The Solent is a gas turbine starter engine from an F4 Phantom jet. Essentially this small turbine would be used to start the main Rolls Royce Spey engine. Originally I had two of these units, one was a complete engine which I have since sold the other was missing a few parts so I have decided to turn it into a turbo jet.

Here’s what the original engine looked like:

In order to configure this engine into a turbo jet I have had to remove the free-power turbine and the fuel and oil systems and strip it down to a bare engine.

I have rigged it up on a test stand with a simple fuel and oil pump and we will attempt to fire it up using a leaf blower

I still have a few things too do on this engine before I can fire it up particularly with regard to the spray nossels which need modifying….keep watching