The king returns! I absolutely love these engine deep dives. There's tons of documentaries on every single aircraft but none on the powerplants. Thanks!
@@flightdojo We'll all good fans of yours. Any time I see one of these come out, I have to watch them as well. I'm not even into engines - I'm a huge computer nerd/builder/programmer. I just love the specs, data numbers, and presentation. Going to get a snack for this one. Always worth the view.
@@TheManFrayBentos Why? I'm genuinely interested. I thought it was just because SBAC was standardizing prop rotation, so engines developed afterwards began to comply.
Contra rotating props helps the torque effect I believe, no personal experience of course. The two props cancel each other out and only the rotation of the engine itself is producing the rotational forces …..
i think he stated that the propellor rotates in the opposite direction to the crankshaft - so the moment or torque from the crank is opposing the torque from the prop blades, cancelling out some of the effect. - but it pulled the aircraft to the right instead of the left when applying full throttle during takeoff, so converting from a mkIX to a mkXII the pilot needed to apply the opposite ruder pedal during takeoff to avoid a ground loop, digging a wingtip into the runway thats my understanding of what was said - but I may be wrong
@@stevesoutar3405 The internal workings of the reduction gearbox does not cancel any torque. That would be like pulling yourself up by your boot straps, physically impossible.
The griffon was still on operational aircraft when I joined the RAF in 1987 - admittedly as a stopgap after the failure of the Nimrod AEW project. It was finally retired only when the E-3 was procured. In 1991.
The Griffon ( mk 101 ) was also used in the RAF Marine Branch, TE Lawrence etc. They were fitted in the 68ft HSL boats. Two engines converted to Marine use fitted in the boats and using Mathaway gearboxes. They ran on 130 octane fuel and the boats carried 2220 gallons n 5 Tanks. RTTL 2757 at RAF HENDON is the last example of these boats and on which I served as a Deckhand, then later as an Engineer.
This engine was later used in Unlimited Hydroplane racing and tractor pulls! The engine that said 'Budweiser' was from the Unlimited Hydroplane boat racing!
Griffon was developed expressly for the FAA, yet once it entered production, it was diverted to the RAF for, well, Spitfires. As a consequence, once the Pacific Fleet was formed, the primary aircraft of the FAA were US-made Corsairs, Hellcats, and Avengers, with a sprinkling of Barracudas, which were forced to use underpowered Merlins. OK, some Griffon-powered Fireflies (why a 2-person fighter?) were also used. From what I have read, the Griffon was, indeed, a good engine. Contrast with the Napier Sabre, which was much more powerful engine but was plagued with difficulty in trying to transition from the "skilled craftsman" to the "assembly line" mode of production, and in the end was used for only two production aircraft types.
Why a 2-person fighter? Doctrine, of course. Pre-war FAA doctrine was that naval fighters were there to protect the fleet from bombers. The bombers were meant to be spotted and intercepted by long-range 2-seat fighters; the second seat was for a navigator to help guide the pilot. Range was prioritized over maneuverability. Hence, the long line of crappy 2-seaters in the FAA. Reality overwhelmed FAA doctrine once the war started and it became obvious that single seat fighters were an absolute necessity. The range of enemy fighters increased, as did the firepower of enemy bombers. The FAA scrambled to fix the deficiency but, having eschewed home-built single-seaters, they were forced to take whatever they could get from the Americans - namely the Wildcat/Martlet. These served until the end of the war, alongside the crappy 2-seaters to which the FAA clung bitterly.
@@jamesdalton2014 maybe they were right, the US lost a significantly higher percentage of planes to navigation issues & that includes the USN. Mind you this maybe because US training focused more on other things, like for example formation flying, I don’t know.
@@mickvonbornemann3824 Ah, yes... formation flying - the air force equivalent of parade ground drill. It looks nice but, it's absolutely useless in combat. It makes the cake-eaters all warm and fuzzy though. But, your point about training is spot on. Better training and more of it leads to fewer accidents. unfortunately, it always takes time for peace-time forces to learn the lessons of war.
@@mickvonbornemann3824 you crank out thousands you are going to lose more than if you only crank out hundreds. The quality of the pilots inevitably go down. Has nothing to do with learning to fly in formation which by the way EVERY AIR FORCE TEACHES
the contra-rotating props on later spitfires, as well some other naval aircraft takes prop torque out of the equation, but you would still get a tendency to roll from the crankshaft counterweights at full power - as far as i know (I'm a model maker, not a pilot, so ...)
I think you failed to mention how the Rolls Royce engineers generally kept the same frontal area of the Griffon compared to the Merlin, a lot more displacement for a minor increase in frontal area, and hence a minor increase drag on the aircraft. Otherwise a very good video!
Sounds off. They kept the length down, but they moved cam etc. drives to the front to reduce crank twist effect on timing. So, the overhead drive gears are at the front of the valve covers, which is why humps were added to the cowling. I do agree that their efforts were remarkable, as an engine of 30% greater capacity could be used in airframes designed for a Merlin. My impression is that the Griffon was cleaner (no external oil lines) and more bulletproof, but its 'tuning' (like cam profiles) was not as agressive as that in the Merlin. I would love to know what a Griffon could do with such a profile.
