The Turbomeca Palouste is a French
gas turbine engine, first run in 1952.[1] Designed purely as a compressed air generator, the Palouste was mainly used as a ground-based aircraft engine starter unit. Other uses included
rotor tip propulsion for
helicopters.
The Palouste was a very simple unit, its primary purpose being to supply a high flow rate of
compressed air to start larger jet engines such as the
Rolls-Royce Spey as installed in the
Blackburn Buccaneer (this aircraft having no onboard starting system).[2] Air from the
centrifugal compressor was divided between external supply (known as
bleed air) and its own combustion chamber.
Several British naval aircraft were adapted to carry a Palouste in a wing-mounted
air starter pod installation to facilitate engine starting when away from base.[3]
A novel use of a surplus Palouste engine was its installation in a custom-built
motorcycle known as the Boost Palouste. In 1986 this motorcycle broke an official
ACU 1/4 mile speed record at 296 km/h (184 mph). The builder modified the engine to include a primitive
afterburner device and noted that pitch changes which occurred during braking and acceleration caused
gyroscopic precession handling effects due to the rotating mass of the engine.[4]