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The Rolls-Royce Griffon is a British 37-litre (2,240 cu in) capacity, 60-degree V-12, liquid-cooled aero engine designed and built by Rolls-Royce Limited. In keeping with company convention, the Griffon was named after a bird of prey , in this case the griffon vulture .
The first Griffon-powered Spitfires suffered from poor high altitude performance due to having only a single stage supercharged engine. By 1943, Rolls-Royce engineers had developed a new Griffon engine, the 61 series, with a two-stage supercharger. In the end it was a slightly modified engine, the 65 series, which was used in the Mk XIV.
The Rolls-Royce Merlin and Griffon engines [ edit ] A key factor which allowed the continued development of the Spitfire was the development of progressively more powerful and improved engines, starting with the Rolls-Royce Merlin and progressing to the bigger and more powerful Rolls-Royce Griffon .
A preserved Rolls-Royce Griffon 58, one of the last Rolls-Royce piston engines to be produced. The red and white "dumb bell" object to the left of the engine is an air raid siren exhibit Rolls-Royce produced a range of piston engine types for aircraft use in the first half of the 20th century.
The early Spitfire variants powered by the Rolls-Royce Griffon were adaptations of Mk Vc (early Mk XII) or Mark VIII (late Mk XII and Mk XIV) airframes. The later Griffon-engined Spitfire variants embodied new wings, tail units and undercarriages and were very different from any of the earlier Spitfire marks.
Supermarine Spitfire variants powered by early model Rolls-Royce Merlin engines mostly utilised single-speed, single-stage superchargers. The British Supermarine Spitfire was the only Allied fighter aircraft of the Second World War to fight in front line service from the beginnings of the conflict, in September 1939, through to the end in ...
A modified MB 3 with a Rolls-Royce Griffon engine, rather than the Napier Sabre of the MB 3, was planned as the MB 4, but a full redesign was chosen instead. [2] The redesigned aircraft, designated MB 5, used wings similar to the MB 3, but had an entirely new steel-tube fuselage.
Further delays were caused by the extensive wind tunnel testing that was needed and the change from a Rolls-Royce Merlin to the more powerful Rolls-Royce Griffon. Also, the design specification was changed in 1944 to a new requirement, S.14/44 (later S.14/44/2 [ 1 ] ) - the role of the aircraft being changed from ship-based reconnaissance and ...