Considered a British icon, the Merlin was one of the most successful aircraft engines of the World War II era, and many variants were built by Rolls-Royce in Derby, Crewe and Glasgow,as well as by Ford of Britain at their Trafford Park factory, near Manchester. The Packard V-1650 was a version of the Merlin built in the United States. Production ceased in 1950 after a total of almost 150,000 engines had been delivered, the later variants being used for airliners and military transport aircraft.
The PV-12 first ran in 1933 and, after several modifications, the first production variants were built in 1936. The first operational aircraft to enter service using the Merlin were the Fairey Battle, Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. More Merlins were made for the four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bomber than for any other aircraft; however, the engine is most closely associated with the Spitfire, starting with the Spitfire's maiden flight in 1936. A series of rapidly applied developments, brought about by wartime needs, markedly improved the engine's performance and durability.
Many ascribe the victory during the Battle of Britain to the Merlin powered Royal Air Force (RAF). And later its use in the American P-51 Mustang.
RR-58
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My Mother was trained by RR and worked on the Merlin project in Hillington While there she met my Father , he working in the experimental department On the jet engines. My Brother arrived in 41 then me in 1942. I had no idea of the scale of the Glasgow plant until I watched this video. RIP Mum and Dad.
Thanks for sharing your family's story.
I served my apprenticeship at RR Derby as a sheetmetal worker, 1968 to 1973. In my last year as a 19 year old I was sent to do a repair on the RR spitfire, which then had a Griffin engine and 5 blade prop. When I got to the hanger I found i only had to replace 3 countersunk rivets in a wing panel. Job done and signed off I was on cloud nine, It was such a privilege to be even asked to touch the thing let alone contribute to its up-keep. Keep them flying forever.
Thanks for sharing your story.
And to think that these achievements came about in an era when there where simply no PCs, no laptops, no tablets, no CAD; not even mobile phones. ...Only superior logistics and management, hard work and dedication. The genius of it all.
Querencias7 nowadays britainstan is in decline
And slide rules - remember them?
Within the last several years, there has been a huge rise in people not being able to use "where" and "were". WTF? Please educate me on why this is so hard for people to figure out. "W *h* ere W *e* re you?" Just... wow. : /
Querencias7 the irony is less than two generations down the road our automotive industry self -destruted at the hands of bad management and union stupidity! Every thing belongs to the Germans and the Japanese yet we supposedly won the war?
It's amazing to think that all this was done including the space program and putting a man on the moon ... with just a slide rule
I served as an apprentice with the likes of these engineers and have always considered myself lucky to have learned from them. most of them in their late fifties and early sixties when I was just 16. The RR Merlin truly is a masterpiece, and let's not forget the mighty Gardner diesel engine company, also great engines of the time. I'm retired now and most of the engineering factories are either housing estates or shopping centers, quite sad really.
Just saw my grandmother! She was a "tracer" at Hillington - duplicating master drawings. We still have her drawing pens.
How great. Thanks for sharing.
I'll give you 20. U.S Dollars for her pens!
Jay Muzquiz not everything can be bought
@@jaymuzquiz2942 If that's a joke its in bad taste, if its not, you are in bad taste
@@sfbfriend I'm F@cking low life scum bag! Anyways what did I say?
The narrator is literally the most British guy I have ever heard and I absolutely love it.
FallenTemplar No he is English. If he was British he may have a Scottish accent, or welsh. This narrator has a southern accent.
The Rolls-Royce Merlin engines were a engineering marvel of its day. This video shows as a society we can produce perfection. I loved the part about the for sight of the company to have a shop that repaired damaged engines so they could be brought back into service quickly. 3 Cheers Great Britain!
3:53 The castings on that engine are works of art.
British Brilliance. Respect from USA.. Glad you have been on our side last century.
CFITOMAHAWK2. No, the British and all the other allies had been at war for three years before the USA entered both WW1 and WW2. The USA was on the British side, not the other way around.
We're glad to have you as allies too!
Thank you Great Britain for your generous allowance of the use of the Merlin engine in US aircraft. I salute all of you living and dead.
+freakboynv2000 I would like to add, that Packard also made a marine version, used in the US PT boats, I seem to remember they used 3 per Boat.
+freakboynv2000 ,, 'commander dowding,,how many resherves have we? il n-y en-a- plus,monsieur le ministre,, , every sector is fully engaged,,,all are in the air, I, ,'be quiet,don;t tawlk to me, please,,,I am sho moved,,never in the course of human conflict has so much been owed by sho many to sho few, churchill said this to dowding at the height of the biggest luftwaffe attack since the start of the BOB, dowdings' pilots had done it,shortly after,hitler indefinitely put off the invasion seelowe. god bless the RAF AND BANKER BEAVERBROOK WHO SAW THAT INDUSTRY KEPT ON MAKING WEAPONS TO BEAT THE GERMAN ADVERSARY.
The packard marine v12 was a completely different engine. It shared nothing with the merlin design.
the p 51 mustang soaring
'Wentworth' standard dimensions! Shows how much you actually know.
Just watched this video while in lockdown and appreciated the diversion from the current world tragedies. How amazing were the people who designed and built the Merlin engine. It was a supreme effort by all those involved in the whole process.
I served for three years on the Centurion, before the Chiftain. Never encountered anyone who didn't like the Meteor engine. It was fantastic. Lovely to hear and the bottom end was so strong, the torque was immense. It was an honour and privilege to have served with such a wonderful engine, and I was only the gunner :)
I was a driver
Have you ever been in close proximity of one of those engines when it is running? You don't hear it, you FEEL it. It takes you over in a most incredibly empowering way. You sense it is inside you, imparting its strength to you. One of the most fantastic experiences of my life.
