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mreithaar · Joined: 08 Jan 2004 Posts: 2 Location: Langley, Washington

Graham,
I was going to post here and ask about this very topic, but you beat me to it with your Torque Meter editorial. A good freind of mine occasionally tells me how Packard totally re-designed the Merlin to have half as many parts and make twice as much power as the Rolls Royce version. This from a fellow who's father was a B17 and later Mustang pilot in WWII.
Thanks for helping to clear this up for us all. I will break the news to him gently!

P.S. Have you been to Rolls' small museum in their new training facility in Derby? I was there in 2001 for Trent 800 school, and at every break I was over there admiring the collection. One of the jewels in there is the piston they removed from the Schneider Cup racer the night before it won.

Max

gwhite · Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 58

Dear Max - yep, there are a lot of mis-conceptions out there. I'm not sure that I would try an convince your B-17/P-51 pilot acquiantence about what the real deal is - these folks are usually in total denial.

I visited the Derby Branch R-RHT museum about 5 years ago. Like all the Heritage Trust museums, it's a gold mine.