Viper | |
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Preserved Rolls-Royce Viper Turbojet | |
Type | Turbojet |
Manufacturer | Armstrong Siddeley Rolls-Royce Limited |
First run | April 1951 |
Major applications | BAC Jet Provost HS Dominie |
Developed from | AS Adder |
The Viper is a British turbojet engine developed and produced by Armstrong Siddeley and then by its successor companies Bristol Siddeley and Rolls-Royce Limited. It entered service in 1953 and remained in use with the Royal Air Force, powering its Dominie T1 navigation training aircraft until January 2011.[1]
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The design originally featured a seven-stage compressor based on their Adder engine — the Viper is in effect a large-scale Adder.
Like the similar J85 built in United States, the Viper was developed as an expendable engine for powering production versions of the Jindivik target drone,[2] but, again like the J85, the limited-life materials and total-loss oil systems were replaced with standard systems for use in manned aircraft.
Because it was initially developed as an expendable engine, the Viper was subject to many recurring maintenance issues. This led to the development of the first Power by the Hour program in which operators would pay a fixed hourly rate to Bristol Siddeley for the continual maintenance of the engines.[3]
Preserved Viper engines are on public display at the following museums:
Data from [4]
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