+Jack Sprat You're easily impressed. It's probably the noise from the propeller that you're feeling.
+MrShobar Having witnessed a dyno-test of a Merlin (no prop attached), I can vouch for the awesomeness of a Merlin at full-chat. Even through 6" of concrete & a quad glazed viewing window, the noise was chest shaking...
l sat in a cessna 150 on the centre line, waiting till a Spitfire did a low pass. Actually it was better described as a beat up. His prop was less than a foot from the tarmac and his wingtip was a few feet from mine. And it must have been going 250mph at least!
A Scania 14 ltr v8 is better
I have been in the test bed when they were running
the 225 dislikes were all by former Luftwaffe pilots.
Luftwaffe pilots knew about the Merlin and they respected it too much to dislike.
What a beautiful machine, I live in Eastbourne and every year we have the airshow, and every year we have the spitfire on display, when it first passes over I look to the faces of the elderly spectators... The look on thier faces says it all, they cry, they salute and it fills me with admiration and awe. I'm a complete petrol head myself and when your back is against the wall with war on the horizon you end up inventing this! My fascinating fact about the spitfire. During testing they were obviously trying to squeeze as much speed out of it as possible, at one time they had it up to 350mph during a dive, they tuned the engine within a mm of its life, but it still wasn't fast enough, they retired to the drawing board once again... Gentlemen with pencils and pipes in hand, someone had the idea of perhaps gaining more speed if they line up the rivits so thier more streamlined and in a row..but that meant changing everything on the production line just to see if it would work or not, they used split peas! They actually stuck split peas to simulate the rivit heads in a line... Then turned the exhausts towards the rear to gain a bit of thrust... And got an extra 20 mph!... Genius! I'll be there again this year, can't wait to hear that machine go overhead once more... Peace and love everyone ✌️
I always remember a conversation I had with an old former aviation mechanic of a fighter squadron during WWII. The way he spoke to me, the emotion he was still feeling talking about the Rolls-Royce Merlin. In his own words : "a master piece of watchmaking"
Thanks for sharing.
This machine is the pentacle of master-craftsmanship. I would of been proud to just change the oil!! The British Got it Right!! Such a wonder of engineering it is even displayed on church windows!!!
Agreed - my father was an RAF fitter and maintained the merlin engine and others - finally looking after the merlin engine of a MTB. - before being captured trying to make his way to Australia.
@Omni Duo Your testimony is really moving, how lucky you were to have someone like your father, who lived and served in the first person in his specialty of aviation mechanics. It would be necessary and fair that all the documentation he left you should not be lost, because of its enormous historical value for your descendants and for everyone.
Hats off to the Brits. Engineers second to none.
Gee you will draw the Crabs
Amazing documentary... a marvel of engineering, logistics, and truly dedicated average folks, both men and women, toiling away in the factories around the clock producing vast quantities of high precision extremely high quality engines to supply the war effort. It's even more amazing considering that each Merlin had a whopping 11,000 parts! What a testament to the design and durability that many 70+ year old RR Merlins are still flying today!
Think of the total ginormous number of war machines.. The waste of raw materials and life - why? Because there is always a mad man dictator and a willingness to try to live with such until it is not longer feasible. Recognizing the mad man early on would allow a defeat much cheaper in material and human life, but most politicians are appeasers not realistic until forced by circumstances. Since WWII we have seen this over and over and currently.
Most of the people that built these fine engines are gone now. They had a hand in defeating evil and they should be recognized for that. A very nice video, indeed.
When ever I see such an engine stripped right down. I can't for the life of me. .understsnd someone sat down one day and designed every single part. .on paper. .then created the same in metal. .and it came alive. .shows the jeanious of some people. .
I have an old DOS version of AutoCad and whereas I was trained to do Manual Draughting I can now keep or print as many copies as I like and recall any drawing quite quickly. Even my Sheet Metal Bender Brake was made from ideas and experimentation. Imagine the amount of Drawings required for a Diesel Engine.
The golden age of mechanics: no workstation, no Autocad. Pure engeneering.
Nothing but a Slide ruler and maybe a mechanical calculator.
"The initial Packard modifications were done on this engine by changing the main bearings from a copper lead alloy to a silver lead combination and featured indium plating. This had been developed by General Motors' Pontiac Division to prevent corrosion which was possible with lubricating oils that were used at that time. The bearing coating also improved break-in and load carrying ability of the surface. British engineering staff assigned to Packard were astonished at the suggestion but after tear down inspections on rigidly tested engines were convinced the new design offered a decided improvement." Has ! Not secure warning Packard Merlin Aircraft Engine - Combat Air Museum on line
I believe they also fixed the leaks and simplified the construction.
Not mentioned in my Haynes Rolls Royce Merlin Owners workshop Manual 109 mods 20 Packard not one about main bearings AND NOTHING IN THE OTHER SECTIONS OF IT EITHER Mod number please Nick
@@jacktattis Come on Jack pull your head out of your @$$ and accept the Fact Packard knew how to build engines, having built them as long as RR, You do know the Liberty V12 of WWI fame that the Brits used and license built as the Nufield tank engine clear into WWII was designd by Vincent of Packard. Brits also used thousands of the Packard M2500 PT Boat engines in their MTB's MGB's and air sea rescue boats it was that engine and its quality that brought RR to Packard for Merlin const. They were impressed by the build quality !! !
