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55-685: The XB-55 concept was contained in a Request for Proposal (RFP) issued by the United States Air Force in October 1947, two months before the first flight of the XB-47 prototype. Several United States manufacturers responded to the RFP. Boeing was selected from among this group and given a contract on 1 July 1948 to conduct further engineering studies. Boeing's initial approach was to mount four turboprop engines on an airframe similar to its B-47:

110-400: A Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 , and an under-speed governor on a Honeywell TPE331 . The turboprop is also distinguished from other kinds of turbine engine in that the fuel control unit is connected to the governor to help dictate power. To make the engine more compact, reverse airflow can be used. On a reverse-flow turboprop engine, the compressor intake is at the aft of the engine, and

165-424: A propelling nozzle . Air enters the intake and is compressed by the compressor. Fuel is then added to the compressed air in the combustor, where the fuel-air mixture then combusts . The hot combustion gases expand through the turbine stages, generating power at the point of exhaust. Some of the power generated by the turbine is used to drive the compressor and electric generator . The gases are then exhausted from

220-520: A bombing raid. In 1941, the engine was abandoned due to war, and the factory converted to conventional engine production. The first mention of turboprop engines in the general public press was in the February 1944 issue of the British aviation publication Flight , which included a detailed cutaway drawing of what a possible future turboprop engine could look like. The drawing was very close to what

275-423: A bypass stream introduces extra losses which are more than made up by the improved propulsive efficiency. The turboprop at its best flight speed gives significant fuel savings over a turbojet even though an extra turbine, a gearbox and a propeller were added to the turbojet's low-loss propelling nozzle. The turbofan has additional losses from its extra turbines, fan, bypass duct and extra propelling nozzle compared to

330-475: A cruising speed of 435 mph (700 km/h), with a maximum weight of 153,000 lb (69,000 kg), a wingspan of 135 ft (41 m), and length of 118.9 ft (36.2 m). There was a major disagreement between the engine manufacturer and the propeller manufacturer over whether the Allison T40-A-2 driveshaft was strong enough to take the forces caused at high revolutions per minute of

385-442: A governor, and overspeed governor, and a fuel-topping governor. The governor works in much the same way a reciprocating engine propeller governor works, though a turboprop governor may incorporate beta control valve or beta lift rod for beta operation and is typically located in the 12 o'clock position. There are also other governors that are included in addition depending on the model, such as an overspeed and fuel topping governor on

440-410: A mode typically consisting of zero to negative thrust, is used for all ground operations aside from takeoff. The Beta mode is further broken down into 2 additional modes, Beta for taxi and Beta plus power. Beta for taxi as the name implies is used for taxi operations and consists of all pitch ranges from the lowest alpha range pitch, all the way down to zero pitch, producing very little to zero-thrust and

495-481: A requirement for an afterburning engine where the sole requirement for bypass is to provide cooling air. This sets the lower limit for BPR and these engines have been called "leaky" or continuous bleed turbojets (General Electric YJ-101 BPR 0.25) and low BPR turbojets (Pratt & Whitney PW1120). Low BPR (0.2) has also been used to provide surge margin as well as afterburner cooling for the Pratt & Whitney J58 . In

550-581: A small amount of air by a large degree, a low disc loading (thrust per unit disc area) increases the aircraft's energy efficiency , and this reduces the fuel use. Propellers work well until the flight speed of the aircraft is high enough that the airflow past the blade tips reaches the speed of sound. Beyond that speed, the proportion of the power that drives the propeller that is converted to propeller thrust falls dramatically. For this reason turboprop engines are not commonly used on aircraft that fly faster than 0.6–0.7 Mach , with some exceptions such as

605-591: A test-bed not intended for production. It first flew on 20 September 1945. From their experience with the Trent, Rolls-Royce developed the Rolls-Royce Clyde , the first turboprop engine to receive a type certificate for military and civil use, and the Dart , which became one of the most reliable turboprop engines ever built. Dart production continued for more than fifty years. The Dart-powered Vickers Viscount

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660-627: A week, it was clear that not only would the XB-52 outperform the XB-55, it could be flying at least a year before the XB-55 could be expected to have reliable engines. Also bearing on the decision to abandon the XB-55 program were government funding constraints and the growing realization that the B-47 was becoming more successful than first projected. On 29 January 1949, the Air Materiel Command

