de Havilland Gyron Junior

Gyron Junior
de Havilland Gyron Junior at the de Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre
Type Turbojet
Manufacturer de Havilland Engine Company
First run August 1955[1]
Major applications Blackburn Buccaneer
Bristol 188
Number built 89
Developed from de Havilland Gyron

The de Havilland Gyron Junior was a military turbojet engine design of the 1950s developed by the de Havilland Engine Company and later produced by Bristol Siddeley. The Gyron Junior was a scaled-down derivative of the de Havilland Gyron.

Design and development

The Gyron Junior was a two-fifths flow scale version of the existing Gyron engine. It started as Project Study number 43 in 1954 and the first prototype ran in August 1955.[2]

It powered the Blackburn Buccaneer S.1 twin-engined Naval strike aircraft. The engine was rather unreliable and considered short of thrust.[3] The later Buccaneer S.2 used the more powerful Rolls-Royce Spey engine.

The engine had variable inlet guide vanes, as used on many other engines, necessary for accelerating from idle to high thrust. However, on the Gyron Junior, positioning of the vanes was not reliable and could cause surging which , in turn, could prevent accelerating to higher thrust levels.[3] A possibly unique feature on this engine was valve-controlled cooling air to the turbine blades. The engine had to supply air for the aircraft's boundary layer control system and the resulting thrust loss was unacceptable. To regain the thrust the turbine temperature limit was raised by using turbine blade cooling, selected only with blowing on.[4]

In December 1970 a Buccaneer was lost after one engine surged and failed to accelerate on an overshoot and a week later another aircraft was lost after an uncontained engine failure. This last accident brought Gyron Junior flying to a halt forever.[3]

Two Gyron Juniors, with afterburners, were also used on the Bristol 188 Mach 2 supersonic research aircraft. The 188 was originally intended to have the Rolls-Royce Avon but the Gyron Junior was substituted in June 1957.[5] The program was terminated early without achieving the high-speed high-temperature trials that had been intended. Limitations included poor fuel consumption of the Gyron Junior and engine surging. Fuel limitations restricted the time spent at its maximum speed, Mach 1.95, to a few minutes. This was not long enough to achieve the required stabilized temperatures in "thermal soaking" tests.

Variants

Ref:[1]

Gyron Junior DGJ.1
(or P.S.43)
Gyron Junior DGJ.2
(Mk.101)
Interim production stage, used on Buccaneer S. Mk.1.[6] Variable inlet and guide vane, annular manifold for flap blowing, 121 in (3.1 m) long overall
Gyron Junior DGJ.10
[6]
Exhibited in 1958 at Farnborough, longer than the DJG.1[7]
Gyron Junior DGJ.10R
(or P.S.50)
highly augmented afterburning version for the Bristol 188, dry thrust 10,000 lb, wet thrust 14,000 lb (62.3 kN). Added zero stage and two rows of variable stators. Variable nozzle with convergent, convergent/parallel or convergent/divergent configuration depending on reheat selection and aircraft speed. Overall length 191 in (4.9 m)[8]
Gyron Junior DGJ.20
[6]

Applications

40 aircraft built[9]
Only 2 built
Testing only, 1 production FAW Mk.1 modified[10]
Intended application, not built

Engines on display

A de Havilland Gyron Junior is on display at the de Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre, London Colney, Hertfordshire.

A D.H Gyron Junior is on public display at East Midlands Aeropark.

Also on display at the Gatwick Aviation Museum, Charlwood, Surrey, two running engines can also be found here, fitted to Buccaneer S.1, XN923.[11]

Specifications (Gyron Junior DGJ.10)

Data from Gunston.[1] Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1962-63[6]

General characteristics

Components

Performance

See also

Related development
Comparable engines
Related lists

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gunston, Bill (1989). World Encyclopaedia of Aero Engines. Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens. p. 52. ISBN 1-85260-163-9.
  2. Flight "Aeroengines 1960"
  3. 1 2 3 "A Passion For Flying"Tom Eeles, Pen & Sword Books Ltd. 2008, ISBN 978 1 84415 688 7, p.42
  4. "From Spitfire To Eurofighter" Roy Boot, Airlife Publishing Ltd. Shrewsbury< ISBN 1 85310 093 5, p.133
  5. https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1962/1962%20-%200700.html
  6. 1 2 3 4 Taylor, John W.R. FRHistS. ARAeS (1962). Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1962-63. London: Sampson, Low, Marston & Co Ltd.
  7. "A New Gyron Junior" (PDF), Flight, August 1958
  8. "Aeroengines 1960", Flight, 18 March 1960
  9. Jackson, A.J. (1968). Blackburn Aircraft since 1909. London: Putnam Publishing. p. 494. ISBN 0-370-00053-6.
  10. James, Derek N. (1971). Gloster Aircraft since 1917. London: Putnam Publishing. pp. 322, 326, 370. ISBN 0-370-00084-6.
  11. Gatwick Aviation Museum - Buccaneer S.1 Retrieved: 23 February 2012

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to De Havilland Gyron Junior.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, April 29, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.