Not a word about the aircraft in which it served for decades after WW2 - the Avro Shackleton in its Marine Reconnaissance and also it's Airborne Early Warning variants. Four mighty Griffins in each aircraft, with patrols extending for over 10 hours. That is engineering.
The Griffon was a development of the Rolls Royce R engine of 37 litres that powered the Schneider trophy Supermarine aircraft and enabled Britain to keep the trophy for 3 straight wins, the Supermarine Schneider float plane achieved 400mph in early 1930's. The Merlin was a much smaller capacity at 27 litres
Two propellers Each rotating opposite directions. Zeroing the torque traction. The author first said the second propeller going in the opposite direction.
The fleet air arm wanted a 36 litre before the war the Merlin was 27. Well packaged equipment meant it fitted in the same package a real surprise for the Axis. The Merlin was up-powered and countered the FW 190 the Griffon outclassed it.
The Griffon as used in the Shackleton was amazing. They'd take off, do an air display, depart for a 24hr patrol, return to the air show to do a repeat display the for 2nd day, and then depart to land for the first time in 24hr +.
*During the battle of Britain the Merlin must have been the most welcome sound of all. It must have been the sound of fighting back, the sound connected to the fighting spirit, the sound of Britain's finest hour, many hopes must have been pinned on it, my vote goes to Merlin. The sound of the Griffon signified domination and power later in the war.*
It took a long time for Rolls-Royce to get to fuel injection, several years after the German engines. This report said that this was modern innovation. But in reality, it was several years late.
Totally different concepts although often mistakenly quoted in TH-cam comment sections. British and US aircraft engine manufacturers never rated the diesel type direct injection systems used in German engines believing them to result in inefficient fuel/air mixtures. Later Rolls Royce engines still used Carburetors for a far more efficient and accurate mixture control…they simply used metered pumping of fuel into the carburettor rather than the earlier Venturi type SU carburettors.
@@annoyingbstard9407 There was no carburettor in the single-point injection system used in British engines, there was a throttle body but no venturis etc., the fuel was sprayed directly into the eye of the supercharger. Hives was credited with saying that the charge air temperature reduction due to the evaporation of the fuel in the carburettor was of more advantage than what direct injection gave. Hmmm, the fuel gets vaporised at some point, it would require considerable work to determine any advantages on either side Ricardo had recommended the study of direct injection in the 1920s but little work was done. Bristol did considerable work (quite good work) on both port injection and direct injection in the 30s but this went nowhere as resources were focused on other design elements. In the end, the British got away with it but they really should have brought in single-point injection much earlier. There were some other advantages to NOT having fuel in the induction system, but R-R got around them. No one really understood combustion well enough to make direct injection a game changer, except in fringe engines such as the R-R Crecy where it allowed stratified charge, a crucial requirement of that two stroke engine. Fuel metering in the direct injection systems was very good but it would take many more years to start to come to grips with combustion chamber design which was compromised in the German engines as they had to fit the four valves, two spark plugs, and the injector in the head of an under-square engine. Although the designers took into account swirl and to a lesser extent tumble, nobody had a handle on squish until Honda started using squish plateaus around the exhaust valves in their racing bikes from the early 60s, followed by the Aubrey Woods engine at Weslake for Ford that ended up as the Gurney Weslake engines and then, of course, Keith Duckworth at Cosworth.
I have to say that the later Spitfires where Spitfires in name only. I'd be interested to see the parts commonality between something like a 22 and a 5 or 9.
After the car, you could buy a lot of these engines at scap dealer prices. A number of Drag Racers and even street Hot Rods tried to use these enormous engined with varing results. Unfortunately the mass of the engines made it difficult first, to get the power to weight ratio of A HEMI on Nitro..then also it was difficlut to get enough weight over the rear wheels. So most aero engine dragsters got top MPH honors but not the really Low e.t.'s to make top eliminator.....
I haven't looked it up but my guess is that instead of the crankshaft and prop rotating in the same direction they used gearing so the crankshaft and prop were counter-rotating thus eliminating some of the gyroscopic effects.
@@johnwiles4391 It doesn't really make sense though as the Merlin(And many many other engines with a reduction gear) also did have the crank and prop rotate in different directions.
The only thing I can figure is that he got confused with the Griffon models whcih had coaxial contra-rotating twin propellers whcih would reduce torque. But what he actually said is complete nonsense.
“The Firefly’s wing folding design made it suitable for carrier operations.” Seriously? The ONLY reason the Firefly had a folding wing was that it was designed AS a carrier based aircraft!
The Griffon was a great engine, but it came too late to make a difference to WW2. I would put it fourth after the Merlin, the Bristol engines, and the Napier Sabre out of the British engines.