I was sat in my garden the other day when a noise came from a distance. Gradually getting louder and louder I looked up and saw a Spitfire. The noise of the wonderful Merlin engine was like nothing else and it really made my day. Thanks to everyone involved in the design and manufacture. We owe you more than we can say.
My uncle was taken into the Glasgow (Hillington) factory at the outbreak of the war and stayed with Rolls Royce until he retired. He rose to the role of shift superintendent. I have memories of him taking me into work on a Sunday and of the apprentices (who he was responsible for) fixing various things has been broken in our family - including a boat engine of my father's which had gotten submerged in salt water and had to be totally rebuilt.
Rolls Royce made a great engine. What is not said is how Packard greatly improved the design and manufacturing method, all of which RR adopted.
@18tangles First change they made was changing form copper lead main bearings to lead silver with indium coating. This reduced break in time and IMPROVED longevity and load capability. That was just the first improvement. Rolls was in collaboration with Packard and they adopted each others refinements.
British Ford improved it as well and gave Rolls-Royce the definitive engineering drawings of their own engine. When RR sent a set of drawings to Packard the archive filled an entire shipping container. Like Ford, Packard had to take an engine apart, measure everything, average out the discrepancies, and then create usable production drawings.
@@tomjoseph1444 First change was to cast the head and block seperate as RR Had a special machine to machine the valve seats and guides in their intragal head block design, that special machine was not available and RR also changed their design !!!
sadly a whole chapter is missing of the skilled patternmakers who made such complex castings possible
Designing the Merlin was amazing, designing and making the tools to make the engine is even more incredible.
I am now retired, having progressed from a toolmaker to tool designer and finally tool room manger, my old man worked at Crewe and Derby during and after WW2. He never ever shut up about 'Royces' (only Crewe called it that), to the consternation of my mother, he was I think, smitten with the company and particularly the Merlin. He once said that the company having been a major part of winning the Schneider Trophy, his reward was to be given the afternoon off! We were GB once.
When you really, REALLY understand the importance of winning air superiority, and recognize that the engines you have won't do it. Epic engineering and production story.
The Merlin was pure art.
One of the most memorable events in my life not counting the first flight after rebuilding was tuning the engine after dark so we could see the exhaust flame change as we adjusted the mixture. The manual actually prescribed this method and showed examples in colour, the throb of that Merlin was incredible. Vickers Spitfire Mk-XVI /E/ LF. TE-384
Mk XVI used Packard Merlins.
@@WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs All Merlin engines were Rolls Royce Merlin engines, Packard was well paid to make some of them which were copied from the Rolls Royce Merlin engine. Rolls Royce did all the development. The Spitfire Mk XVI was a Mk IX with the Packard copy.
Barrie Rodliffe The Americans referred to their engines as V-1650 usually with a dash number after it eg V1650-3 which was approximately a Merlin 61 rather than Merlins. They may have referred to the as Merlins colloquially. The Allison was a V-1710. The Americans changed much of the engine such as adding a Stromberg throttle body swash plate carburetor, ignition system and many of the parts as part of Packard’s mass production standardization effort. Packard “merlins” came back with better tolerances. They were not interchangeable and Spitfires and Lancaster with Packard Merlins got their own mark numbers. Spitfires Mk XVI were Spitfire IX with a Packard Merlin. Making an exact copy would have slowed Americans down. The Americans made a water injected Merlin V-1650-7 for the P51H that could use 110/150 fuel. RR never did that.
@@WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs The Packard copies were just that, nothing was changed. the Stromberg carburetor was a copy of the carburetor already used on Rolls Royce Merlin engines and given to Bendix Stromberg by Rolls Royce. Packard copied the mass produced Rolls Royce Merlin engine. Better tolerances is just a silly Myth. Rolls Royce made many more Merlin engines than Packard as well as al the Griffon engines and jet engines. How was Packard so slow. The P 51 H which had reliability problems and had the Packard copy of the Rolls Royce Merlin 130 engine which did work very well unlike the Packard copy.
