Originally Posted by
DHfan
You really don't like the Sabre or the Centaurus do you? You refer to them both as engineering madness at every opportunity.
They both became very successful engines with the Sabre remaining in service until the early 50s and the Centaurus until the late 60s.
Correct - I think it is a bit of a stretch to call the Sabre 'very successful' - they were always 'touchy' and well 'brittle'- maintenance heavy engines and had to be handled with great care by Air and Ground Crew alike as Pobjoy has alluded to already - you only need to look at a cutaway drawing of all the hundreds of gears etc
.
As I posted above - probably the only reason they survived into the 50's was a ready supply of spare/new engines in 'stores' - '' here Bert this here sabre sounds like a bag of nails - thats ok Alf we will just demand another one from stores - theres plenty left''.
regards LR