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Turbomeca Palouste

From PlaneSpottingWorld, for aviation fans everywhere

The Turbomeca Palouste is a French gas turbine engine, first run in 1952.[1] Designed purely as a compressed air generator, the Palouste was employed for helicopter rotor tip propulsion but was mainly used as a ground-based aircraft engine starter unit.

Design and development

Designed and built by Turbomeca, the Palouste was also built under license in Britain by Blackburn and Rolls-Royce. Originally conceived as an aircraft ground support equipment starter gas generator it was also used as propulsion for the Sud-Ouest Djinn and other tip jet powered helicopters.

The Palouste was a very simple unit, its primary purpose was to supply a high flow rate of compressed air to start larger jet engines such as the Rolls-Royce Spey as installed in the Blackburn Buccaneer (this aircraft had no on-board starting system).[2] Air from the centrifugal compressor was divided between external supply (known as bleed air) and its own combustion chamber.

Several British naval aircraft were adapted to carry a Palouste in a wing mounted pod installation to facilitate engine starting when away from base.[3]

A novel use of a surplus Palouste engine was its installation in a custom-built motorcycle known as the Boost Palouste. In 1986 this motorcycle broke an official ACU 1/4 mile speed record at 184 mph (296 kmh). The builder modified the engine to include a primitive afterburner device and noted that pitch changes due to braking or acceleration caused gyroscopic precession handling effects due to the rotating mass of the engine.[4]

Applications

Specifications (Blackburn Palouste)

Data from:Hobby Gas Turbines[5]and Flight[6] Template:Jetspecs

See also

Related development

Related lists

References

Notes

  1. Gunston 1989, p.170.
  2. Flightglobal archive - Flight, February 1962 Retrieved: 24 July 2009
  3. Flightglobal archive - Flight, March 1965 Retrieved: 24 July 2009
  4. The Boost Palouste - jet-pack.co.uk Retrieved: 24 July 2009
  5. Palouste/Artouste - Hobby Gas Turbines Retrieved: 24 July 2009
  6. Flightglobal archive - Flight, September 1953 Retrieved: 24 July 2009

Bibliography

  • Gunston, Bill. World Encyclopedia of Aero Engines. Cambridge, England. Patrick Stephens Limited, 1989. ISBN 1-85260-163-9

External links

Template:Turbomeca aeroengines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Turbomeca Palouste".