How does spinning the engine the other way to anything to counteract torque? Are you saying there was a gearbox between crankshaft and prop that reversed the drive direction?
It absolutely doesn't. That's complete nonsense. Some Griffons had twin coaxial contra-rotating propellers, that arrangement *did* counteract torque effects. Maybe the narrator got got confused by that. But you're right, simply changing a single prop to turn the other way doesn't counteract torque at all, it just makes it act in the opposite direction.
ironically, the early Allison V-1710 could produce 1800HP at 70" MAP, and later engines were putting out 2200HP at 70" towards the end of the war. and was lighter and smaller than the Griffon and Merlin. the engine was only officially approved for 56", but everyone was flying them at 70-75" throughout the war and Allison verified this performance and that the engine Could be operated continuously at this power setting. What the engines produced in reality in combat by the thousands matters more than a few test articles and official statistics that artificially limited its capability.
I've read that the Allison also had roughly half the parts count. A local V12 mech hated Merlins (I know this is about Griffons) and swore by Allisons. He was maintaining 3 of the repro Yak3/9s, which subsituted Allisons for the unavailable Klimovs. The Allison was a very good engine. It's 'shortcomings' were imposed by the governement, who was bent on trubocharging and saw mechanical development a waste of funding. Graham White's book says the add-on mechanical that came later was not efficient. It was also more bulky. There was a late, turbo-compounded development engine that made about 3000HP. To me, two things stand out: the engine had the highest piston speed for the time while still being reliable, and race Merlins use Allison connecting rods.
@@busterdee8228 Yes, I also met a modern warbird mechanic my age who used to work for RR in England on Merlins, and then helped restore the P-82 and now works on Allisons, and he told me tons of things only a mechanic would know that are not in any books, and he disliked the Merlin and loved the Allison. Allison was 300lb lighter than the Merlin, smaller (smaller frontal profile, meaning lower drag and more aerodynamic), thousands fewer parts, easier to work on, Post-WW2 live fire tests proved the Allison more damage resistant to .30cal, .50cal, and 20mm than the Merlin. And the Allison was more fuel efficient too. The US gov withdrew funding to develop the Allison's High-Altitude 2-Stage Supercharger, and thus NAA switched to the Merlin for the XP-51B. Also, Allison was let down by a faulty carburetor. Which is frustrating because carburetors can be swapped out and plenty of companies built perfectly good carburetors.
@@SoloRenegade Fascinating. As an old mech myself, that conversation would have made me pinch myself. Merlins were a study in 'push them 'til they break, then redesign that' engineering. I love them, but I refuse to deny Allisons an equal spot on the hill. Thanks.
I would love to know how Aichi was able to eventually get 1700hp out of the Atsuta (DB601a) which is what DB was getting out of the 603 a much larger displacement motor. Did Aichi out engineer DB with their own system?
radial engines like the R2800 went on to serve post war as mainstays of commercial planes like the DC6. Why weren’t “inline” engines like Merlin and griffon more used commercially? Is there something more inherently more reliable about radials?
Surprised that RR didn't learn from the full fuel injection from the Germans, and have FI with Griffen from the outset. We're they also fitted to Lancaster and the Mosquito?
And now it's a combat jet. Kind full circle, 50 years after the Griffon powered one of the finest piston engine fighters it gave the name to one of the finest pre stealth fighters.
Why does the Griffon sound so much different than the the Merlin? They are both 60deg V12's. The Merlin sings while the Griff snarls, you can almost hear each individual cyl fire. Firing order? The fact it rotates in the opposite direction? I would sure like to know.
Per Graham White, firing order was different, and the the cam profiles were very different. In most mature form: Merlin had 70-deg overlap, 288 degress of duration to Griffon's 28-deg overlap and 248 degrees of duration. Basically, Merlins use 'race cams.'
Was the Griffin more reliable than the Sabre. I know the Sabre was a dog in the early days of the Typhoon, but maybe the bugs were sorted out by the time the Firefly was in production.
I'm assuming that if the crankshaft rotated "the other way", the airscrew reduction gear was set up to have the prop rotating "the normal way", so the undesired torque effects cancelled each other to some degree? I've always been fascinated by anything with contra-rotating props too, amazing engineering.
YOu can't cancel torque by the internal workings of a gear reduction any more than you can reach down, grab hold of you boot straps and lift yourself off the ground. It's the same principle. The internal forces are irrelevant.
You stated many times it was revolutionary. But why? Did not heard any specific technical reason for this, maybe the nitrid coating. And what about the direction of rotation? Way unclear. And more difficult handling with counter rotating props (about 9 min.)? Don't think so. Not mentioned the venerable Schackleton at the applications section. So there are some serious holes in the vid.😢
Good video but I got increasingly irritated by the repetition. If it’s a leap in design or a result of new demands then that doesn’t need to be said over and over again.
This video is a fluff piece, full of hyperbole and inaccuracies. There were many revolutionary power plants developed during the war, most of which never saw mass production. This engine was not one of them. It was an enlarged, improved, refined development of the Merlin.
