Metropolitan-Vickers F.2

F.2/Beryl
Beryl engine preserved at Solent Sky Museum
Type	Turbojet
Manufacturer	Metropolitan-Vickers
First run	1941
Major applications	Saunders-Roe SR.A/1

The Metropolitan-Vickers F.2 was an early turbojet engine and the first British design to be based on an axial-flow compressor. It was an extremely advanced design, using a nine-stage axial compressor, annular combustor, and a two-stage turbine. It first powered a Gloster Meteor in November 1943, outperforming similar models from Power Jets.

In spite of this excellent start, it was considered unreliable and never saw use during the war. In the post-war era a number of engines had much higher performance, and interest in the F.2 waned. The potential of the engine and the investment did not go to waste, however, the design was passed from Metropolitan-Vickers to Armstrong Siddeley when Metrovick left the gas turbine business. Armstrong Siddeley produced a larger version as the successful Sapphire.

Alan Arnold Griffith published a seminal paper in 1926, An Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design, that for the first time clearly demonstrated that a gas turbine could be used as a practical, and even desirable, aircraft powerplant. The paper started by demonstrating that existing axial compressor designs were "flying stalled" due to their use of flat blades, and that dramatic improvements could be made by using aerofoil designs instead, improvements that made a gas turbine practical. It went on to outline a complete compressor and turbine design, using the extra exhaust power to drive a second turbine that would power a propeller. In today's terminology the design was a turboprop.

In order to prove the design, Griffith and several other engineers at the Royal Aircraft Establishment built a testbed example of the compressor in 1928 known as Anne, the machinery being built for them by Fraser and Chalmers. After Anne's successful testing they planned to follow this up with a complete engine known as Betty, or B.10.

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