Editing Rolls-Royce Dart (section)

{{short description|1940s British turboprop aircraft engine}}
<!-- This article is a part of [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft]]. Please see [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content]] for recommended layout. -->
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2018}}
{|{{Infobox aircraft begin
 |name=Dart
 |image= File:RRDart.JPG
 |caption=Rolls-Royce Dart RDa. 3 Mk506
}}{{Infobox aircraft engine
 |type=[[Turboprop]]
 |manufacturer=[[Rolls-Royce Limited]]
 |first run=1946
 |major applications= [[Hawker Siddeley HS 748|Avro 748]]<br />[[Breguet Alizé]]<br />[[Fokker F27 Friendship|Fokker F27]]<br />[[Grumman Gulfstream I]]<br />[[Vickers Viscount]]
 |number built = more than 7,100
 |program cost =
 |unit cost =
 |developed from =
 |developed into =
 |variants with their own articles =
}}
|}

The '''Rolls-Royce RB.53 Dart''' is a [[turboprop]] engine designed and manufactured by [[Rolls-Royce Limited]]. First run in 1946, it powered the [[Vickers Viscount]] on its maiden flight in 1948. A flight on July 29 of that year, which carried 14 paying passengers between [[RAF Northolt|Northolt]] and [[Paris–Le Bourget Airport]] in a Dart-powered Viscount, was the first regularly scheduled airline flight by a turbine-powered aircraft.<ref name="Turner9">Turner 1968, p. 9.</ref> The Viscount was the first turboprop-powered aircraft to enter airline service - [[British European Airways]] (BEA) in 1953.

The Dart was still in production forty years later when the last [[Fokker F27 Friendship]]s and [[Hawker Siddeley HS 748]]s were produced in 1987.

Following the company's convention for naming gas turbine engines after rivers, this turboprop engine design was named after the [[River Dart]].