Talk:Rolls-Royce RB211

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3 spool designs[edit]

What is the advantage in terms of efficiency of the three spool design versus the two spool design which is used by everyone else 

See Rolls-Royce Trent
Answer also in a 1977 Flight advertisement here: [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.220.131 (talk) 09:51, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

RR 1971[edit]

I don't remember a large loan to RR from the US government - much more significantly I DO remember RR going bust and having to be nationalised (RR (1971) Ltd) by Mr Heath's Tory government - I have added. Linuxlad 14:34, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What is the source on the US government loan?

--IRelayer 18:53, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe there was a loan to RR from the US government. However, if the Brisish government was going to rescue RR and complete development of the RB211, the last thing it wanted was for Lockheed (which was not in a strong financial position) itself to fail as this would have killed the L-1011 project and with it the market for the RB211. So the British government insisted that the US government underwrite the bank loans that Lockheed needed to complete the L-1011 project (around £250million).--JCG33 19:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Some info in a 1971 Flight editorial on the receivership here: [2] - apparently airlines offered to pay an additional £80,000 per-engine on top of the original stated price to prevent the RB211's loss.
...and the rest of the article here; [3]— Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 12:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
At the time Lockheed was in deep financial crisis due to the US Government cancelling a large order for additional C-5s which Lockheed had calculated its profits/losses on in a fixed-price per-aircraft, contract. Lockheed could make a profit only if the USG bought the original number of C-5 aircraft agreed at the time of the contract. So Lockheed had a serious shortfall, and it was this that lead them to pass-on this shortfall to Rolls-Royce. Rolls-Royce had started development of the RB211 on a price agreed with Lockheed, again as a fixed-price deal. The development costs of the engine exceeded that at which RR had already agreed to sell the engines to Lockheed, and so they were eventually forced into receivership.
Both the Lockheed C-5 order and the RB211 development orders were fixed-price ones. This practice was later discontinued, for obvious reason, as neither company could rely on making money, due to buggering-about by the customer in Lockheed's case, and with RR agreeing to a financially unwise contract with Lockheed which resulted in RR being effectively bankrupted.
You can make a profit (or, more importantly, not make a loss), if the customer buys 200 aeroplanes at a fixed-price of say £1,000,000 each. You may make a loss however, if for the same agreed unit price per-aircraft, he now only wants 150 of them. That's why you don't agree to a fixed-price contract unless the customer also guarantees to buy the original number at the agreed unit-price. That's also why when developing a piece of engineering it pays to find out what one is asking of one's engineers, and at what cost, and 'a financial man', such as was the Chairman of RR at the time of the RB211 contract, really ought to have known this - [4] - he was the first Chairman in Rolls-Royce's history who hadn't been trained as an engineer, see. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 15:27, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notation[edit]

How is RB211 meant to be written? With or without the full stop (as in RB.211). Rolls-Royce don't use the . on their website.

I think it should be without the stop. As you say R-R themselves don't use it, neither does Peter Pugh in "The Magic of a Name: The Rolls-Royce Story". Also, the Wiki article on the RB199 doesn't have a stop. On that basis I've removed them from this article.--JCG33 22:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The "B" in RB211 is said to come from Barnoldswick in Lancashire in the area that was described as the "cradle of the modern jet engine". --jmb 22:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

the 'RB' designation originally stood for Rover Barnoldswick but Rolls-Royce kept the designation system after they took over Rover's jet engine factory at Barnoldswick, the name Rolls-Royce fortuitously starting with the same initial letter as Rover. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.68.219 (talk) 18:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unsnubbered?[edit]

"the E4 was the first engine to incorporate a wide chord, unsnubbered, fan to improve efficiency. "

Unsnubbered? Ummm, does anyone have an alternate word here? I tried to find a definition, but every one I found has to do with electronics. Maury 13:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A snubber is a damper used to prevent blade flutter. So presumably unsnubbered could be said to be undamped?--JCG33 21:00, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes: you could call it clapperless. 217.205.121.71 17:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

RR Derby = 'clapper'
RR Bristol (formerly BSEL) = 'snubber' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.228 (talk) 21:35, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Spellings[edit]

Someone (not sure who) has changed lots of words from UK English to US English spellings. The Manual of Style says that this should not be done unless there is a compelling reason to do so. What reason is there, particularly as the RB211 was a product produced by a British company? I vote we go back to UK English spellings. Any other views? --JCG33 22:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done--JCG33 21:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good on ya. Theres no real vote to be had, its a british company like you said, so you use the british spellings. Reedy Boy 21:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right too... bloody Americans think they own everything... if they had their way wikipedia would be full of US measurements too

Hey, hey be nice to us bloody Americans we are people too. I for one am trying to convert any specs I see to all the different forms. --Colputt 00:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sound[edit]

Not sure if it's exactly encyclopedic information but is there any room to throw in the distinctive sound the engine makes? Planes&mustangs510 (talk) 06:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's by virtue of the wide chord fan design, something to do with how the air meets the blades when they're at high RPMs - specifically the blade tips going supersonic. The Trents seem to make that noise at full power too, and the IAE V2500 The BR700s make a similar noise, although they're only diddy in comparison. You can have a listen to the noise here (spool up is from about 25s until 45s): [[5]] --Ckyliu (talk) 04:13, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sound from outside the aircraft here: [6] - starts spool-up from around 1:24 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 20:55, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

John Coplin (designer worked on RB211) video[edit]

There's a video of a Life Stories - an Oral History of British Science featuring John Coplin, a designer who worked on the RB211, on YouTube here: [7]. He gives his talk standing in front of an RB211-22B — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 17:35, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (January 2018)[edit]

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Chicken test[edit]

Is it true that the fan blades failed because the chicken had not been thawed out before the test? Grassynoel (talk) 05:14, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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