Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Met people who worked there in WWII and just after.
When Rolls Royce got Allison bearings in the mid-1920's, it was a sale, not a license. The license came later, at the insistence of the US government.
Rolls Royce will give you the company line, like any company that absorbs another one, they will say everything was above board unless and until YOU go find out otherwise and prove it wrong. Then they'll claim foul for some unfathomable reason and stall you until you can't afford to go any further. After all, they have more money than someone who is just prying.
You were though Joe's shop. People visit just to see Allisons. It shouldn't be too big a push to believe former employees come to see a run. They do, really. And they don't corroborate what Rolls said to you.
If you don't see how anyone can force a license, you haven't been in business very long. It's done all the time ... not forcing a license per se, but forcing actions through ability to control revenue. I KNOW you've been in business, so I know you know what I am saying is true ... you can't always do what you want unless you have enough money and orders to be truly independent. Most smaller businesses don't have that money ... or they'd be bigger.
Many small machine shops can't even charge a fair price for machine work because the buyers tell them the price and if they don't get it, the order isn't placed. If that company is 40% of your business and you have #500,000 outstanding for machines to make the parts, you give them their price or go out of business.
Shame Allison wasn't given the license for the J36 (Goblin), Allis Chalmers seemed to make a mess with that. That and Allison might have even had advantages over GE in terms of centrifugal compressor development. (though GE copied RR/Hooker's compressor design used in Whittle's engines, I'm not sure how Halford's Goblin compressor design compared)Gee, I wonder how the guys at Allison felt about being given the production contracts for the J-33 and J-35 jet engines instead of General Electric. Sure sounds like the government was out to screw Allison.
This is a very serious consideration to make. Even memory errors aside, there's a great many rumors that spread through employees (engineers included) that grow and shift and end up rather far from the bare fact and truth of the matter.So trusting 70-75 year old memories on things that happened 85-90 years ago?
You, of course, have evidence if this? Not just hearsay?
I am making an inference from the evidence presented in Vees for Victory. The man from the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust did the same. But he has also passed my enquiry on to another researcher, one based in Indianapolis.
I asked the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust. They are researchers and archivists.
The information was given free of charge. I didn't have to pay for it.
Also, you are a long way from proving the information from RRHT wrong.
Did they have first hand knowledge of the licence agreement? Did they attend negotiations?
Were they board members?
Or were they fitters, machinists, inspectors? Did they even work in the bearing factory?
All that said, a specific date for when Rolls was granted the license could clear up a lot of this contending information.
The date doesn't change the coercion and good luck getting any government to admit any wrongdoing. People won't even admit it when they're caught in the act.
Profitability would hinge entirely on the specifics of the licensing agreement. Now, that said, it's ALSO certainly possible that the goverment(s) and/or GM, among other entities apart from (but with coercion ability over) Allison managed to swing a less profitable and/or less constrictive (to RR) licensing agreement, but that's not the same thing.I am not and was not an employee of Allison Engines. It is VERY clear to me that selling a better bearing is more profitable than licensing one to another company. I wasn't there and have zero interest in debating with you on it. The people involved say it was a forced license and the entire world can accept it or not ... mox nix to me. Do NOT care ... good luck with it.
I don't lament the license to Rolls Royce. I lament that Allison was forced to help a wealthier foreign rival and was at the same time denied supercharger technology from that foreign rival. Rolls Royce was allowed to prosper with great bearings and Allison was never allowed to share any knowledge in return.
I don't think Rolls Royce got the bearing license for free, but I an pretty sure it cost them less to purchase a license than to purchase bearings, so it was profit Allison profit lost.
Having the integral two speed supercharger would also have required a multiple speed drive, or VSD, for the supercharger. Allison didn't have a single production V-1710 with multi-speed integral supercharger. It wasn't a priority with the coupling to turbochargers, nor with the auxiliary supercharged models, which used a VSD.
But didn't the Curtiss P-40F/L Kittyhawk use the Packard V-1650-1, a 2-speed supercharged unit?
A multi-speed V-1710 would have been useful.