@@barrierodliffe4155 - Packard made several changes to the Rolls-Royce Merlin when going into production in the US. First was a two-piece cylinder block like the Allison V-1710. It reduced costs by reducing the number of rejected castings and making machining easier. Rolls-Royce later adopted their own two-piece block and Packard adopted their design. They also adopted a two-piece connecting rod like the Allison's instead of RR's famously unreliable three-piece unit. Modern builders almost always use the stronger Allison-style rod when rebuilding Merlins today. It allows higher rpm's. Packard changed the main bearings to the GM/Allison type which RR later adopted in the UK. Packard also cut the crankshaft output quill spline to fit the Wright Cyclone supercharger. The Cyclone supercharger had been in production for years, was reliable, and available in one and two speed models with single or dual stages. Since the Wright unit was meant for the 30 liter Cyclone it had spare capacity for the 27 liter Merlin. They were also widely available from several manufacturers as Wright, Pratt & Whitney Canada, Lycoming, and Studebaker all had them in production. At that time RR had not yet adapted the French Marman two-speed supercharger design so the decision gave Packard easy options for future applications. RR later changed the output quill on their own engines to a stronger spline design. Rolls-Royce used a Skinner Union carburetor early in the war. SU was a subsidiary of RR. The Bendix Stromberg PD12 throttle body fuel injector, also called a "pressure carburetor," was an American part used by Allison in the V-1710 and by Wright and Pratt & Whitney in their radial engines since 1936. It was not a RR part. You have that totally backwards. Packard adopted the PD-12 from the start and never used SU carbs which would have had to be imported. RR adopted the Bendix PD-12 in 1943 after first trying "Miss Shilling's orifice" as a stopgap measure on their SU carburetors. They came out with their own version later. As for the tolerances "myth," both Packard and British Ford found Rolls-Royce's specifications impossible. Their practice was to build parts to a loose spec then match over/under spec parts during assembly. A piston that was at the high end of tolerance would be put in a cylinder that was on the high end of tolerance and so forth. Some parts would be hand-finished to make them fit. Cylinder bores were all hand-honed by an expert craftsman. This reduced reject parts but required a lot more hand finishing. Both Packard and Ford had the capacity to machine to tighter tolerances so that any part would fit in any engine. No better an expert than RR's own Stanley Hooker wrote in his biography, Not Much of an Engineer, "In my enthusiasm, I considered that Rolls-Royce designs were the ne plus ultra, until the Ford Motor Co. in Britain was invited to manufacture the Merlin in the early days of the War. A number of Ford engineers arrived in Derby, and spent some months examining and familiarizing themselves with the drawings and manufacturing methods. One day their Chief Engineer appeared in (Merlin development head Cyril Lovesey's) office, which I was then sharing, and said, 'You know, we can't make the Merlin to these drawings.' "I replied loftily, 'I suppose that is because the drawing tolerances are too difficult for you, and you can't achieve the accuracy.' "'On the contrary,' he replied, 'the tolerances are far too wide for us. We make motor cars far more accurately than this. Every part on our car engines has to be interchangeable with the same part on any other engine, and hence all parts have to be made with extreme accuracy, far closer than you use. That is the only way we can achieve mass production.'" Packard's experiences were similar: ""As Robert J. Neal writes in Master Motor Builders, documenting Packard engines: "This was but the beginning of a monumental task of redesigning an engine which was not originally designed for mass production so that it could be made by American mass-production methods, and so that it could be fitted with American fittings and accessories as mentioned above [for example, carburetors, fuel pumps, generators and so on] or British accessories and fittings, depending upon which government the engine was intended for." Neal also notes that "Rolls-Royce's drawings did not specify tolerances and fits, and Packard had to take parts from an existing engine and make measurements to determine these specifications as best as they could, using engineering judgement where necessary." Of the total of 168,068 Merlin variants built, Rolls-Royce built the most at 82,117 but needed three factories to do it (32,377 at Derby, 26,065 at Crewe, and 23,675 at Glasgow). Packard produced 55,523 in their Detroit Grand Boulevard plant. Ford of Britain built 30,428 at its Manchester factory. Ford boasts the RAF never rejected a single one of their engines. (Note: These numbers vary slightly depending on the source.)
when workers are well taken cared for = loyal honest and bhard working work force= high quality product...
Boy Lra dddlookafteryourworkforceandyourworkforcewilllookafteryou, onaweekwhen2000havegotobeletgo.
Yup that's the one.
Mind you it helps with focus if the alternative is getting blown up in your bed or being overrun by a foul dictator. We do owe these people a great debt even today after 80 years for keeping the dictator at bay. I am sure most of them would be thrilled to see our modern tools.
They built these factories in the middle of nowhere --- they had to build housing and related. They also worked 12hr days, 7 days a week. Having doctors on staff means you're not calling out, only a doctor can allow you to leave. How do you think a company doctor is going to treat you? Better have uncontrolled fluids from somewhere else you're getting to work. During wartime, production never stopped. If you want free housing and meals, you can still join the military, or go to prison. Both offer such.
Gribbo9999 Hilarious in retrospect. 3400 underage girls groomed by well tanned gentlemen and most of England’s people too fearful to say something or even notice, others blown up at Manchester Arena, feminist hating their own boys, soldiers decapitated in their own capital, cockneys extinct soon to be followed. A German Dictator didn’t do this. (He would have halted such things) . Britain did it to themselves. It’s wonderful of course according to vetted BBC and Guardian establishment journalists.
Engineering at its F I N E S T. And the effort to make it happen before and during the war. Very impressive indeed.
Staggering the amount of engineering that went into each of these engines. Each step.... explained in pretty good detail. They don't even mention that each of these processes needed to be perfected...... so even more steps in the design process.
That's why they went to Glasgow ship builders to build them. They knew the ship builders had seen and done it all before and had a track record of banging out top notch engineering on the spot. Nobody else was qualified its as simple as that. They already knew what brutal weather and steep angles did to engines due to boats being basically the most brutal regime that any piece of metal has had to deal with out in the North Sea. What's more interesting is how bad the Germans where at building engines compared to us. They couldn't even get their war birds to fuel correctly under heavy G.
I'm a mechanical engineer with a specialty in manufacturing: the people who designed and built these systems are among the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
And they did it with slide rules and a book of logarithms.
It's amazing that all those parts were designed and drawn by hand!
Back to the drawing board days. Everything is so simple.
Thank You Britain! American's in the know, Know this was one of the greatest engines.
KD8GIS Bruce this engine, manufactured under license, was put into the P51D Mustang, enabling it to be the most effective fighter plane of the war (kills racked up on missions). The Mustang airframe mated to this engine was the near perfect combo for propeller-driven fighter aircraft
@@TheSulross My father was a Mustang pilot.
Thanks mate! We couldn't have done it without our 'Yankee' cousins!