The Griffon was simply too little too late, with only 8100 being made and only 1700 $hitfires got them !!!! Also the Early Griffons were a single stage supercharged version only later versions were the 2 stage 2 speed. you cannot paint all Griffon like the Merlin with the same brush. NOT all engines were 2 stage 2 speeds that people seem to ASS U ME they are!!!!
In defense of the "$hitfires,' the P-51H was only outwardly a Mustang, but internally borrowed heavily from the Spit's sturctural concept. The 'standard' P-51 has thick skins and less 'framing' (and I assume has much to do with so many surviving). The P-51/P-51A might have been the Spit's equal in ease of flying. The later marks were more skiddish (literally). I imagine the civil marks, stripped of 'angry bits' and the fuselage tank relegated to passenger, is more friendly. If I read you correctly, the Griffon's mojo is mostly toughness and making moderate power for its size. The Merlin had so much horse that the hair had no place to go. Give me a Griffon with a Merlin's cam profile, and my smile will grow until my face falls off.
@JohnyG29 nope the Bf109 K4 topped out at 476mph and 32,650 foot. And it was a rocket up to that height. Plus this is on 87 octane. The griffin could barely function on 150 octane and British supercharger development was seriously infantile...wtf puts straight blades on the impeller. The K14 was the FIRST AIRCRAFT TO HIT 500MPH AND THAT WAS IN A CLIMB
The king returns! I absolutely love these engine deep dives. There's tons of documentaries on every single aircraft but none on the powerplants. Thanks!
Thanks for tuning it!! I’ve got a plan to keep up the video output.
@@flightdojoawesome ❤ really looking forward to it.
@@flightdojo We'll all good fans of yours. Any time I see one of these come out, I have to watch them as well. I'm not even into engines - I'm a huge computer nerd/builder/programmer. I just love the specs, data numbers, and presentation.
Going to get a snack for this one. Always worth the view.
Have you already seen "Greg's planes and automobiles" channel?
@@bernhardjordan9200 Ha! Thanks for letting me know. I've got it subscribed and will check it out. Looks like another gem.
Great presentation. Even greater to see you back with a new video
Thank you kindly!
Thank you - a fine engine placed very well into it's place in history. The Merlin was a superb engine but the Griffon is very overlooked.
Nice to see you back!
The detail in these engines is amazing
I had the good fortune to work at the factory on Nightingale Road, Derby which produced the Merlin and Griffon during the 70’s.
Changing the direction of rotation does not help with torque, it just means things turn the other way,
Certainly helps with torque reaction, though.
@@TheManFrayBentos Why? I'm genuinely interested. I thought it was just because SBAC was standardizing prop rotation, so engines developed afterwards began to comply.
Contra rotating props helps the torque effect I believe, no personal experience of course. The two props cancel each other out and only the rotation of the engine itself is producing the rotational forces …..
i think he stated that the propellor rotates in the opposite direction to the crankshaft - so the moment or torque from the crank is opposing the torque from the prop blades, cancelling out some of the effect. - but it pulled the aircraft to the right instead of the left when applying full throttle during takeoff, so converting from a mkIX to a mkXII the pilot needed to apply the opposite ruder pedal during takeoff to avoid a ground loop, digging a wingtip into the runway
thats my understanding of what was said - but I may be wrong
@@stevesoutar3405 The internal workings of the reduction gearbox does not cancel any torque. That would be like pulling yourself up by your boot straps, physically impossible.
The Griffon engine is a beast.
Another excellent video !!
Please keep them coming
The griffon was still on operational aircraft when I joined the RAF in 1987 - admittedly as a stopgap after the failure of the Nimrod AEW project. It was finally retired only when the E-3 was procured. In 1991.
Avro Shackleton ??? ;)
The Griffon ( mk 101 ) was also used in the RAF Marine Branch, TE Lawrence etc. They were fitted in the 68ft HSL boats. Two engines converted to Marine use fitted in the boats and using Mathaway gearboxes. They ran on 130 octane fuel and the boats carried 2220 gallons n 5 Tanks. RTTL 2757 at RAF HENDON is the last example of these boats and on which I served as a Deckhand, then later as an Engineer.
This engine was later used in Unlimited Hydroplane racing and tractor pulls! The engine that said 'Budweiser' was from the Unlimited Hydroplane boat racing!
Britain cannot manufacture these engines ever again.
That was about the peak of British engineering.
Yeah they would be arrested today.....
your right, Engines have come a long way since the Griffon
Even NAA evaluated putting the Griffon in the P-51. I had a NAA line drawing of this configuration, but need to find it again.
Love your videos! Glad to see you’re back!
A great video and thanks for all the research you put into your videos. It's greatly appreciated.
Loving your content, bro! Thank you!
He back!!! I'm glad to see you back and ok brother!
I was just checking the other day if you had posted anything recent. Such a surprise see this pop up right after!
He lives....
