" Why " ??? ------ Because It Is A Merlin !!

              Shot taken for Saturday Self Challenge 01/04/2023 ------
Accidental Letters . We did this a while back and I got quite carried away making a phrase - this time I thought to have one letter with a bit more impact , but what though ?? Jan said to look in the kitchen and I spotted the tea towel hanging on the wall of East Kirkby Aviation Museum and the Avro Lancaster with all it's propellers set to 10 to 2 and 6 o'clock making four of the letter " Y " . My wife has a dye cast model of a Lancaster  bomber on a cupboard top that measures just six inches long . The propellers on the model rotate so I set them all up and took some shots with the idea of cutting it out and setting it in an airfield scene with one of my many aerodrome shots -- didn't work because the "Y" was not obvious enough ! Therefore , it was a case of zooming in on just one of the Merlin engines as above . This meant my shot is very much a huge crop shot !  

Now as you know I often attach a tune or two to my challenge shots - not so this week as I have linked to one of my few short videos in the first comment box and this one is of " Just Jane " and her four Merlin engines being fired up !! So wind up the volume to eleven hear the Merlins sing one by one ( and engine number four - watch out that magic moment of it spitting fire as they do ) .

The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a British liquid-cooled V-12 piston aero engine of 27-litres (1,650 cu in) capacity. Rolls-Royce designed the engine and first ran it in 1933 as a private venture. Initially known as the PV-12, it was later called Merlin following the company convention of naming its four-stroke piston aero engines after birds of prey.

After several modifications, the first production variants of the PV-12 were completed in 1936. The first operational aircraft to enter service using the Merlin were the Fairey Battle, Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. The Merlin remains most closely associated with the Spitfire and Hurricane, although the majority of the production run was for the four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bomber. A series of rapidly-applied developments, brought about by wartime needs, markedly improved the engine's performance and durability. Starting at 1,000 horsepower (750 kW) for the first production models, most late war versions produced just under 1,800 horsepower (1,300 kW), and the very latest version as used in the de Havilland Hornet over 2,000 horsepower (1,500 kW).

One of the most successful aircraft engines of the World War II era, some 50 versions of the Merlin were built by Rolls-Royce in Derby, Crewe and Glasgow, as well as by Ford of Britain at their Trafford Park factory, near Manchester. A de-rated version was also the basis of the Rolls-Royce/Rover Meteor tank engine. Post-war, the Merlin was largely superseded by the Rolls-Royce Griffon for military use, with most Merlin variants being designed and built for airliners and military transport aircraft.

The Packard V-1650 was a version of the Merlin built in the United States. Production ceased in 1950 after a total of almost 150,000 engines had been delivered. Merlin engines remain in Royal Air Force service today with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, and power many restored aircraft in private ownership worldwide.

Taken on: March 29, 2023

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Camera: Canon EOS 550D, f/18.0, 0.3 sec, 35mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 550D
Aperture:	f/18.0
Exposure Time:	0.3
Focal Length:	35mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	+4/3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
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