Rolls-Royce Merlin Rolls-Royce Merlin The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a British liquid-cooled V-12 piston aero engine of 27-litres (1,650 cu in) capacity. Rolls-Royce designed the engine and first ran it in 1933 as a private venture. Initially known as the PV-12, it was later called "Merlin" following the company convention of naming its piston aero engines after birds of prey. After several modifications, the first production variants of the PV-12 were completed in 1936. The first operational aircraft to enter service using the Merlin were the Fairey Battle, Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. The Merlin remains most closely associated with the Spitfire and
Rolls-Royce Holdings however, obliged to set up a proxy board to manage Allison and had also to set up a separate company, Allison Advanced Development Company, Inc., to manage classified programmes ""that involve leading-edge technologies"" such as the Joint Strike Fighter program. In 2000, this restriction was replaced by a more flexible Special Security Arrangement. In 2001, Rolls-Royce and its LiftSystem was among the group that won the JSF contract for the F-35. The Allison acquisition, at $525 million (equivalent to £328 million), brought four new engine types into the Rolls-Royce civil engine portfolio on seven platforms and several light aircraft applications.