This Bristol Siddeley Centaurus 175 aero engine was produced in 1958 for use in the Blackburn Beverley, a large troop and vehicle transport aircraft in service with the RAF between 1955 and 1968.
The 18-cylinder, 2,935-horsepower engine is a sleeve valve radial, there being a ring with triangular inlet and outlet holes located around its circumference. This 'sleeve valve' would move via a mass of gearings between the cylinder wall and the piston. The gearing system comprised a vast number of cogs rotating behind the cylinder banks. The engine has a nameplate marked 'BRISTOL SIDDELEY CENTAURUS CHANGE UNIT MARK 17501, SERIAL No 175280, A.M. No 658897'.
The Centaurus was the last and most powerful British-built piston engine to be put into production at the end of a period which started in 1936 and included the war years, when the Centaurus powered such aircraft as the Hawker, Tempest II fighter and the Bristol Brigand light bomber.
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