Edit.
I always love your videos
Great voice to listen to like Sir David Attenborough
Really appreciate your work man
Thank you! I really appreciate the voice comment 😂
Griffon was developed expressly for the FAA, yet once it entered production, it was diverted to the RAF for, well, Spitfires. As a consequence, once the Pacific Fleet was formed, the primary aircraft of the FAA were US-made Corsairs, Hellcats, and Avengers, with a sprinkling of Barracudas, which were forced to use underpowered Merlins. OK, some Griffon-powered Fireflies (why a 2-person fighter?) were also used.
From what I have read, the Griffon was, indeed, a good engine. Contrast with the Napier Sabre, which was much more powerful engine but was plagued with difficulty in trying to transition from the "skilled craftsman" to the "assembly line" mode of production, and in the end was used for only two production aircraft types.
Why a 2-person fighter? Doctrine, of course. Pre-war FAA doctrine was that naval fighters were there to protect the fleet from bombers. The bombers were meant to be spotted and intercepted by long-range 2-seat fighters; the second seat was for a navigator to help guide the pilot. Range was prioritized over maneuverability. Hence, the long line of crappy 2-seaters in the FAA.
Reality overwhelmed FAA doctrine once the war started and it became obvious that single seat fighters were an absolute necessity. The range of enemy fighters increased, as did the firepower of enemy bombers. The FAA scrambled to fix the deficiency but, having eschewed home-built single-seaters, they were forced to take whatever they could get from the Americans - namely the Wildcat/Martlet. These served until the end of the war, alongside the crappy 2-seaters to which the FAA clung bitterly.
@@jamesdalton2014 maybe they were right, the US lost a significantly higher percentage of planes to navigation issues & that includes the USN. Mind you this maybe because US training focused more on other things, like for example formation flying, I don’t know.
@@mickvonbornemann3824 Ah, yes... formation flying - the air force equivalent of parade ground drill. It looks nice but, it's absolutely useless in combat. It makes the cake-eaters all warm and fuzzy though.
But, your point about training is spot on. Better training and more of it leads to fewer accidents. unfortunately, it always takes time for peace-time forces to learn the lessons of war.
@@mickvonbornemann3824 you crank out thousands you are going to lose more than if you only crank out hundreds. The quality of the pilots inevitably go down. Has nothing to do with learning to fly in formation which by the way EVERY AIR FORCE TEACHES
A proper engine. Great to see you back.
6:45 Er... Okay...? Are you sure you were not confusing things with contra-rotating prop or anything?
the contra-rotating props on later spitfires, as well some other naval aircraft takes prop torque out of the equation, but you would still get a tendency to roll from the crankshaft counterweights at full power - as far as i know (I'm a model maker, not a pilot, so ...)
I think you failed to mention how the Rolls Royce engineers generally kept the same frontal area of the Griffon compared to the Merlin, a lot more displacement for a minor increase in frontal area, and hence a minor increase drag on the aircraft.
Otherwise a very good video!
Sounds off. They kept the length down, but they moved cam etc. drives to the front to reduce crank twist effect on timing. So, the overhead drive gears are at the front of the valve covers, which is why humps were added to the cowling. I do agree that their efforts were remarkable, as an engine of 30% greater capacity could be used in airframes designed for a Merlin. My impression is that the Griffon was cleaner (no external oil lines) and more bulletproof, but its 'tuning' (like cam profiles) was not as agressive as that in the Merlin. I would love to know what a Griffon could do with such a profile.
Superb video, thank you.
Excellent video !
This presentation rocks. Nicely done.
Not a word about the aircraft in which it served for decades after WW2 - the Avro Shackleton in its Marine Reconnaissance and also it's Airborne Early Warning variants. Four mighty Griffins in each aircraft, with patrols extending for over 10 hours. That is engineering.
Love these videos. Wish you could post 5 a day!
I miss the Sckakelton aircraft, maybe the last piston aircraft in the Royal navy that had the Griffon
Spectacular machine, I don't think the crews missed it though, those props made for fatigue problems.
They were all RAF as far as I know in all roles.
Excellent video thanks
Rolls Royce Griffon: Look how powerful I am.
P&W R-2800: Hold my beer...
Great Content!!!!
Excellent as always
The Griffon was a development of the Rolls Royce R engine of 37 litres that powered the Schneider trophy Supermarine aircraft and enabled Britain to keep the trophy for 3 straight wins, the Supermarine Schneider float plane achieved 400mph in early 1930's. The Merlin was a much smaller capacity at 27 litres
Excelent, thank you 👍
Books published by Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust are well-worth looking at. There is a number of books on Merlin and Griffon.
Fascinating & Fantastic, Thank You 👍
Hey good to see you back.
Great to see new video!
Hooray!! The king has returned!
How exactly would reversing the direction of rotation of the engine reduce torque effects?
Two propellers
Each rotating opposite directions. Zeroing the torque traction. The author first said the second propeller going in the opposite direction.
