Anyone know of any spare Olympus 201s?

[TSR2]

I'm sure the Wood Group (still part of Rolls Royce?) still maintain Olympae

[Garry Russell]

According to Mr. Plemming, RR have made it clear that there will be no more Olympus overhauls

There is an outside chance that the two removed earlier and replaced by new units will be re ticketed for flight, that it appears is the only chance.

But as said above, any overhaul that perhaps could somehow be done would be prohibitively expensive.


Maybe nothing is insurmountable, but there does seem to be an awful lots stacked against it fo any longer term future

[Paul K]

I had an email about this earlier, but it gave no reason for the failure of two engines. Someone left silica gel bags in the intakes ? Thats just terrible, what a disaster!

[VC10]

They didn't have streamer on and it's been suggested they should have

Sorry, but that is Rule 1 of aircraft maintenance - put a red 'Remove Before Flight' streamer on anything that shouldn't be there for flight.

Rule 2 is do a 'Fronts & Backs' inspection before you go running engines

Paul

[DaveB]

But as said above, any overhaul that perhaps could somehow be done would be prohibitively expensive.

I'm surprised RR don't take these engines on for a training/goodwill rebuild. Any number of Merlins have been restored this way including one of the Brit's engines at Kemble which was returned complete with a 28v GPU.. something we dearly needed at Brooklands and which Kemble already had

A very costly error for so many reasons. I can imagine the utter despair the 'team' responsible must be feeling.

ATB
DaveB

[Chris Trott]

The difference here is that RR and others don't want the Olympus flying for 2 reasons (both political) -

1) The Vulcan is a "Nuclear Capable Aircraft" (something the politicians really hate being in private hands and an issue we're dealing with in the US as well no matter how incapable they really are of carrying a nuke).

2) The Olympus, although not the same version, is used in Concorde, which by multiple interests, is not going to fly again and if RR starts allowing overhauls of engines, then (by their reasoning) someone will find a way to start overhauling them for Concordes.

With the Merlin, and even Griffon, there are other facilities overseas that already do overhauls of these engines, so RR isn't doing anything "special" for those engines and thus not putting themselves at any special "risk" of issues with the politicos. If RR didn't do those Merlin overhauls, Roush here in the states would've gladly done them and returned engines that are many times better than the original with new heads, electrical harness, and plugs that allow for much more reliable and long operations. Their engines are particularly highly sought after for P-51's, but there are several Spits that have started running them too as Jack's crew has made the changes needed for the Spitfire's slightly different electrical system.