Quite so!
Of course, it’s a rolls
It wasn't just that Rolls-Royce was a great corporation and, make no mistake it was more than great. Legendary more like. It was the great people of Britain that with so much heart populated Rolls-Royce factories and, engineer rooms. They too as was true of Americans of the same Era Britain's greatest generation. Super high quality citizens. I thank them. Rolls-Royce too. You guys KICKED ASS.
The world would never know the depth of the struggle to stay free & not be invaded during WW11 & leading up to the war . This is a wonderful video that went to the heart of the matter of a nations national security & it's industry to assist in the fight to stay free .
Rolls Royce engineering at its very best.
Now sold of to the Germans
@@pbysome You are mixing up the car company with Rolls Royce Aero Engines. The latter, that built the Merlin etc, is a public company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. The car company was sold to BMW, but it never had anything to do with the Merlin.
What a phenomenal movie and effort from both men and women
all done with a slide rule , flay cap , pies and tea ,,, and a biscuit if you were lucky , just amazing , so good that these old information films live on , u tube should be awarded a medal for making these available to watch today
That core-making process with a man hand-pounding sand into molds is still done today. We had a whole setup in my high school (1970s) and i got to do exactly what the guy in the video is doing. We made castings of aluminum, sawed them, and turned the blanks into pulleys for projects. (like the belt sander I still own and use to this day)
Had the same class in 72. Maintenance &Repair. We only got to cast an Ashtray shaped like America.
It's amazing what man could accomplish without the aid of modern computers!
Oh they had computers, but they were people, the word computer was the name of a profession!
Ha! Very true. When I started work, my job title was "assistant computer"! I actually made it to "Chief Computer" before I left.
A good slide rule (my Dad had a two foot slide rule for his work in engineering) and intelligent use can do wonders as we saw in WWII. The Atomic age ushered in by slide rule. My career started with Dad's slide rule. I still have it. Also a small collection of rules.
I only hope people remember how to do things without computers, and pass it on.
tscooter Remember son the modern world was developed and built including the modern computer WITHOUT the computer !!!! When people had real intelligence and could think !!!
Oh, how I love the crackling sound of those magnificent Merlins as they rev down. I get to see and hear them mounted in P-51 Mustangs at AirVenture Oshkosh! They aren't just engineering, they're art.
....and history.
So true!
K4Fusion it was a sad day when the unlimited hydroplane races converted over from Merlin or Allison egines to turbine engines. I used to love the Thunderboats as they roared over the start line and the lake/river and even the GROUND shook. it's a thrill to hear one of the few remaining Merlin powered plane goes over, but somehow it was even more thrilling when all that power was in contact with water.
Those Merlin in the Mustangs were ALL Packard Built in the USA, NO British built merlin was used in a production merlin Mustang !!!
@@markdoldon8852 Problem is the Hydros used up a lot of those Merlins and Allison engines. There was one Allison, dual Turbocharged that ran for a couple years recently that gave the turbines one hell of a run for their money winning some heats, but it too has disappeared, there are a few vintage hydro still running for display only and easy today in 2023.
Back again.... the whole process is quite impressive even in this day and age !!
these men and women of classic engineering industry were highly skills in manufacturing and designing of engine. If they ever made a modern engine in this way. I'm pretty sure the engine of modern automotive will last long.
The entire point of the assembly line method is to be able to use unskilled labor to do the same operation day in and day out.
The image at 0.30 shows what we at RR called Marble Hall. It is through that entrance that I attended my interview to join RR. It had a stained glass window depicting the efforts of the Battle of Britain pilots.
This is what employment/manufacturing in Britain should be about today - central control, full employment and geared for excellence.,
That is how many manufacturers work. But during the war, with rapid increase in production the level of mistakes was far beyond what any modern manufacturer could sustain. In many ways the Merlins surviving as long as they did was a miracle.
@wolfen244 You are thinking central control of an economy not the manufacturing of an engine.
You can thank accountants and greed for selling the British engineering and manufacturing industries to China.
My wifes father worked on Merlin engines at the Crewe factory during the onset of world war 2 ,we have a photograph of him working ona Merlin engine NUmber cx698,he remained at Rolls Royce until he retired many of his colleagues will remember him as Tommo Tom Roberts ,foreman millwright.His father my grandad Tom Roberts also worked inthe factory ,a local war hero who was awarded theMilitary Medal for bravery in the first world war.All the family are very proud of my father and grandad.God bless their souls.Dougy booth son in law.Daughter Pauline booth.
i don't care about what any body say's,England has some of the greatest machine shop skill's that were ever had, i am glad that i am Canadian because we now have some of the best machinist's and fabricaters in the world, we just don't have the pay outs to match the skill's that's why so many of us go over seas where were needed.and the merlin is a pretty solid engine.
In Canada and in Britain during the war, a certain percentage of the "Mechanics" and aircraft / aircraft engine / aircraft part assembly personnel were in fact well trained and well educated mechanical engineers with an aeronautical extension who were "working in the Trade" as apprentices to obtain the practical knowledge required in their new profession as inspector/certifiers as well as efficiency experts and production managers . In a large number of cases these civilians already had a "Trades" ticket as a qualified mechanic and were advancing both their education and themselves into higher roles - something that the Professional Engineering associations of today have no knowledge of, or chose to ignore.. The British called these people "Aeronautical Ground Engineers", Canada termed them "Air Engineers".. They have been a crucial and frequently mis-understood element in aviation safety in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth nations since 1919. From 1948 onwards these people have been called "AMEs" and/or "Licensed AMEs". More info on "Ground Engineers" and "Air Engineers" can be found here : archive.org/search.php?query=Aeronautical%20Ground%20Engineers%27
The narration is amazing, clear and concise and explains the whole process clearly.
