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 ...

. Originally conceived as an aircraft

ground support equipment Ground support equipment (GSE) is the support equipment found at an airport, usually on the apron, the servicing area by the terminal. This equipment is used to service the aircraft between flights. As the name suggests, ground support equipment ...

starter gas generator, it was used also as propulsion for the

Sud-Ouest Djinn The Sud-Ouest SO.1221 Djinn (alternatively written S.O.1221) is a French two-seat light helicopter designed and manufactured by aircraft manufacturer Sud-Ouest (SNCASO), which was later merged into Sud Aviation. It was the first production French ...

and other

tip-jet A tip jet is a jet nozzle at the tip of some helicopter rotor blades, used to spin the rotor, much like a Catherine wheel firework. Tip jets replace the normal shaft drive and have the advantage of placing no torque on the airframe, thus not re ...

powered helicopters. The Palouste was a very simple unit, its primary purpose being to supply a high flow rate of

compressed air Compressed air is air kept under a pressure that is greater than atmospheric pressure. Compressed air in vehicle tires and shock absorbers are commonly used for improved traction and reduced vibration. Compressed air is an important medium for t ...

to start larger jet engines such as the

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 ...

as installed in the

Blackburn Buccaneer The Blackburn Buccaneer is a British aircraft carrier, carrier-capable attack aircraft designed in the 1950s for the Royal Navy (RN). Designed and initially produced by Blackburn Aircraft at Brough Aerodrome, Brough, it was later officially k ...

(this aircraft having no onboard starting system). Air from the

centrifugal compressor Centrifugal compressors, sometimes called impeller compressors or radial compressors, are a sub-class of dynamic axisymmetric work-absorbing turbomachinery. They achieve pressure rise by adding energy to the continuous flow of fluid through th ...

was divided between external supply (known as

bleed air Bleed air in aerospace engineering is compressed air taken from the compressor stage of a gas turbine, upstream of its fuel-burning sections. Automatic air supply and cabin pressure controller (ASCPC) valves bleed air from low or high stage engine ...

) and its own combustion chamber. Several British naval aircraft were adapted to carry a Palouste in a wing-mounted

air starter Ground support equipment (GSE) is the support equipment found at an airport, usually on the apron, the servicing area by the terminal. This equipment is used to service the aircraft between flights. As the name suggests, ground support equipment i ...

pod installation to facilitate engine starting when away from base. A novel use of a surplus Palouste engine was its installation in a custom-built

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar from a saddle-style ...

known as the ''Boost Palouste''. In 1986 this motorcycle broke an official ACU 1/4 mile speed record at . The builder modified the engine to include a primitive

afterburner An afterburner (or reheat in British English) is an additional combustion component used on some jet engines, mostly those on military supersonic aircraft. Its purpose is to increase thrust, usually for supersonic flight, takeoff, and combat ...

device and noted that pitch changes which occurred during braking and acceleration caused

gyroscopic precession Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body. In an appropriate reference frame it can be defined as a change in the first Euler angle, whereas the third Euler angle defines the rotation itself. In othe ...

handling effects due to the rotating mass of the engine.The ''Boost Palouste'' - jet-pack.co.uk
Retrieved: 24 July 2009

Variants

;Palouste IV:The gas generator used to power the Sud-Ouest S.O.1221 Djinn and other tip-jet helicopters. ;Palouste IVB: ;Palouste IVC: ;Palouste IVD: ;Palouste IVE: ;Palouste IVF: ;Palouste 502: (P.102 and P.104) Blackburn / Bristol Siddeley / Rolls-Royce production for air-starter units. ;Autan :A development of the Palouste delivering a higher mass flow of compressed air. ;Autan 2: 1 x axial + 1 x centrifugal compressor stages

Applications

* Bell Model 65 *

Fairey Ultra-light Helicopter The Fairey Ultra-light Helicopter was a small British military helicopter intended to be used for reconnaissance and casualty evacuation, designed by the Fairey Aviation Company. The Ultra-light had been conceived of as a straightforward, low ...

Specifications (Palouste 4)

Aerospatiale SO 1221 Djinn Antrieb Detail

References

External links

Turbomeca website
{{Turbomeca aeroengines Palouste Aircraft gas generator engines Centrifugal-flow gas turbine engines