Where sheep may safely graze?

[Keith Bennett]

At the NEC's Classic Vehicle Show last year I was talking to two Club members from Ireland who'd dropped by our stand. They were telling me how impressed they were with the A-series engine. "Why particularly? I asked.

"My brother and I were brought up on a remote farm in Southern Ireland," I was told, "and our parents were strictly religious folk who wouldn't let us go to the village to visit our friends on a Sunday. One dreary, wet day we came across an old A-series engine in the barn with nothing on it but its carburettor and oil filter. We wondered whether it would run..."

It seems the lads dragged the lump across the yard, hung it between two trees, fitted a can of petrol higher up in the branches, jammed the carburettor wide open and fired the engine up with a spare battery.

"Boy did that thing go!" they enthusiastically recalled. "Trouble was, with no silencer or indeed exhaust pipe, it was mighty loud." Their father, roused from his Sunday afternoon nap, stormed out of the kitchen to find out what the row was, at which point three things happened in quick succession.

"The engine, which had been shaking for a while, suddenly shed its fly-wheel which shot off across the meadow and through a flock of sheep. Didn't touch one of the darlings! We managed to stall the engine and placated dad. He made us untie the thing and put it back in the barn, then go hunting for the flywheel."

"Did you find it?" I asked.

"Sure we did," they replied. "We bolted it back onto the engine and the following week we sold it to a chap in the village who fitted it to his Minor 1000. Ran for years, it did!"

[Dave the rave]

Luv it ! !

[Mike Hodgson]

Reminds me of the incident on Filton runway---

The Vulcan was being used as a test bed for the Olympus 22R engine which was to power the TSR2. On December 3 1962, the engine was run to full power on maximum reheat when a Low Pressure turbine disc failed puncturing 2 fuel tanks and starting a fire which spread rapidly. The fire destroyed the Vulcan and a brand new fire engine that was close by. Luckily there were no serious injuries to the engineers or fire crew.

The heat was so intense that the fires were allowed to burn themselves out. The core of the disc continued across the airfield bouncing every 150 feet towards the parked prototype Bristol Type 188 (XF926). The disc eventually ran out of momentum just short of the parked aircraft

[Keith Bennett]

Ye gods. That probably explains why A40s were never fitted with Olympus 22R engines. At least the A-series one went on to live another day! Poor old Vulcan - I bet the engineer exited that cramped cockpit in double-quick time.

[Mike Hodgson]

The 2nd development TSR2 was only minutes away from maiden flight when the project was cancelled.The 22R also got the chop and the next of the Olympus line was the
Oly.593, powerplant for Concorde.