Very British and very proud. Thanks, Rolls-Royce.
Thank you for sharing this video with us
A fine piece of engineering. I think virtually every aircraft they stuck it on was a winner.
+soaringtractor You deleted all of your other replies. You missed this one.
Shit for brains tractor...'The Packard Merlin engine improved performance, but the single stage, two-speed supercharger still limited the effective ceiling to about 20,000 feet. The engine used was not the famous Merlin 60 series used in the P-51 and Spitfire MK IX with a two stage blower, but rather it was a variant of the earlier Merlin XX used by the Hawker Hurricane II and Spitfire MK V.
..S hi T must feel embarrassed for all the crap remarks he leaves when he is off his meds.... "Crap spilt in aisle 5...can we have a bucket and mop.."
@boris boris The Defiant actually was quite an effective night fighter.
@boris boris Even as a day fighter the defiant did ok at times often shooting down more than they lost, including Bf 109's, Do 17's and Ju 87's. During the Blitz the Defiant was responsible for more Luftwaffe aircraft than any other type of fighter.
Damn, respect to all workers
I am a huge fan of the Merlin engine,and a grateful American for the use of it in the war.
I’m glad they documented and recorded this process so well. You can tell even back then they knew what they were doing was going to be a significant part of history.
The Merlin and the P-51 a match made in heaven and delivered to hell.
I find this documentary quite outstanding in terms of information given. When you consider the relatively short time the internal combustion engine had been around, it's amazing. Just a thought, it must have been very noisy and no PPE !!!!
And plenty of smoking. Lol.
They had asbestos ear drums back then.
Wow ! Absolutely mind boggling . Hats off to every single person involved in the design , production and upkeep of that truly mighty piece of engineering.
I was proud to work for Rolls Royce for 7 years (2007-2014). As an Engineer it is the name you most want on your Resume/CV. It is like being a footballer and playing for the great football clubs of Europe! Their apprenticeship and graduate schemes are the best in the industry. It is my belief (if somewhat biased), that they are still the finest Engineering company in the world, and should never be sold or taken over by a foreign company.
My brother works at Arnold Engineering Development Center in the USA and he always enjoyed testing the Rolls Royce Trent Engines when they had a test program a year or so ago.. The Rolls Royce engineers always allowed testing the engines to complete failure.
Sorry, but BMW now own Rolls-Royce.
I've noticed "Poland" on a shoulder of one of the trainee pilots. Gave me a warm feeling.
pold poldecki. You should be proud too. Poland had the highest number of non Brits fighting in the Battle of Britain (145) and were formidable pilots. Thanks from a Brit.
Had a couple of their own squadrons attached to the RAF Pold.
The Polish 303 squadron was by far the most effective during the Battle of Britain. Dowding himself acknowledged that without them the outcome could have been different. Their loss/kill ratio was the best in the RAF and they fought like lions, downing 126 German aircraft, for the loss of 18.. We should be proud and happy that Poles came to the UK to fight and now come to work. They earned it, many times over.
Thank you for a wonderful historical lesson. The Merlin engine was a marvel for its time and served the allies well. Thank you R&R.
And Packard
@@WesB1972 Packard had little to do with it, they were well paid by Rolls Royce to copy the Merlin engine.
@@barrierodliffe4155 BULLSHIT !!!!! Packard was paid for the first 6,000 engines by the Brits, after that the rest of the 31,000+ were bought and paid for by the USA and provided via Lend Lease !!! "WE..." know the truth !!!
@@wilburfinnigan2142 WE know your truth. What you are trying to claim is that each Packard copy cost $ 21,667. or over 8 times the cost of each genuine Rolls Royce Merlin. I know USA was profiteering out of the war but that is really stupid.
@@barrierodliffe4155 - You have it backwards. Packard had to pay Rolls-Royce for each engine they made. After the war Rolls upped the license fee so high Packard chose to drop production rather than pay.
Great stuff! I got a kick out of it when they mentioned the plant in Crewe. I've actually been there, when I visited Bentley in 2009. Yes, that plant has been refit to build Bentleys. The engineer we were meeting with mentioned that it was one of the plants where Merlins were built during the war. There's something about visiting a place where history was made to make it real to you.
+Andy Harman I agree. There's a museum near there with a dedicated display for the Merlin and pilots that were lost during the War. Very moving.
+Andy Harman how come they made such good war engines and aircraft but they make such terrible (TEDDIBLE!) cars? They havent made anything you'd want to own since the Spitfire (CAR) who the hell owns an unreliable jaguar when you can just get a (dead reliable) Lexus?
+Andy Harman I used to visit the Crewe plant when I was an IT tech in the late 90's. It was really cool to see guys driving bare chassiss around the site!
+Robert Maybeth Rolls Royce making cars is like a mechanic trying to make a quilt- stick with what you know how to do the best. RR is an aircraft engine company.
+King Rose Archives It is kind of ironic, considering that a German company, the former builder of Hitler's People's Car, now owns the factory where RR Merlins were built.
Great engine!!!! Way ahead of the times! It made the Mustang P-51 the amazing plane to help win the war! God Bless our brothers on the other side of the pond!!!!
To "like" this film seems totally inadequate. I loved it.
Agree.
