Rolls-Royce Dart Rolls-Royce Dart The Rolls-Royce RB.53 Dart is a long-lived British turboprop engine designed, built and manufactured by Rolls-Royce Limited. First run in 1946, it powered the first Vickers Viscount maiden flight in 1948, and in the Viscount was the first turboprop engine to enter airline service, with British European Airways (BEA), in 1950. On 29 July 1948 a flight between Northolt and Paris–Le Bourget Airport with 14 paying passengers in a Dart-powered Viscount was the first scheduled airline flight by any turbine-powered aircraft. The Dart was still in production when the last Fokker F27 Friendships and Hawker Siddeley HS 748s
Vickers Valiant deterrent to the Soviet Union from acts of aggression in Europe. In April 1948, the Air Staff issued a specification with the designation B.9/48 written around the Vickers design, which was given the company designation of Type 660; an 'Instruction to Proceed' was received by Vickers on 16 April 1948. In February 1949, two prototypes of the aircraft were ordered. The first of these was to be fitted with four Rolls-Royce RA.3 Avon turbojet engines, while the second was to be fitted with four Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire engines as the Type 667. On 18 May 1951, the first prototype, serial