Rolls-Royce Dart


The Rolls-Royce RB.53 Dart is a turboprop engine designed and manufactured by Rolls-Royce Limited. First run in 1946, it powered the Vickers Viscount on its maiden flight in 1948. A flight on July 29 of that year, which carried 14 paying passengers between Northolt and Paris–Le Bourget Airport, in a Dart-powered Viscount was the first regularly scheduled airline flight by a turbine-powered aircraft. The Viscount became the first turboprop powered aircraft to enter airline service with British European Airways in 1950.
The Dart was still in production forty years later when the last Fokker F27 Friendships and Hawker Siddeley HS 748s were produced in 1987.
Following the company's convention for naming gas turbine engines after rivers, this turboprop engine design was named after the River Dart.

History

Designed in 1946 by a team led by Lionel Haworth, the Dart had a two-stage centrifugal compressor design derived from the earlier Rolls-Royce Clyde. The Dart was initially rated at 890 shp and first flew in October 1947 mounted to the nose of a converted Avro Lancaster. Improvements in the design boosted power output to 1,400 shp in the RDa.3, which went into production for the Viscount in 1952. The RDa.6 increased power to 1,600 shp and the RDa.7 to 1,800 shp by adding another compressor stage.
Later Darts were rated up to 3,245 ehp and remained in production until 1987, with approximately 7,100 produced, flying some 170 million hours.
The Dart was also produced under licence in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
Haworth and his team later went on to design and develop the larger and more powerful Rolls-Royce Tyne.

Variants

As well as the RB.53 designation each mark of Dart engine was allocated a Ministry of Supply "RDa.n" number as well as Mk.numbers.
;RDa.1: Initial prototype engines – 1,250 shp plus 300lb residual thrust
;RDa.2: Initial production engines
;RDa.3: estimated power – shaft power + residual thrust at 14,500 rpm
;RDa.6: estimated power – shaft power + residual thrust at 14,500 rpm
;RDa.7: estimated power – shaft power + residual thrust at 15,000 rpm
;RDa.7/1: estimated power – shaft power + residual thrust at 15,000 rpm
;RDa.7/2: estimated power – shaft power + residual thrust at 15,000 rpm
;RDa.7 Mk 21: estimated power - used for Bréguet 1050 Alizé
;RDa.7/2 Mk.529: estimated power – shaft power + residual thrust at 15,000 rpm
;RDa.10: estimated power – shaft power + residual thrust at 15,000 rpm
;RDa.10/1: estimated power – shaft power + residual thrust at 15,000 rpm
;RDa.10/1: estimated power at 15,000 rpm, with Water/Methanol injection for the Hawker-Siddeley HS.748MF Andover C Mk.1.
;RDa.11:
;Mk.506:
;Mk.510:
;Mk.511:
;Mk.512:
;Mk.514:
;Mk.520:
;Mk.525:
;Mk.526:
;Mk.527:
;Mk.528:
;Mk.529:
;Mk.530:
;Mk.531:
;Mk.551:
;Mk.552:
;Mk.540:
;Mk.541:
;Mk.542:

Applications

Largely associated with the very successful Vickers Viscount medium-range airliner, it powered a number of other European and Japanese designs of the 1950s and 60s and was also used to convert American-manufactured piston aircraft to turboprop power. The list includes:
Power output was around 1,500 hp in early versions, and close to twice that in later versions, such as those that powered the NAMC YS-11 airliner. Some versions of the engine were fitted with water methanol injection, which boosted power in hot and high altitude conditions.

Engines on display