715-425: A zero-bypass (turbojet) engine the high temperature and high pressure exhaust gas is accelerated by expansion through a propelling nozzle and produces all the thrust. The compressor absorbs all the mechanical power produced by the turbine. In a bypass design, extra turbines drive a ducted fan that accelerates air rearward from the front of the engine. In a high-bypass design, the ducted fan and nozzle produce most of

770-462: Is also seen with propellers and helicopter rotors by comparing disc loading and power loading. For example, the same helicopter weight can be supported by a high power engine and small diameter rotor or, for less fuel, a lower power engine and bigger rotor with lower velocity through the rotor. Bypass usually refers to transferring gas power from a gas turbine to a bypass stream of air to reduce fuel consumption and jet noise. Alternatively, there may be

825-438: Is coupled to the turbine through a reduction gear that converts the high RPM /low torque output to low RPM/high torque. This can be of two primary designs, free-turbine and fixed. A free-turbine turboshaft found on the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 , where the gas generator is not connected to the propeller. This allows for propeller strike or similar damage to occur without damaging the gas generator and allowing for only

880-408: Is quoted for turboprop and unducted fan installations because their high propulsive efficiency gives them the overall efficiency characteristics of very high bypass turbofans. This allows them to be shown together with turbofans on plots which show trends of reducing specific fuel consumption (SFC) with increasing BPR. BPR is also quoted for lift fan installations where the fan airflow is remote from

935-407: Is that it can also be used to generate reverse thrust to reduce stopping distance on the runway. Additionally, in the event of an engine failure, the propeller can be feathered , thus minimizing the drag of the non-functioning propeller. While the power turbine may be integral with the gas generator section, many turboprops today feature a free power turbine on a separate coaxial shaft. This enables

990-450: Is trading exhaust velocity for extra mass flow which still gives the required thrust but uses less fuel. Turbojet inventor Frank Whittle called it "gearing down the flow". Power is transferred from the gas generator to an extra mass of air, i.e. a larger diameter propelling jet, moving more slowly. The bypass spreads the available mechanical power across more air to reduce the velocity of the jet. The trade-off between mass flow and velocity

1045-421: Is typically accessed by moving the power lever to a beta for taxi range. Beta plus power is a reverse range and produces negative thrust, often used for landing on short runways where the aircraft would need to rapidly slow down, as well as backing operations and is accessed by moving the power lever below the beta for taxi range. Due to the pilot not being able to see out of the rear of the aircraft for backing and

1100-626: The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress , which first flew on April 15, 1952. The XB-55 project did not result in construction of a prototype. Data from Air Force Museum Fact Sheet General characteristics Performance Armament Related development Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era Related lists Turboprop A turboprop is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller . A turboprop consists of an intake , reduction gearbox , compressor , combustor , turbine , and

1155-634: The P-3 Orion , and the C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft. The first turbine-powered, shaft-driven helicopter was the Kaman K-225 , a development of Charles Kaman 's K-125 synchropter , which used a Boeing T50 turboshaft engine to power it on 11 December 1951. December 1963 saw the first delivery of Pratt & Whitney Canada's PT6 turboprop engine for the then Beechcraft 87, soon to become Beechcraft King Air . 1964 saw

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1210-841: The Piper Meridian , Socata TBM , Pilatus PC-12 , Piaggio P.180 Avanti , Beechcraft King Air and Super King Air . In April 2017, there were 14,311 business turboprops in the worldwide fleet. Between 2012 and 2016, the ATSB observed 417 events with turboprop aircraft, 83 per year, over 1.4 million flight hours: 2.2 per 10,000 hours. Three were "high risk" involving engine malfunction and unplanned landing in single‑engine Cessna 208 Caravans , four "medium risk" and 96% "low risk". Two occurrences resulted in minor injuries due to engine malfunction and terrain collision in agricultural aircraft and five accidents involved aerial work: four in agriculture and one in an air ambulance . Jane's All

1265-614: The Tupolev Tu-114 can reach 470 kn (870 km/h; 540 mph). Large military aircraft , like the Tupolev Tu-95 , and civil aircraft , such as the Lockheed L-188 Electra , were also turboprop powered. The Airbus A400M is powered by four Europrop TP400 engines, which are the second most powerful turboprop engines ever produced, after the 11 MW (15,000 hp) Kuznetsov NK-12 . In 2017,