@@625shapiro What about the engines torque???
@@will7itsThat would have some effect too, but the propeller’s effect is much greater due to its greater diameter and mass.
The fleet air arm wanted a 36 litre before the war the Merlin was 27. Well packaged equipment meant it fitted in the same package a real surprise for the Axis. The Merlin was up-powered and countered the FW 190 the Griffon outclassed it.
The Griffon as used in the Shackleton was amazing. They'd take off, do an air display, depart for a 24hr patrol, return to the air show to do a repeat display the for 2nd day, and then depart to land for the first time in 24hr +.
Um, and how did they do that exactly????
*During the battle of Britain the Merlin must have been the most welcome sound of all. It must have been the sound of fighting back, the sound connected to the fighting spirit, the sound of Britain's finest hour, many hopes must have been pinned on it, my vote goes to Merlin. The sound of the Griffon signified domination and power later in the war.*
great video. those 13 minutes went by so fast!
That Was Great! I Really Enjoy WW2 Aviation History. Thank You. (Like #424 - Comment #54)
It took a long time for Rolls-Royce to get to fuel injection, several years after the German engines.
This report said that this was modern innovation. But in reality, it was several years late.
Totally different concepts although often mistakenly quoted in TH-cam comment sections. British and US aircraft engine manufacturers never rated the diesel type direct injection systems used in German engines believing them to result in inefficient fuel/air mixtures. Later Rolls Royce engines still used Carburetors for a far more efficient and accurate mixture control…they simply used metered pumping of fuel into the carburettor rather than the earlier Venturi type SU carburettors.
@@annoyingbstard9407 There was no carburettor in the single-point injection system used in British engines, there was a throttle body but no venturis etc., the fuel was sprayed directly into the eye of the supercharger.
Hives was credited with saying that the charge air temperature reduction due to the evaporation of the fuel in the carburettor was of more advantage than what direct injection gave. Hmmm, the fuel gets vaporised at some point, it would require considerable work to determine any advantages on either side
Ricardo had recommended the study of direct injection in the 1920s but little work was done. Bristol did considerable work (quite good work) on both port injection and direct injection in the 30s but this went nowhere as resources were focused on other design elements.
In the end, the British got away with it but they really should have brought in single-point injection much earlier.
There were some other advantages to NOT having fuel in the induction system, but R-R got around them.
No one really understood combustion well enough to make direct injection a game changer, except in fringe engines such as the R-R Crecy where it allowed stratified charge, a crucial requirement of that two stroke engine.
Fuel metering in the direct injection systems was very good but it would take many more years to start to come to grips with combustion chamber design which was compromised in the German engines as they had to fit the four valves, two spark plugs, and the injector in the head of an under-square engine. Although the designers took into account swirl and to a lesser extent tumble, nobody had a handle on squish until Honda started using squish plateaus around the exhaust valves in their racing bikes from the early 60s, followed by the Aubrey Woods engine at Weslake for Ford that ended up as the Gurney Weslake engines and then, of course, Keith Duckworth at Cosworth.
I have to say that the later Spitfires where Spitfires in name only. I'd be interested to see the parts commonality between something like a 22 and a 5 or 9.
return of the king
After the car, you could buy a lot of these engines at scap dealer prices. A number of Drag Racers and even street Hot Rods tried to use these enormous engined with varing results. Unfortunately
the mass of the engines made it difficult first, to get the power to weight ratio of A HEMI on Nitro..then also
it was difficlut to get enough weight over the rear wheels.
So most aero engine dragsters got top MPH honors but not the really Low e.t.'s to make top eliminator.....
lt is an awesome engine.....Thank you Flight Dojo
Old F-4 pilot Shoe🇺🇸
The Griffon remained in active service into the late eighties in the Avro Shackleton.
How does direction of rotation affect torque quantity?
I haven't looked it up but my guess is that instead of the crankshaft and prop rotating in the same direction they used gearing so the crankshaft and prop were counter-rotating thus eliminating some of the gyroscopic effects.
For a single-rotation prop - it doesn't.
@@stumccabe Well, I hadn't thought of that and it does make sense.
@@johnwiles4391 It doesn't really make sense though as the Merlin(And many many other engines with a reduction gear) also did have the crank and prop rotate in different directions.
The only thing I can figure is that he got confused with the Griffon models whcih had coaxial contra-rotating twin propellers whcih would reduce torque. But what he actually said is complete nonsense.
Four were used to power the Avro Shackleton ASW and AEW aircraft, all with contraprops.
“The Firefly’s wing folding design made it suitable for carrier operations.”
Seriously?
The ONLY reason the Firefly had a folding wing was that it was designed AS a carrier based aircraft!
Yay dojos back!
The Griffon was a great engine, but it came too late to make a difference to WW2. I would put it fourth after the Merlin, the Bristol engines, and the Napier Sabre out of the British engines.
Fell at the first hurdle. When did WWII start? September 39. When was the Griffon designed? design started April 1938.
