This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| de Havilland Goblin | |
|---|---|
| Name | de Havilland Goblin |
| Caption | Goblin-powered de Havilland Vampire |
| Type | Early turbojet engine |
| Manufacturer | de Havilland Engine Company |
| First flight | 1943 |
| Introduced | 1945 |
| Primary user | Royal Air Force |
| Produced | 1943–1949 |
| Numberbuilt | ~3,000 (engines and licence builds) |
de Havilland Goblin The de Havilland Goblin was an early centrifugal-flow turbojet engine developed by the de Havilland Engine Company during World War II for the de Havilland Vampire fighter and related types. It bridged developments between wartime piston-engine programs such as the Rolls-Royce Merlin and postwar jet programmes including the Rolls-Royce Nene and Rolls-Royce Welland, and it powered aircraft that operated with the Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Italian Air Force, and export customers. Designed under the leadership of Sir Geoffrey de Havilland and Frank Halford, the Goblin influenced later British and international turbojet designs and production collaborations with firms such as Gloster Aircraft Company, Avro, Folland Aircraft, Hawker Siddeley, and Société Nationale d'Étude et de Construction de Moteurs d'Aviation.
The Goblin emerged from design studies at the de Havilland Engine Company in the context of wartime research programmes led by the Air Ministry, the Ministry of Aircraft Production, and engineers associated with Royal Aircraft Establishment facilities at Rae and Farnborough. Initial concept work drew upon centrifugal compressor experience seen in the Metrovick F.2 and early German projects discovered following operations such as the Operation Overlord aftermath. Frank Halford, who had earlier collaborated on the Napier Sabre and projects with H. P. Folland, directed the Goblin's layout emphasizing compactness for installation in twin-boom and conventional fuselage types like designs from de Havilland Aircraft Company and Gloster. The programme interfaced with procurement offices in Whitehall and testing at RAF Boscombe Down, and it benefitted from materials and turbine metallurgical advances developed by teams referencing outcomes from National Physical Laboratory research and wartime alloy programmes involving firms such as British Alloy & Steel Corporation.
The Goblin was a single-spool, centrifugal compressor turbojet featuring an annular combustion chamber and a single-stage axial turbine; its configuration contrasted with contemporary axial-flow designs like the Rolls-Royce Avon. The engine used a backward-curved centrifugal compressor impeller similar in concept to the Pratt & Whitney J48 family and shared high-strength nickel alloys developed by Rolls-Royce and suppliers including Dunlop and Dorman Long. Fuel control systems reflected practices from Armstrong Siddeley units and incorporated servo valves influenced by instrumentation standards at British Thomson-Houston. Lubrication and accessory gearboxes were serviced through mounting arrangements compatible with airframes from de Havilland Aircraft Company, Gloster, and Avro, enabling rapid integration into prototypes such as the de Havilland Vampire F.1 and experimental conversions flown at RAF Cranwell and Farnborough Aerodrome.
The Goblin entered service late in World War II and saw primary operational use in the immediate postwar era with the Royal Air Force squadrons flying the de Havilland Vampire and export versions with units such as the Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, and the Italian Regia Aeronautica postwar successor organizations. Test and evaluation regimes were conducted at establishments including Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment and Empire Test Pilots' School, informing tactics exercised by squadrons previously equipped with Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane fighters transitioning to jet operations. The Goblin-powered types participated in notable peacetime events such as displays at the RAF Display series and Cold War patrols coordinated with formations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Goblin engines also supported naval and experimental projects in cooperation with companies like Short Brothers and Fairey Aviation.
Several Goblin marks were produced to meet differing thrust and installation requirements; later marks incorporated improved compressor impellers, turbine blade cooling refinements derived from research at the National Gas Turbine Establishment, and fuel systems adapted from collaboration with De Havilland Engine Company suppliers. Licensed production and modification work occurred under agreements with firms including Société Anonyme des Ateliers}} (note: see manufacturer collaborations), Fiat, and Savoia-Marchetti for Italian conversion programmes. Airframe-specific installations produced cowling, inlet and exhaust adaptations, and thrust augmentation experiments akin to developments seen on Gloster Meteor adaptations; maintenance practises adopted standards influenced by Royal Aircraft Establishment publications and logistics frameworks used by the Ministry of Supply.
The Goblin was manufactured by de Havilland and under licence by companies in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, and Canada, with production coordination involving suppliers such as Brush Electrical Engineering Company and Elliott Brothers. Operators included the Royal Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Belgian Air Force, Swedish Air Force, Italian Air Force, and civil demonstration teams and research establishments across Europe and the British Empire. Export orders and transfer agreements were negotiated with procurement authorities in capitals including Ottawa, Canberra, Stockholm, and Rome, often mediated by the Air Ministry and postwar defence procurement bodies.
The Goblin's compact centrifugal-flow arrangement influenced subsequent de Havilland projects and contributed to the knowledge base that underpinned designs like the de Havilland Ghost and later contributions to companies absorbed into Hawker Siddeley and Rolls-Royce supply chains. Its service with Commonwealth air arms helped accelerate jet conversion training doctrine at establishments such as Empire Test Pilots' School and informed allied developments including aspects of the SNECMA programmes in France. Survivors are preserved at museums such as the RAF Museum, the Imperial War Museum, and various national collections in Canada and Australia, offering physical testimony alongside documentation archived at the National Archives (UK) and engineering records curated by the Science Museum. The Goblin thereby occupies a transitional place between piston-era propulsion exemplified by the Rolls-Royce Merlin and high-performance axial-flow turbojets that dominated late-20th-century aviation.
Category:Turbojet engines