Editing Gloster Meteor (section)

===Engines===
[[File:Welland183- (1).JPG|thumb|[[Rolls-Royce Welland]] engine on display. The rear of the engine is at the left.]]

The ''Meteor F.1'' was powered by two [[Rolls-Royce Welland]] turbojet engines, Britain's first production jet engines, which were built under licence from Whittle's designs.<ref name="auto" /> The Meteor embodied the advent of practical jet propulsion; in the type's service life, both military and civil aviation manufacturers rapidly integrated turbine engines into their designs, favouring its advantages such as smoother running and greater power output.<ref>Geoffery 19 July 1945, p. 73.</ref> The Meteor's engines were considerably more practical than those of the German Me 262 as, unlike the Me 262, the engines were embedded into the wing in nacelles between the front and rear spars rather than underslung, saving some weight due to shorter landing gear legs and less massive spars.<ref name = "geff 70-71">Geoffery 19 July 1945, pp. 70–71.</ref>{{#tag:ref|Carter had considered and rejected placing the engines within the fuselage or an underslung arrangement due to the issue of accessibility; having the engines underneath the wings would have imposed weight limitations by forcing longer undercarriage legs and a heavier spar structure to be adopted in turn.<ref>Shacklady 1962, pp. 10–11.</ref>|group=Note}}

The [[Power Jets W.2#Variants|W.2B/23C]] engines upon which the Welland was based produced {{convert|1700|lbf|kN|abbr=on}} of thrust each, giving the aircraft a maximum speed of {{convert|417|mph|km/h|abbr=on}} at {{convert|3000|m|ft|order=flip}} and a range of {{convert|1000|miles|km}}.<ref name="James 304-5"/> It incorporated a hydraulically driven engine starter developed by Rolls-Royce, which was automated following the press of a starter button in the cockpit.{{#tag:ref|The F9/40 prototypes and some early production Meteors lacked the automatic starting system fitted on most aircraft, requiring a considerably more complicated procedure to be followed.<ref name="auto" />|group=Note}} The engines also drove hydraulic and vacuum pumps as well as a generator via a [[Dowty Rotol|Rotol]] gearbox fixed on the forward wing spar;<ref name="auto"/> the cockpit was also heated by [[bleed air]] from one of the engines.<ref name="auto1"/> The acceleration rate of the engines was manually controlled by the pilot; rapid engine acceleration would frequently induce [[compressor stall]]s early on; the likelihood of compressor stalls was effectively eliminated upon further design refinements of both the Welland engine and the Meteor itself.<ref>Butler and Buttler 2006, p. 17.</ref> At high speeds the Meteor had a tendency to lose directional stability, often during unfavourable weather conditions, leading to a "snaking" motion; this could be easily resolved by throttling back to reduce speed.<ref>Butler and Buttler 2006, p. 27.</ref>

Based upon designs produced by Power Jets, Rolls-Royce produced more advanced and powerful turbojet engines. Beyond numerous improvements made to the Welland engine that powered the early Meteors, Rolls-Royce brought the Rover B.26, a radical re-design from the W.2B/500 under Adrian Lombard at Rover, into service as the Derwent. The Derwent engine, and the re-designed Derwent V, a scaled down version of the [[Rolls-Royce Nene|Nene]], was installed on many of the later production Meteors; the adoption of this new powerplant led to considerable performance increases.<ref name="auto" /><ref name = "geff 70-71"/>{{#tag:ref|The confidence of Rolls-Royce's engineers in the performance of the Derwent 5 engines led to the engine proceeding to production straight from the drawing board, in advance of any practice testing.<ref name = "shack 53">Shacklady 1962, p. 53.</ref>|group=Note}} The Meteor often served as the basis for the development of other early turbojet designs; a pair of Meteor F.4s were sent to Rolls-Royce to aid in their experimental engine trials, ''RA435'' being used for reheat testing, and ''RA491'' being fitted with the [[Rolls-Royce Avon]], an axial-flow engine.<ref name="auto" /><ref>[http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1949/1949%20-%201497.html "Hotter and Faster."] ''Flight'', 1 September 1949. p. 203.</ref> From their involvement in the development of the Meteor's engines, Armstrong-Siddeley, [[Bristol Aeroplane Company|Bristol Aircraft]], [[Metropolitan-Vickers]] and de Havilland also independently developed their own gas turbine engines.<ref>Shacklady 1962, pp. 42–43.</ref>