Well this has got bugger all to do with Audi's but today at the transport festival were two blokes.......And, they both loved aero engines. Well one engine in particular to be honest.
So if you appreciate famous engines of any kind then read on.
This one...The Rolls Royce Merlin V12.
It lived in a Bristol Blenheim, with it's twin, and towards the end of the second world war a test pilot and two flight engineers took it up for testing. On trying to land the undercarriage somehow managed to get stuck and the trick at the time was to climb to maximum altitude and dive, trying to shake the undercarriage free with the vibration. At ten thousand feet they started to descend and eventually the undercarriage was freed but the aircraft had managed to get into such a severe dive that the pilot could not pull the aircraft back out of it. The pilot and both flight engineers died as the aircraft plunged into a disused canal.
The guy I spoke to today acquired the engine in it's crashed state, rebuilt it and now runs it at events in honour of the three airmen.
The noise when it was on half revs was absolutely awesome and when it runs at 3/4 revs it can be heard at up to 20kms away with flames spitting out of all 12 straight -through exhausts. The back draft was amazing with the guy crouching behind his control panel with goggles and ear defenders on!! An absolute work of art that made my day and I take my hat off to them.
Another pic showing the control panel and dimensions of this awesome engine.
