In RRs defense, they built the engine to the spec the Royal Navy asked for. When all else fails, read the contract.
Similar to Short Brothers limiting the wingspan of the Stirling to what the RAF specified. Sure, they underperformed... but they were to spec and thus would fit inside some obsolete hangars.
"Right, then!"
“In RRs defense, they built the engine to the spec the Royal Navy asked for. When all else fails, read the contract.”
Legally, you can get in trouble by going ‘beyond the contract’, particularly on a government contract. But where I work, we’re informally expected to go beyond the contract, if the requirement is stupid.
With the American military...
I once asked engineers developing an aircraft system how much heat the internal parts could handle.
“95 F”
I told them they would need to redesign it since there was no cooling system.
“Why?”, asked the engineer from northern NY state. “How often does it get hotter than that?”
I pointed out that in much of the US, and in places like Saudi, it gets far hotter than that on a flightline for months at a time.
They told me it wasn’t in the contract. And this is critical - I replied it would fail operational testing and not be bought, so they could fix it or never sell their system to the government.
They went back, figured out which part of the electrical system was failing, and made an upgrade for a couple of dollars that would keep it working past 160 degrees.