The Rolls-Royce RB.50 Trent was the first Rolls-Royce

turboprop A turboprop is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction gearbox, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propelling nozzle. Air enters the intake and is compressed by the compressor. Fuel ...

engine.

Design and development

The Trent was based on a concept by Sir Frank Whittle. It was a Derwent Mark II

turbojet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and ...

engine with a cropped impeller (turbine unchanged)"Rolls-Royce Aero Engines" Bill Gunston, Patrick Stephens Limited, 1989, , p.119 and a reduction gearbox (designed by A A Rubbra) connected to a five-bladed Rotol

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

. The Trent ran for 633 hours on test before being installed in a Gloster Meteor jet fighter which flew for the first time on 20 September 1945 at the start of a 298-hour flight test programme.

Applications

* Gloster Meteor

Engines on display

A preserved Rolls-Royce Trent turboprop engine is on display at the

London Science Museum The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded ...

. A preserved RB50 Trent is displayed at the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust in Derby.

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

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

External links

"The First Propeller Turbine Engine to Fly"
a 1946 Rolls-Royce advertisement in ''Flight''

a 1947 ''Flight'' article

- a 1948 '' Flight'' article on flying the Trent Meteor {{aeroengine-specs 1940s turboprop engines

Trent Trent may refer to: Places Italy * Trento in northern Italy, site of the Council of Trent United Kingdom * Trent, Dorset, England, United Kingdom Germany * Trent, Germany, a municipality on the island of Rügen United States * Trent, California, ...

Centrifugal-flow gas turbine engines