^* Rolls-Royce started making aircraft engines in 1915, little more than a decade after launching its first motorcar. The firm branched into jet engines in 1946, and in the early 1950s, the Avon was used to power the Canberra bomber for the Royal Air Force and the ill-fated Comet for British Overseas Airways Corporation, BOAC. Despite many stumbles, including bankruptcy and nationalization (later reversed), the company, making aero engines for more than a century, remains a formidable player in the jet engine market, having made some fifty thousand thus far.