1320-403: The Tupolev Tu-95 . However, propfan engines, which are very similar to turboprop engines, can cruise at flight speeds approaching 0.75 Mach. To maintain propeller efficiency across a wide range of airspeeds, turboprops use constant-speed (variable-pitch) propellers. The blades of a constant-speed propeller increase their pitch as aircraft speed increases. Another benefit of this type of propeller

1375-442: The compression ratio of the system by adding to the compressor stage to increase overall system efficiency increases temperatures at the turbine face. Nevertheless, high-bypass engines have a high propulsive efficiency because even slightly increasing the velocity of a very large volume and consequently mass of air produces a very large change in momentum and thrust: thrust is the engine's mass flow (the amount of air flowing through

1430-624: The Conway varied between 0.3 and 0.6 depending on the variant The growth of bypass ratios during the 1960s gave jetliners fuel efficiency that could compete with that of piston-powered planes. Today (2015), most jet engines have some bypass. Modern engines in slower aircraft, such as airliners, have bypass ratios up to 12:1; in higher-speed aircraft, such as fighters , bypass ratios are much lower, around 1.5; and craft designed for speeds up to Mach 2 and somewhat above have bypass ratios below 0.5. Turboprops have bypass ratios of 50-100, although

1485-533: The Soviet Union had the technology to create the airframe for a jet-powered strategic bomber comparable to Boeing's B-52 Stratofortress , they instead produced the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear, powered with four Kuznetsov NK-12 turboprops, mated to eight contra-rotating propellers (two per nacelle) with supersonic tip speeds to achieve maximum cruise speeds in excess of 575 mph, faster than many of

1540-613: The World's Aircraft . 2005–2006. Bypass ratio The bypass ratio ( BPR ) of a turbofan engine is the ratio between the mass flow rate of the bypass stream to the mass flow rate entering the core. A 10:1 bypass ratio, for example, means that 10 kg of air passes through the bypass duct for every 1 kg of air passing through the core. Turbofan engines are usually described in terms of BPR, which together with engine pressure ratio , turbine inlet temperature and fan pressure ratio are important design parameters. In addition, BPR

1595-420: The additional expansion in the turbine system, the residual energy in the exhaust jet is low. Consequently, the exhaust jet produces about 10% of the total thrust. A higher proportion of the thrust comes from the propeller at low speeds and less at higher speeds. Turboprops have bypass ratios of 50–100, although the propulsion airflow is less clearly defined for propellers than for fans. The propeller

1650-414: The amount of debris reverse stirs up, manufacturers will often limit the speeds beta plus power may be used and restrict its use on unimproved runways. Feathering of these propellers is performed by the propeller control lever. The constant-speed propeller is distinguished from the reciprocating engine constant-speed propeller by the control system. The turboprop system consists of 3 propeller governors ,

1705-402: The early 1950s, was an early example of a bypass engine. The configuration was similar to a 2-spool turbojet but to make it into a bypass engine it was equipped with an oversized low pressure compressor: the flow through the inner portion of the compressor blades went into the core while the outer portion of the blades blew air around the core to provide the rest of the thrust. The bypass ratio for

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1760-621: The engine and doesn't physically touch the engine core. Bypass provides a lower fuel consumption for the same thrust, measured as thrust specific fuel consumption (grams/second fuel per unit of thrust in kN using SI units ). Lower fuel consumption that comes with high bypass ratios applies to turboprops , using a propeller rather than a ducted fan. High bypass designs are the dominant type for commercial passenger aircraft and both civilian and military jet transports. Business jets use medium BPR engines. Combat aircraft use engines with low bypass ratios to compromise between fuel economy and

1815-415: The engine) multiplied by the difference between the inlet and exhaust velocities in—a linear relationship—but the kinetic energy of the exhaust is the mass flow multiplied by one-half the square of the difference in velocities. A low disc loading (thrust per disc area) increases the aircraft's energy efficiency , and this reduces the fuel use. The Rolls–Royce Conway turbofan engine, developed in

