The Rolls-Royce Condor aircraft piston engine was a larger version of the

Rolls-Royce Eagle The Rolls-Royce Eagle was the first aircraft engine to be developed by Rolls-Royce Limited. Introduced in 1915 to meet British military requirements during World War I, it was used to power the Handley Page Type O bombers and a number of oth ...

developing up to 675

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are t ...

(500 kW). The engine first ran in 1918 and a total of 327 engines were recorded as being built.

Variants

''Note:'' ;Condor I :(1920-1921) 600 hp, 72 built at Derby. ;Condor IA :Alternative designation for Condor II. ;Condor II :(1921) 650 hp, revised propeller reduction gear ratio, increased compression ratio (5.17:1). 34 built at Derby. ;Condor III :(1923-1927) 650/670 hp, compression ratio 6.5:1, Re-designed

connecting rod A connecting rod, also called a 'con rod', is the part of a piston engine which connects the piston to the crankshaft. Together with the crank, the connecting rod converts the reciprocating motion of the piston into the rotation of the crank ...

s. 196 built at Derby. ;Condor IIIA :(1925) 650/665 hp. Improved

main bearing Main may refer to: Geography * Main River (disambiguation) **Most commonly the Main (river) in Germany * Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province *"Spanish Main", the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territories in the 16th and 17th centuries ...

design and material. ;Condor IIIB :(1930) 650 hp, 0.477:1 reduction gear, re-designed

crankcase In a piston engine, the crankcase is the housing that surrounds the crankshaft. In most modern engines, the crankcase is integrated into the engine block. Two-stroke engines typically use a crankcase-compression design, resulting in the fuel ...

and

crankshaft A crankshaft is a mechanical component used in a piston engine to convert the reciprocating motion into rotational motion. The crankshaft is a rotating shaft containing one or more crankpins, that are driven by the pistons via the connecti ...

. ;Condor IV :(1925) 750 hp. Direct-drive, modified engine mounting. 13 built at Derby. ;Condor IVA :(1927) 750 hp. Nine built at Derby. ;Condor V :(1925) As Condor IIIA with two-stage

turbocharger In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (often called a turbo) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to pro ...

. Run but not flown, one built at Derby. ;Condor VII :Direct-drive Condor IIIA, two built at Derby. ;Condor C.I. :(1932) 480 hp, compression ignition (diesel), two engines tested and flown.

Compression ignition (diesel) variant

In 1932 the

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of Stat ...

initiated a conversion of the Condor petrol engine to the

compression ignition The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

system. The conversion was developed at the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), before finally losing its identity in me ...

Farnborough Farnborough may refer to: Australia * Farnborough, Queensland, a locality in the Shire of Livingstone United Kingdom * Farnborough, Hampshire, a town in the Rushmoor district of Hampshire, England ** Farnborough (Main) railway station, a railw ...

, with the co-operation of Rolls-Royce Ltd. Engine layout, bore, and stroke remained the same as for the petrol version; the compression ratio increased to 12.5:1. The more robust construction required to withstand the increased stresses increased the engine weight to 1,504 lbs (682 kg). At its maximum 2,000 rpm the engine developed 500 hp (373 Kw), giving a power/weight ratio of 0.33 hp/lb.''Flight'', 17 November 1932, p. 1094
www.flightglobal.com Retrieved: 5 April 2010 The engine passed the 50-hour civil type test for compression ignition engines, being only the second British engine to do so. The only previous engine to pass this test was the much larger

Beardmore Tornado The Beardmore Tornado was an eight-cylinder inline diesel aircraft engine built in 1927 by William Beardmore and Company of Glasgow, Scotland, and used in the British R101 airship when petrol engines were thought unsafe in the tropics. The m ...

fitted to the

R101 R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air M ...

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

. The diesel Condor was experimentally flown in a

Hawker Horsley The Hawker Horsley was a British single-engined biplane bomber of the 1920s. It was the last all-wooden aircraft built by Hawker Aircraft, and served as a medium day bomber and torpedo bomber with Britain's Royal Air Force between 1926 and 1935 ...

to explore the practical operation of a diesel engine in flight.

Applications

The Condor was used in the following aircraft:

Specifications (Condor III)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Lumsden, Alec. ''British Piston Engines and their Aircraft''. Marlborough, Wiltshire: Airlife Publishing, 2003. .

External links

Photo of a Diesel version of the Condor at oldengine.org
{{Rolls-Royce aeroengines

Condor Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua ''kuntur''. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere. They are: * The Andean condor (''Vu ...

1910s aircraft piston engines Airship engines