Originally Posted by
amplitude1000
I remember reading somewhere, more years ago than I care to remember, that the reason the Vickers Viscount had such long engine nacelles - longer than was strictly necessary to accommodate the Dart engines - was that the initial design called for four Alvis Leonides radial engines. At an advanced stage of prototype development, the Brabazon Committee decided that the Viscount should be the "go for broke" option, using all the latest technology - pressurisation and turboprop engines in particular - while the Airspeed Ambassador, a conservative design to the same specification using tried-and-true WW2 technology, would represent a fallback position. Rather than engage in a time-consuming redesign, the Vickers engineers simply lengthened the nacelles to preserve cg position.
Recently I've been searching the net for some confirmation of this account, but without success. Can anybody out there throw light on this?
I don't think there's any way the Viscount - even the initial 630 series - could have been satisfactorily powered by 4 Leonides.
Nor would the Leonides, if used, have required a particularly long nacelle - check out the Prince/Pembroke and Twin Pioneer installations.