1870-407: The exhaust is situated forward, reducing the distance between the turbine and the propeller. Unlike the small-diameter fans used in turbofan engines, the propeller has a large diameter that lets it accelerate a large volume of air. This permits a lower airstream velocity for a given amount of thrust. Since it is more efficient at low speeds to accelerate a large amount of air by a small degree than

1925-499: The first jet aircraft and comparable to jet cruising speeds for most missions. The Bear would serve as their most successful long-range combat and surveillance aircraft and symbol of Soviet power projection through to the end of the 20th century. The USA used turboprop engines with contra-rotating propellers, such as the Allison T40 , on some experimental aircraft during the 1950s. The T40-powered Convair R3Y Tradewind flying-boat

1980-564: The first deliveries of the Garrett AiResearch TPE331 , (now owned by Honeywell Aerospace ) on the Mitsubishi MU-2 , making it the fastest turboprop aircraft for that year. In contrast to turbofans , turboprops are most efficient at flight speeds below 725 km/h (450 mph; 390 knots) because the jet velocity of the propeller (and exhaust) is relatively low. Modern turboprop airliners operate at nearly

2035-465: The future Rolls-Royce Trent would look like. The first British turboprop engine was the Rolls-Royce RB.50 Trent , a converted Derwent II fitted with reduction gear and a Rotol 7 ft 11 in (2.41 m) five-bladed propeller. Two Trents were fitted to Gloster Meteor EE227 — the sole "Trent-Meteor" — which thus became the world's first turboprop-powered aircraft to fly, albeit as

2090-402: The gas power is shared between a separate airstream and the gas turbine's own nozzle flow in a proportion which gives the aircraft performance required. The first jet aircraft were subsonic and the poor suitability of the propelling nozzle for these speeds due to high fuel consumption was understood, and bypass proposed, as early as 1936 (U.K. Patent 471,368). The underlying principle behind bypass

2145-443: The influence of BPR. Only the limitations of weight and materials (e.g., the strengths and melting points of materials in the turbine) reduce the efficiency at which a turbofan gas turbine converts this thermal energy into mechanical energy, for while the exhaust gases may still have available energy to be extracted, each additional stator and turbine disk retrieves progressively less mechanical energy per unit of weight, and increasing

2200-671: The most widespread turboprop airliners in service were the ATR 42 / 72 (950 aircraft), Bombardier Q400 (506), De Havilland Canada Dash 8 -100/200/300 (374), Beechcraft 1900 (328), de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter (270), Saab 340 (225). Less widespread and older airliners include the BAe Jetstream 31 , Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia , Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner , Dornier 328 , Saab 2000 , Xian MA60 , MA600 and MA700 , Fokker 27 and 50 . Turboprop business aircraft include

2255-493: The power section (turbine and gearbox) to be removed and replaced in such an event, and also allows for less stress on the start during engine ground starts. Whereas a fixed shaft has the gearbox and gas generator connected, such as on the Honeywell TPE331 . The propeller itself is normally a constant-speed (variable pitch) propeller type similar to that used with larger aircraft reciprocating engines , except that

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2310-534: The propeller to rotate freely, independent of compressor speed. Alan Arnold Griffith had published a paper on compressor design in 1926. Subsequent work at the Royal Aircraft Establishment investigated axial compressor-based designs that would drive a propeller. From 1929, Frank Whittle began work on centrifugal compressor-based designs that would use all the gas power produced by the engine for jet thrust. The world's first turboprop

2365-403: The propeller-control requirements are very different. Due to the turbine engine's slow response to power inputs, particularly at low speeds, the propeller has a greater range of selected travel in order to make rapid thrust changes, notably for taxi, reverse, and other ground operations. The propeller has 2 modes, Alpha and Beta. Alpha is the mode for all flight operations including takeoff. Beta,

2420-486: The propellers. Allison was predicting that it would be at least four years before a successful powerplant would be delivered. In October 1948, a conference in Dayton, Ohio was addressing the problems of the XB-55 when it was proposed over lunch that the XB-52 (Boeing Model 464), which until that point had been planned with turboprop engines, could be equipped with the forthcoming Pratt & Whitney J57 turbojet engines. Within

2475-434: The requirements of combat: high power-to-weight ratios , supersonic performance, and the ability to use afterburners . If all the gas power from a gas turbine is converted to kinetic energy in a propelling nozzle, the aircraft is best suited to high supersonic speeds. If it is all transferred to a separate large mass of air with low kinetic energy, the aircraft is best suited to zero speed (hovering). For speeds in between,

