Project Pye
By June 1939 Power Jets, (The company set up by Frank Whittle and partners), could barely afford to keep the lights on when yet another visit was made by Air Ministry personnel. This time Whittle was able to run the W.U. (Whittle Unit), at high power for 20 minutes without any difficulty. One of the members of the team was the Director of Scientific Research, David Randall Pye, who walked out of the demonstration utterly convinced of the importance of the project. The Ministry agreed to buy the W.U. and then loan it back to them, injecting cash, and placed an order for a flyable version of the engine.
By the 12th June 1943, the prototype Meteor airframe was already complete and took to the air. Production versions of the engine started rolling off the line in October, first known as the W.2B/23, then the RB.23 (for Rolls-Barnoldswick), and eventually became known as the Rolls-Royce Welland.
With the Air Ministry satisfied that their first jet fighter was now going to successfully become operational, Whittle was approached to see if his engine designs could be applied to bomber aircraft. Earlier, in 1940, Whittle had met with Stanley Hooker of Rolls-Royce, who in turn introduced Whittle to Rolls-Royce board member, Ernest Hives at a subsequent meeting. Hooker led the supercharger division at Rolls-Royce, which was naturally suited to jet engine work and it was this team that Whittle approached to see if it was feasible to produce an engine suited for bomber aircraft.
The AircraftIn the meantime, Roy Chadwick and his team of designers at Avro were tasked with designing a bomber aircraft for the new jet powerplants. With Lancaster production in full swing in mid 1944, it was logical that time and money could be saved by re-designing the current airframe very much as they did with the Manchester in 1940. By July 1944 design work had started on the fuselage modifications and a basic specification was formalized. The aircraft would rely on height and speed to evade enemy interceptors. With a crew of three, the pilot would sit in a fighter style cockpit fitted with a bubble canopy with the bombardier and navigator sitting side by side at their stations below and aft of the pilot. All would be sealed in a pressurized forward compartment, all defensive armament was removed to increase power to weight ratio`s and aiming the bomb/s would be done via an optical periscope device fitted under the nose of the aircraft. The main undercarriage was also modified so that it lifted straight up into the deepest recess of the main wing. One third of the tyre would be exposed to the slipstream, very much like the Boeing B-17`s and would be filled with the inert gas nitrogen.
Coincidentally, it was at a meeting with Avro in late June 1944 while discussing final details for his famous Grand Slam bomb, that Barnes Wallis was informed of the proposed jet bomber and soon enquired if he could attend the meeting between the project teams in London on the 14th August 1944.
It was during this meeting between Whittle, Rolls Royce, Avro and Wallis that the project acquired a name, Pye. This was Whittle`s idea to honour the man, who back in 1939, had convinced the Air Ministry to back the development of the W.U.
Avro had also given their design a name, although it was quite lacking from imagination, the Lancaster JPX. The JPX standing for Jet Propulsion eXperimental.
The BombWallis also had something to bring to the table. While the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs had not been designed to directly penetrate concrete roofs, he was aware during trials that they tended to detonate prematurely or break up. Nonetheless they were still far more effective than any existing bomb but Wallis had been working on a weapon that would penetrate hard targets and felt that this new aircraft could be the ideal delivery system. Named the Lancer, Wallis had based his design on a `Phillips Head and screw` theory as he put it. The head of the weapon was angled, almost like a Philips head screwdriver, while further down the body of the weapon grooves had been installed very much like a screw. One second after release, fourteen small fins would deploy turning the bomb and creating a stabilizing spin at a very high rate of rpm. The idea being, that once the weapon had achieved penetration of the target, it would act like a screw and bore through before detonating. That was the theory anyway. Weighing in at 25,000 lb it was by far the heaviest bomb yet conceived and a working model would be ready before the end of the year.
The EngineRolls-Royce had started to develop the RB.41 Nene centrifugal compressor turbojet engine and put this forward for the project. The Nene was essentially an enlarged version of the Rolls-Royce Derwent with the minimal changes needed to deliver 5,000 lbf, making it the most powerful engine of its era. The Nene was Rolls-Royce's third jet engine to enter production, designed and built in an astonishingly short five-month period in 1944, first running on 27th October 1944. It was named after the River Nene in keeping with the company's tradition of naming its jet engines after rivers.
EpilogueThe prototype Lancaster JPX took to the air on it`s maiden flight from RAF Ringway on the 5th January 1945. After a short flight of 25 minutes to check systems the aircraft landed safely with the test aircrew commenting on how well all had gone and the smoothness of the flight. Over the next two months the aircraft flew on a number of test flights culminating in it setting a new, if unofficial, altitude record of 61,258 feet. (This would not be beaten, officially, for another eight years). With both engines generating around 10,000 lbf, the maximum speed recorded was 389mph at 40,000 feet. Normal cruising speed at this altitude was put at around 330mph and while not as dynamic as hoped, this and the operating altitude made the JPX almost untouchable to the Luftwaffe`s fighters.
On the 9th test flight the aircraft was loaded with Wallis`s new Lancer bomb for the first time. Both aircraft and bomb had been given a `gloss` look to reduce any effects of drag. That afternoon the first test drop of the weapon took place from the rather `low` altitude of 30,000 feet. Only two words were noted on Wallis`s note book page, `it works`. A further three more test drops took place at higher altitudes, however the results of these drops cannot be found in official records other than a comment with regards to the performance drop off of about 50mph once fully loaded.
Like many British projects to come, Project Pye is the `unknown` first to be cancelled. With the war in Europe coming to a climax and word reaching the British government of a new US `super weapon` to be used in the Pacific against the Japanese shortly, budgets were now being looked at and attention to the war debt now seemed to take priority within Parliaments walls. Project Pye was cancelled on the 3rd May 1945.
All was not lost however, with Avro proceeding with the design, refining it and then flying the Avro 691 Lancastrian. Rolls Royce’s Nene engine went on to power the Hawker Sea Hawk and the Supermarine Attacker and infamously the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15. In the US it was built under license as the Pratt & Whitney J42, and it powered the Grumman F9F Panther. The only real casualty of the project was the Lancer bomb, which never saw action and was soon superseded by the Atomic era.
Hope you enjoyed.