How does it compare to the Napier Sabre; especially the later, improved versions?
How does spinning the engine the other way to anything to counteract torque? Are you saying there was a gearbox between crankshaft and prop that reversed the drive direction?
It absolutely doesn't. That's complete nonsense. Some Griffons had twin coaxial contra-rotating propellers, that arrangement *did* counteract torque effects. Maybe the narrator got got confused by that. But you're right, simply changing a single prop to turn the other way doesn't counteract torque at all, it just makes it act in the opposite direction.
You left out the postwar history of the Griffon the Avro Shackleton.
Finally! 🙂
ironically, the early Allison V-1710 could produce 1800HP at 70" MAP, and later engines were putting out 2200HP at 70" towards the end of the war. and was lighter and smaller than the Griffon and Merlin. the engine was only officially approved for 56", but everyone was flying them at 70-75" throughout the war and Allison verified this performance and that the engine Could be operated continuously at this power setting.
What the engines produced in reality in combat by the thousands matters more than a few test articles and official statistics that artificially limited its capability.
I've read that the Allison also had roughly half the parts count. A local V12 mech hated Merlins (I know this is about Griffons) and swore by Allisons. He was maintaining 3 of the repro Yak3/9s, which subsituted Allisons for the unavailable Klimovs. The Allison was a very good engine. It's 'shortcomings' were imposed by the governement, who was bent on trubocharging and saw mechanical development a waste of funding. Graham White's book says the add-on mechanical that came later was not efficient. It was also more bulky. There was a late, turbo-compounded development engine that made about 3000HP. To me, two things stand out: the engine had the highest piston speed for the time while still being reliable, and race Merlins use Allison connecting rods.
@@busterdee8228 Yes, I also met a modern warbird mechanic my age who used to work for RR in England on Merlins, and then helped restore the P-82 and now works on Allisons, and he told me tons of things only a mechanic would know that are not in any books, and he disliked the Merlin and loved the Allison.
Allison was 300lb lighter than the Merlin, smaller (smaller frontal profile, meaning lower drag and more aerodynamic), thousands fewer parts, easier to work on, Post-WW2 live fire tests proved the Allison more damage resistant to .30cal, .50cal, and 20mm than the Merlin. And the Allison was more fuel efficient too.
The US gov withdrew funding to develop the Allison's High-Altitude 2-Stage Supercharger, and thus NAA switched to the Merlin for the XP-51B.
Also, Allison was let down by a faulty carburetor. Which is frustrating because carburetors can be swapped out and plenty of companies built perfectly good carburetors.
@@SoloRenegade Fascinating. As an old mech myself, that conversation would have made me pinch myself. Merlins were a study in 'push them 'til they break, then redesign that' engineering. I love them, but I refuse to deny Allisons an equal spot on the hill. Thanks.
I would love to know how Aichi was able to eventually get 1700hp out of the Atsuta (DB601a) which is what DB was getting out of the 603 a much larger displacement motor. Did Aichi out engineer DB with their own system?
radial engines like the R2800 went on to serve post war as mainstays of commercial planes like the DC6. Why weren’t “inline” engines like Merlin and griffon more used commercially? Is there something more inherently more reliable about radials?
cubic inches? You couldn´t take the trouble to tell the REST of the world in liters?
61.024 cubic inches per liter.
Superficial commentary, not very technical. Napier Sabre was actually the last word!!
Surprised that RR didn't learn from the full fuel injection from the Germans, and have FI with Griffen from the outset. We're they also fitted to Lancaster and the Mosquito?
They experimented with direct injection long before the war and concluded it resulted in a poor fuel/air mixture. Which is why they never adopted it.
The Griffon
was a mythical flying dragon 0:06
And now it's a combat jet.
Kind full circle, 50 years after the Griffon powered one of the finest piston engine fighters it gave the name to one of the finest pre stealth fighters.
Why does the Griffon sound so much different than the
the Merlin? They are both 60deg V12's. The Merlin sings while the Griff snarls, you can almost hear each individual cyl fire. Firing order? The fact it rotates in the opposite direction? I would sure like to know.
Per Graham White, firing order was different, and the the cam profiles were very different. In most mature form: Merlin had 70-deg overlap, 288 degress of duration to Griffon's 28-deg overlap and 248 degrees of duration. Basically, Merlins use 'race cams.'
"Advancement" => "Advance"
Was the Griffin more reliable than the Sabre. I know the Sabre was a dog in the early days of the Typhoon, but maybe the bugs were sorted out by the time the Firefly was in production.
Starts at 3:00
Surely the Napier Sabre was a higher power output and higher HP/Cu.in than the Griffon and by quite a margin, about 40%.
Cubic inches?
A good big un is always better than a good little un.
And it lived on in hydroplane racing, as "Miss Budweiser" attests. 😂
The last word in Rhodesian is Ian.
In the naval context, the reverse rotation was WORSE.
It tended to force the aircraft toward aircraft carrier superstructure, do get it right.