2530-592: The same speed as small regional jet airliners but burn two-thirds of the fuel per passenger. Compared to piston engines, their greater power-to-weight ratio (which allows for shorter takeoffs) and reliability can offset their higher initial cost, maintenance and fuel consumption. As jet fuel can be easier to obtain than avgas in remote areas, turboprop-powered aircraft like the Cessna Caravan and Quest Kodiak are used as bush airplanes . Turboprop engines are generally used on small subsonic aircraft, but

2585-481: The thrust. Turbofans are closely related to turboprops in principle because both transfer some of the gas turbine's gas power, using extra machinery, to a bypass stream leaving less for the hot nozzle to convert to kinetic energy. Turbofans represent an intermediate stage between turbojets , which derive all their thrust from exhaust gases, and turbo-props which derive minimal thrust from exhaust gases (typically 10% or less). Extracting shaft power and transferring it to

2640-415: The turbine. In contrast to a turbojet or turbofan , the engine's exhaust gases do not provide enough power to create significant thrust, since almost all of the engine's power is used to drive the propeller. Exhaust thrust in a turboprop is sacrificed in favor of shaft power, which is obtained by extracting additional power (beyond that necessary to drive the compressor) from turbine expansion. Owing to

2695-683: The turbojet's single nozzle. To see the influence of increasing BPR alone on overall efficiency in the aircraft, i.e. SFC, a common gas generator has to be used, i.e. no change in Brayton cycle parameters or component efficiencies. Bennett shows in this case a relatively slow rise in losses transferring power to the bypass at the same time as a fast drop in exhaust losses with a significant improvement in SFC. In reality increases in BPR over time come along with rises in gas generator efficiency masking, to some extent,

2750-425: The wing would have less sweepback; the Allison T40 -A-2 engines would drive three-blade contra-rotating propellers , i.e. , six blades per engine; the engines were to be mounted in nacelles hung from the wings, two per side; the landing gear was to be similar to the B-47's tandem gear with outriggers retracting into the outboard engine nacelles. The XB-55 had a projected top speed of 490 mph (790 km/h) and

2805-573: Was designed by the Hungarian mechanical engineer György Jendrassik . Jendrassik published a turboprop idea in 1928, and on 12 March 1929 he patented his invention. In 1938, he built a small-scale (100 Hp; 74.6 kW) experimental gas turbine. The larger Jendrassik Cs-1 , with a predicted output of 1,000 bhp, was produced and tested at the Ganz Works in Budapest between 1937 and 1941. It

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2860-626: Was directed to cancel the Boeing XB-55 contract. Under a revised contract, the Boeing Project 474 was converted into the Boeing Project 479, which included a study of using six J40 turbojet engines in place of the turboprops on a similar wing platform, but with a thicker root section. Work on detailed engineering and mockup construction was canceled, although Boeing was contracted to continue conceptual studies and wind tunnel investigations. These studies proved valuable in development of

2915-467: Was of axial-flow design with 15 compressor and 7 turbine stages, annular combustion chamber. First run in 1940, combustion problems limited its output to 400 bhp. Two Jendrassik Cs-1s were the engines for the world's first turboprop aircraft – the Varga RMI-1 X/H . This was a Hungarian fighter-bomber of WWII which had one model completed, but before its first flight it was destroyed in

2970-714: Was operated by the U.S. Navy for a short time. The first American turboprop engine was the General Electric XT31 , first used in the experimental Consolidated Vultee XP-81 . The XP-81 first flew in December 1945, the first aircraft to use a combination of turboprop and turbojet power. The technology of Allison's earlier T38 design evolved into the Allison T56 , used to power the Lockheed Electra airliner, its military maritime patrol derivative

3025-603: Was the first turboprop aircraft of any kind to go into production and sold in large numbers. It was also the first four-engined turboprop. Its first flight was on 16 July 1948. The world's first single engined turboprop aircraft was the Armstrong Siddeley Mamba -powered Boulton Paul Balliol , which first flew on 24 March 1948. The Soviet Union built on German World War II turboprop preliminary design work by Junkers Motorenwerke, while BMW, Heinkel-Hirth and Daimler-Benz also worked on projected designs. While

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