Most distinctive and charismatic engine sound?
 

The title says it all - which aircraft engine has a sound like no other, is instantly recognisable and has an interesting and varied repertoire of sounds like no other? I have one in mind and and I'll be impressed if I can be proven wrong.

RR Dart from memory.

Standing in front of an open intake Turmo IIIC4.

I can still hear it forty years later.

That drone of those four P&W radials on a B-17 going overhead is music to my ears (although I'd probably feel differently if I'd been at the receiving end of a mission).
The two P&W radials on the DC-3 also sound wonderful to me - there is a vintage DC-3 based at the Historic Flight museum at Paine field just a few miles from my house. It flies overhead occasionally during the nice weather months. Whenever I hear 'that sound' I rush outside to take a look at listen :ok:.

RR Tay620/650. You could always tell when the Fokkers arrived.

I think this thread deserves soundtracks:

And this one

Dart starting,

At the Brooklands Museum there's a bit of a Dart you can pretend to start, and it makes the memorable sound perfectly to my ears. Could play with it for ages.

I concur with the majority- there's no sound like the shriek of a Dart. At LBA in the 70s and early 80s, we didn't hear much else!

The sound of a Spey painfully groaning its way through the start process is almost as memorable.

Argus pulsejet in a V1 Doodlebug. Never heard one live (of course) but surely they were unique, including the enigmatic sound of silence during terminal phase ? UAV/UAS but nevertheless an aircraft.

I guess this is cheating but the first time I heard a Huey the sound of those rotors really sent a shiver down my spine.

F-104. It's a musical instrument! Or should I say, the J-79 in an F-104. The combination made a unique, never-to-be-forgotten sound. Or range of sounds.

RR Conway. BA 707's and the VC10'S?

The crackle of 4 of those engines getting airborne on a cold dry day, was something to behold.

Pratt & Whitney F135, the new kid on the block.

(Surprised no one has yet mentioned the RR Merlin)

B707 with JT4As does it for me.

Thanks, SLB. You've made an old man's old ears very happy. (6,000 hours sitting between two. Darts F27)

Merlin....’nuff said....

Merlin! Yep - that's the one for me .....

Surprised noone mentioned the Kuznetsov NK-12 ...

Avro Shackleton