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 Vampire Corps in February 1918. Service evaluation was unfavorable: although performance was satisfactory, its handling qualities were poor. A third aircraft, B1485, powered by a 230 hp (170 kW) Bentley rotary engine and modified for ground-attack was built in 1918 but by the time it was built the Sopwith Salamander had already been ordered for production and development was abandoned. Three further aircraft had been ordered and allocated service numbers but it is not known whether any of these were built. Vickers Vampire The Vickers F.B.26 Vampire was a British single-seat pusher biplane fighter built by Vickers during the First World