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

turbofan The turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft engine, aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a portmanteau of "turbine" and "fan": the ''turbo'' portion refers to a gas turbine engine which ac ...

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 The Armstrong Whitworth AW.681, also known as the Whitworth Gloster 681 or Hawker Siddeley HS.681, was a projected United Kingdom, British long-range STOL military transport aircraft design of the early 1960s. Developed by manufacturer Armstr ...

military transport aircraft project.

Design and development

Alan Arnold Griffith Alan Arnold Griffith (13 June 1893 – 13 October 1963), son of Victorian science fiction writer George Griffith, was an English engineer. Among many other contributions he is best known for his work on stress and fracture in metals that is no ...

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

de Havilland 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 H ...

DH.121

airliner An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ...

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 (B ...

. 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, East 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 a ...

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

VTOL A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can 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-vectoring fixed-win ...

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 (Swedish for ''"the Bolt"'' or ''"the Tufted Duck"'' ( see name)) is a retired Swedish single-seat, single-engine, short-medium range combat aircraft. Development work on the type was initiated at Saab in 1952 and, following ...

, 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

* Bristol Type 200 * de Havilland DH.121 *

* Sud Aviation Super Caravelle *

Vickers VC10 The Vickers VC10 is a 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 airliner was designed to operate on long-distance route ...

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 authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to for ...

1950s turbofan engines