Me too!
Simply amazing!! Even to build the machines to build the machines was and is very impressive.
My father was at the airport called Halfpenny Green when it was bombed and quite a few killed. It's in the Battle of Britain film but called for some odd reason Halfpenny Green. He was wounded. He was first into a slit trench and 3 others piled on top of him. A piece of red hot bomb splinter landed in the trench. The other 3 wriggled it off them and it ended up on my dads bum. He got a medal for that and quite a nice scar. He spent most of his time in the RAF on Avro Ansons - 'The Flying Greenhouse'.
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We can argue for ever and a day, what's the best? Spitfires , mustangs f, wolves ,me109 .the thing that amazes me is the speed of , thought start of design manufacture the development and production . Modern times designers would still be scratching their arses and the war would have been over .
I built-rather overhauled-Packard Merlin's ex P51s (and some DC4M RR Merlin 622s) for almost 20 years, about 30 years ago. I miss it. What an engine hearing it on the test stand at 60" boost! Awesome. RRs were really a work of art, Packard's were more crude but only in the looks. A Packard V1650-9 with water/methanol injection was really a beast!
Jet Li The Packard V 1650-9 had problems which limited power, the Rolls Royce Merlin 130 was better.
jet Remember PACKARDS were war time products with an urgency to get em out !!! It was a war tool not a work of art !!! And dumb ass they got the job done !!! !
@@barrierodliffe4155 Hey dumb ass The 130 was a LATER version !!!!!
Love these old technology videos, ultimate respect for what was achieved with only determination and brain power.
I get chills every time I see the restored Lancaster flying over Toronto and I hear those 4 Merlins roar.
Julian Those are all PACKARD Merlins swinging Hamilton props !!!
Julian that Lancaster a Mk X is powered by 4 Packard built merlins !!!!
I think the sound of a Rolls-Royce Merlin is the most beautiful sound in the world. In unlimited hydroplanes they growl and Roar. It sounds alive.
Look at that crankshaft at 2:36. It must have two connecting rods per journal=12 cylinders. But look at the main bearing journals, there are 7 of them. Built to last!
@Robert Jensen 150 hours between overhauls when used in combat, some engines could not get close.
Rolls-Royce used a three-piece fork and blade connecting rod set (excluding fasteners). One rod was mounted to the crankshaft and the second on top of the first one through the fork in the first rod. There were problems with lubricating the outside bearing. Splash oiling was insufficient. Later they changed to the Allison-style connecting rod which has two separate connecting rods both mounted directly to the crankshaft, one inside the forks of the other. Early Merlins (as well as early Allisons) were prone to rod and crankshaft failures.
One of the the things the English did better than anyone else hands down.
I live across the road from rolls Royce in Derby nightingale Rd so proud
I was born on January 1st 1963, 100 years after Sir Henry Royce's year of birth!!! Merlin Engines!!! investigate Merlin's Cave, and Halls of Amenti.
6,000 drawings a day!!! How amazing!!!!
I was a draftsman for a summer at Westinghouse in KCMO in 1955. Fortunately the Navy offered me a scholarship to college to be an engineer. I was not a good draftsman, too little patience. Drafting in those days, just before the cadcam era, was exacting work. More power to the Brits of WWII.
Over 11,000 parts are in a Merlin engine....Just mind blowing to this day.!
It's mind boggling. I wonder how the staffing requirements would differ if that engine were to be developed in today's world vs. back then? Technology would have made a huge impact.
Check out my post.
Even the Germans thought 11,000 parts was too many...
"Technology" INCREASES the "manpower" required to produce "simple" machines like engines. "Robots" and "computers" and "CNC machine tools" take a hell of a lot more "manpower" to design, build, program, transport, install, provide with electricity and other "resources", maintain, service and put into "production" than a simple "manual" machine tool does. Only idiots who haven't set foot in a "factory" in their lives think otherwise. And there aren't 11,000 fucking parts in a Merlin unless it just grenaded and vaporized its "internals" they way MANY did.
++@@deeremeyer1749++ How nice to have the ultimate in expert opinions from you! KZhead would be a much better informed place if you were to bugger off for a while and leave it alone.
This is quite an impressive operation, and there are also some videos of the United States building a huge building to produce the big radial engines for the Big Bombers. They declared the war to be over right about the time the first engine was ready to install on a plane.
Such skill and not a computer or lap top in sight. This was real engineering.
Great film, the engineering of the late 30's & 40's was quite amazing.
Amazing, such a awesome generation.
During World WW2 the US Defence Department placed orders for an aero engine with similar specifications to the RR Merlin. Ford developed an aircraft engine similar to that of the Rolls-Royce Merlin. It was a 60 degree V-12 with aluminium block and head, dual overhead camshaft, and 4 valves per cylinder giving around 700 hp. The intention was for Ford to break into the large market for fighter engines. However, this engine never went into production as an aircraft engine, with the RR Merlin (now being made in the USA under licence in Detroit) being the water cooled engine of choice for the US air forces for high power and the Alison engine for low power. Ford concentrated on V-8s for vehicles.
John WRONG !!!! US NEVER put out a spec for the engine !!! Henry Ford designed and built the engine and OFFERED it inplace of the Merlin which he REFUSED to build for the Brits. BUT USAAF and the Navy were into radials and were not interested, it was cut to V8 and built 26,000 of them for the Sherman tank. Fords engine was turbocharced and put out close to 2,000HP just a FYI !!! The V8's put out close to 600HP !!!!
