At Northbrook College in Sussex we are restoring a Rolls Royce Merlin. It was built by Rolls Royce and is named Merlin because all the more modern engines that Rolls Royce produced were named after birds of prey or rivers. The first Merlin was designed and made in the 1930s, and was modified to fit many aircraft including the most famous Spitfire, the Hawker Hurricane, Mosquito and many more.

There were many different types of Merlin which made it hard for us to tell what mark or series it was. No matter how many pictures or books we looked at we could not find out what type ours was. And because there was no identity plate we had to get the serial number off the side of the engine. We e-mailed this number to the Rolls Royce Heritage Trust to see if they could help. After a couple of e-mails back and forward we received the goods from them.

They told us that the Merlin was a MK.114A. It was a batch of 950 that were built at the Glasgow factory between 30th June 1944 and 19th July 1945 under contract No.C/Eng/3713/C28(a).  It came off the production line on the week ending 7th April 1945 and was dispatched from the factory on 27th April 1945.

The Mk.114A was fitted into the De Havilland Mosquito PR MK.34A. The Mk.34A was a modified version of the MK.34. The differences were that the MK.34 had Merlin 113 and 114 engines in them, and the MK.34A had an improvement of the 114, the 114A. It also had a modified 'Gee' Navigation System and an improved landing gear retraction system. There were only 35 Mk.34s converted into Mk.34As. This is what makes our engine so special.

The Mosquito PR MK.34As made some record breaking flights after the war. The first was from St Mawgan to Gander. It took place on the 7th September 1945 and took 7 hours to complete, the return flight the next month taking only 5 hours 10 minutes to complete.

The second flight was from London to Cape Town in May 1947.The 6,717 miles was covered in only 21 hours and 31 minutes.

The PR.MK 34As were the last operational mosquitos in service. Their last base was in Malaya with 81 Squadron until they were retired in December 1955, but some continued to soldier on in training roles until 1963.

 This is as far as we have got in tracking the engine and aircraft it was in. If you could help us in any way please feel free to E-Mail us at: northbrookmerlin@hotmail.com

We have recently found the data plate on our other Merlin. A Picture is below.