Rolls - Royce Derwent The Rolls - Royce RB . 37 Derwent is a 1940s British centrifugal compressor turbojet engine , the second Rolls - Royce jet engine to enter production . Essentially an improved version of the Rolls - Royce Welland , itself a renamed version of Frank Whittle ' s Power Jets W . 2B , Rolls inherited the Derwent design from Rover when they took over their jet engine development in 1943 . Performance over the Welland was somewhat improved , reliability dramatically , making the Derwent the chosen engine for the Gloster Meteor and many other post - World War II British jet designs . Design and development . Rover . When Rover was selected for production of Whittle ' s designs in 1941 they set up their main jet factory at Barnoldswick , staffed primarily by various Power Jets personnel . Rover felt their own engineers were better at everything , and also set up a parallel effort at Waterloo Mill , Clitheroe . Here Adrian Lombard developed the W . 2 into a production quality design , angering Whittle who was left out of the team . Lombard went on to become the Chief Engineer of the Aero Engine Division of Rolls - Royce for years to come . After a short period Lombard decided to dispense with Whittle ' s " reverse flow " design , and instead lay out the engine in a " straight - through " flow with the hot gas exiting directly onto the turbine instead of being piped forward as in Whittle ' s version . This layout made the engine somewhat longer and required a redesign of the nacelles on the Meteor , but also made the gas flow simpler and thereby improved reliability . While work at Barnoldswick continued on what was now known as the W . 2B / 23 , Lombard ' s new design became the W . 2B / 26 . Rolls - Royce . By 1941 it was obvious to all that the arrangement was not working ; Whittle was constantly frustrated by what he was seeing as Rover ' s inability to deliver production - quality parts for a test engine , and became increasingly vocal about his complaints . Likewise Rover was losing interest in the project after the delays and constant harassment from Power Jets in the critical testing process stage , where testing new designs and materials to breaking point is vital . Earlier , in 1940 , Stanley Hooker of Rolls - Royce had met with Whittle , and later introduced him to Rolls ' CEO , Ernest Hives . Rolls had a fully developed supercharger division , directed by Hooker , which was naturally suited to jet engine work . Hives agreed to supply key parts to help the project along . Eventually Spencer Wilks of Rover met with Hives and Hooker , and decided to trade the jet factory at Barnoldswick for Rolls ' Meteor tank engine factory in Nottingham . A handshake sealed the deal , turning Rolls - Royce into the powerhouse it remains to this day . Subsequent Rolls - Royce jet engines would be designated in an " RB " series , standing for Rolls Barnoldswick , the / 26 Derwent becoming the RB . 26 . Problems were soon ironed out , and the original / 23 design was ready for flight by late 1943 . This gave the team some breathing room , so they redesigned the / 26 ' s inlets for increased air flow , and thus thrust . Adding improved fuel and oil systems , the newly named Derwent Mk . I entered production with 2 , 000 lbf ( 8 . 9 kN ) of thrust . Mk . II , III and IV ' s followed , peaking at 2 , 400 lbf ( 10 . 7 kN ) of thrust . The Derwent was the primary engine of all the early Meteors with the exception of the small number of Welland - equipped models which were quickly removed from service . The Mk . II was also modified with an extra turbine stage driving a gearbox and , eventually , a five - bladed propeller , forming the first production turboprop engine , the Rolls - Royce RB . 50 Trent . Mk . V . The basic Derwent design was also used to produce a larger 5 , 000 lbf ( 22 . 2 kN ) thrust engine known as the Rolls - Royce Nene . Development of the Nene continued in a scaled - down version specifically for use on the Meteor , and to avoid the stigma of the earlier design , this was named the Derwent Mk . V . Several Derwents and Nenes were sold to the Soviet Union by the then Labour government , causing a major political row , as it was the most powerful production - turbojet in the world at the time . The Soviets promptly reverse engineered the Derwent V and produced their own unlicensed version , the Klimov RD - 500 . The Nene was reverse - engineered to form the populsion unit for the famous MiG - 15 jet fighter . The Derwent Mk . V was also used on the Canadian Avro Jetliner , but this was never put into production . On 7 November 1945 , a Meteor powered by the Derwent V set a world air speed record of 606 mph ( 975 km / h ) TAS . An unusual application of the Derwent V was to propel the former paddle steamer " Lucy Ashton " . The 1888 ship had her steam machinery removed and replaced by four Derwents in 1950 – 1951 . The purpose of this was to conduct research on the friction and drag produced by a ship hull in real life conditions . Jets were preferable to marine propellers or paddles as these would have created a disturbance in the water , and the force exerted by them was harder to measure . The four engines could propel the " Lucy Ashton " at a speed in excess of .