It was two props rotating in opposite directions. Do get it right.
@annoyingbstard9407 he commented that because it rotated the opposite to the Merlin it improved the torque response.
Please include metric measurements 🙏🙏
I'm assuming that if the crankshaft rotated "the other way", the airscrew reduction gear was set up to have the prop rotating "the normal way", so the undesired torque effects cancelled each other to some degree? I've always been fascinated by anything with contra-rotating props too, amazing engineering.
YOu can't cancel torque by the internal workings of a gear reduction any more than you can reach down, grab hold of you boot straps and lift yourself off the ground. It's the same principle. The internal forces are irrelevant.
Americans and their obsession with cubic inches! Capacity of the Griffon was 37 litres, compared the the Merlin's 27 litres.
You stated many times it was revolutionary. But why? Did not heard any specific technical reason for this, maybe the nitrid coating. And what about the direction of rotation? Way unclear. And more difficult handling with counter rotating props (about 9 min.)? Don't think so. Not mentioned the venerable Schackleton at the applications section. So there are some serious holes in the vid.😢
I'm pretty skeptical that nitrided steel components were a *revolutionary* advance for WWII aircraft engines.
I may be in the minority, but I think the Griffon engined Spits look even better.
What’s with the cubic inches?
US uses it. The rest of you can convert yourself.....🤣
@
We can just look it up they were never specked in cubic inches, he did the conversion for you, he knows how lazy and triggered you’ll get 🤣
Bit inaccurate, mb5 was a prototype only.
The turbocharged Pratt R2800 in the P-47 was NO slouch.
Normanx and it severed the whole war in the P47 F4U and F6F, A26, B26, and others !!!
It certainly wasn’t a slouch, but it wasn’t the most powerful or efficient engine either.
Good video but I got increasingly irritated by the repetition. If it’s a leap in design or a result of new demands then that doesn’t need to be said over and over again.
Thanks Tim. I overlooked that in the script.
Someone is assuming we all know what F A A is😊
Holy repetition; did AI write this?
nothing pertinent to add.
merely feeding the maw of the algo-deities of the tube'y'all.
Is it a Griffin or a Griffon?
Yes!
This video is a fluff piece, full of hyperbole and inaccuracies. There were many revolutionary power plants developed during the war, most of which never saw mass production. This engine was not one of them. It was an enlarged, improved, refined development of the Merlin.
The Griffon was simply too little too late, with only 8100 being made and only 1700 $hitfires got them !!!! Also the Early Griffons were a single stage supercharged version only later versions were the 2 stage 2 speed. you cannot paint all Griffon like the Merlin with the same brush. NOT all engines were 2 stage 2 speeds that people seem to ASS U ME they are!!!!
In defense of the "$hitfires,' the P-51H was only outwardly a Mustang, but internally borrowed heavily from the Spit's sturctural concept. The 'standard' P-51 has thick skins and less 'framing' (and I assume has much to do with so many surviving). The P-51/P-51A might have been the Spit's equal in ease of flying. The later marks were more skiddish (literally). I imagine the civil marks, stripped of 'angry bits' and the fuselage tank relegated to passenger, is more friendly. If I read you correctly, the Griffon's mojo is mostly toughness and making moderate power for its size. The Merlin had so much horse that the hair had no place to go. Give me a Griffon with a Merlin's cam profile, and my smile will grow until my face falls off.
Video keeps saying the same things over and over. Edit.
Generally OK but a bit repetitive.
You repeated yourself multiple times. Video could be 3 minutes shorter cutting that out. This one didn't flow so well. Sorry, just being honest.
When Britain built its own planes and engines. When Britian was a string country and not a woke hellhole like today
Amen brother.......
FW 190 was not flying in1939
Yes it was 1 June 1939
the next bigger engine, the xp-47 v-16 VERY FIRST HEMI six built one scattered never brought to production the jet was coming😂😂
It wasn't the first Hemi by any stretch of the imagination. Hemispherical combustion chambers have been around since at least 1901
The Griffon Sputfire was in NO WAY superior to German fighters..the K4 was more than a match and was significantly faster
Calm down Adolf, you're wrong. The MkXIV Spit could reach 446mph at 25,400ft. Quicker than even the Me-109 K4, which topped out at 440mph at 24,000ft.
The Griffon engine gave the $hitfire more speed at the expense of handling !!!!
@JohnyG29 nope the Bf109 K4 topped out at 476mph and 32,650 foot. And it was a rocket up to that height. Plus this is on 87 octane.
The griffin could barely function on 150 octane and British supercharger development was seriously infantile...wtf puts straight blades on the impeller.
The K14 was the FIRST AIRCRAFT TO HIT 500MPH AND THAT WAS IN A CLIMB
@JohnyG29 K4 was apart from the Ta152H1 and Bv155 the highest flying fighter of WW2...
@wilburfinnigan2142 nope... the spitfire was still slower than the k4 which had a 26 to 30mph advantage while flying over 9,000 feet higher