John Burns wrong !!! They cut the V12 to a V8 and as the Ford GAA engine of 1100 cu in it went into the sherman tank, later the V12 was used in some later larger tanks !!!
@@wilburfinnigan2142 Read Callum Douglas, _The Secret Horsepower Race._ The Ford plant in Manchester was taken by the Air Ministry for the Merlin. The Air Ministry did all the engineering. Ford, as in all shadow factories, only did the administration. Callum Douglas an F1 engine designer and WW2 engine historian, who spent 5 years researching his book in the UK, USA and Germany. He learnt technical German to research the German archives.
@@wilburfinnigan2142 F1 engine designer and WW2 plane engine historian Calum Douglas wrote in a post: _Claiming that Britain didn't mass produce engines properly because if they had, they would never have needed to ask Packard for help. Despite having made twice the number anyone else did (it took Packard 4 years to exceed RR annual Merlin production by the way, and_ *_all the Packard Merlin`s we used had to be modified by RR after they arrived in the UK,_* _because to allow Packard to work as they wished to, they agreed to let Packard make huge runs of exactly the same spec' engines, which were obsolete by the time they were finished and had to be modified by RR in Britain to the latest mod-spec individually after shipping)._
Now this one was well worth the time to watch.
Simply amazing. My deepest respect and fascination. A factory visit back in -39 would have been fantastic.
Especially for the German spies.
Did you see that machine used that came from Saginaw Michigan?
Yes machinery was imported from the USA. The U.K. was being bombed and a lot of replacement materiel was obviously required :-)
I believe it was Wickes Bros?
Also I believe a lot of machine tools were developed in the US anyway, would have been exported to the UK anyhow, though clearly RR made a fair few themselves.
Thank You for this. I just love these old movies that show the good old days, when things where made to last.
That was one of the Problems the Brits had in war time, they spent too much time hand polishing and building art when they needed to be cranking out war material...there was a war on and many engines/planes did not last very long anyway....PACKARD showed them how to crank them out....
Wilbur Finnigan I do not agree, i think that R&R built almost tree times more these engines than Packard. At least I read so on Wiki.
Aleksandar Funduk Go back and re read the post. Total Merlin production from all sources was about 150,000 total units...Packard built 55,523. and Ford of England built 33,000 that is 88,000 that RR did not build. RR only built less than half the total production. And RR started building them in the mid 1930's and ended production in 1950. 14/15 years Packard made engines for four year and Ford of England about the same time. The facts man just the facts.....
Wilbur Finnigan I guess by reading mr Finnigans answers to other people on this topic, he owned The Packard Motor Company earlier.
Aleksandar Funduk NOPE ! ! ! Just trying to set the Limeys straight...most do not know that Packard was contracted with to build the Merlin for the BRITS.. most find it hard to believe and accept....but facts over looked
What a massive undertaking this was, in every respect.
In case anyone wonders how quality and precision were achieved before computers..... Very impressive.
Ah! Rolls Royce merlins,the true sound of freedom. If one of these engines roaring past at full throttle and full boost,doesnt raise the hairs on your neck,then you are dead.
At the races in Reno it is so full filling to hear those and the Round engines. They have different music
Phantom unless they were close to 10,000 ft they were NOT at full boost !!! DUUUUUHHHHHHHH !!!!! Full boost kicked in about 10,000FT !!! Dumb ass
That's what we appreciate. A well considered polite reply. Twat.
real engine s built with the hands of real people and flown buy heros never forget
Pfft...all of those real people and so called heroes are war mongering brits.
@@chopchop7938 Says the moron with no brain.
Modern engines are still built by "real" people and flown by "real" heroes from all free nations.
Wonderful story and an excellent presentation. Good to know these historic details. One has to appreciate the dedication and intense adaptation of ingenuity that took place during this period and beyond.
Such an incredible documentary on this masterpiece of an engine. I would kill for an original set of drawings, or shoot one PAGE of an original Merlin drawing.
Test vehicle, Spitfire, naturally. What a great video.
This is great. It's even farther behind the scenes of WWII, the stuff they don't show you on the military channel. But it's just as important. It's amazing, those individual engine parts are in such horrible shape when they come out of the molds, but once those folks put the fine tune on them, they are military grade perfection. _Rolls-Royce Merlin grade perfection!_ This just goes to show you, patriotism goes a long way man. I raise a toast to all these fine folks who hugely contributed to V.E.Day!
+Blaze0357 it makes me proud to be british
+soaringtractor In other words, Why build a Rolls when a Chevy will do?
+soaringtractor Well I could say the US had a population of ? 200 million +, while we had a pop. of 50 million, we were also alone at that time, while the US sat back and watched. We paid for every item we bought, whether delivered or sunk in the Atlantic. You Take some fun about the Merlin, just remember, this engine was used to power the US PT boats, 3 per boat. You mock the UK, just remember one thing, how many US cities were bombed, how many US people died in air raids. how many UK people went back to work after they had been bombed out of their homes.
yes I agree,it was our war, but the US was so far behind in modern tech, it had to join in, I think you should check your history. Same as 1917, the US had to use allied equipment, planes etc.when the US landed in North Africa , we supplied them with UK 45 pounders., grow up and learn
Typical , your in a box, thinks the US rules the world, open the lid and get out, open your eyes, your country sucks, Much of the US pop lives in the 3rd world.. you and your country have caused what is going wrong in the world.
Never has a single engine been so responsible for victory as the Merlin.
What A movement of people and materials....just astouning