Is there any reliable info of British interest in licensing US engines during the 1930s?

[b0ned0me]

I have seen a few references over the years to alleged attempts by UK firms to interest the Air Ministry in licensed P&W or Wright engines but never any detail, and with names seemingly picked at random. Has anyone ever come across any plausible information on this topic, or are these nonsense from the internet echo chamber?
Normally i can google to a conclusion but I find myself swamped by results related to lend-lease aircraft/engines, CAC, etc. and the Hispano/G-R deals from Aero Engines/Alvis respectively.

My interest was piqued by looking for info on the French Merlin / Fordair project, which turned up an article that gave some plausible details on not just that but also:
- efforts by Alsthom, Panhard and the French govt to license Bristol engines
Hercules et Merlin : les projets inaboutis pour doter l'aviation française de moteurs anglais | SAM40
- a French deal with United Aircraft for P&W R-1830 and R-2180 production
L'Affaire Pratt & Whitney : histoire méconnue d'un contrat sabordé | SAM40
All apparently foiled by the stoic resistance of G-R, Hispano and those concerned with building up domestic industrial capability. Similar dynamics would presumably apply in the UK, as per Fairey's D-12 experience.

Google translate does occasionally fill the hovercraft with eels (and duplicate paragraphs) but most things come through understandably, even if it insists on translating technical terms into wandering sleeves, wiggly scabbards, valves without valves etc.
There are also some interesting articles about the French aircraft and engine production which if they are correct make the licensing of the French engines look very brave.

 

[Crimea_River]

D Deleted member 68059 may have come across something in his travels.

 

[MiTasol]

One of the French companies licenced the Wright R1820.
I will try and remember which and I will read your linked articles later

 

[b0ned0me]

One of the French companies licenced the Wright R1820.
I will try and remember which and I will read your linked articles later

Thank you.
That is interesting because if the French were also talking to Wright then they were pursuing all four volume producer of high performance engines in the western world. G-R and Hispano clearly weren't keeping their customer happy!

 

[MiTasol]

According to Wiki The Hispano-Suiza 9V is a licence-built version of the R-1820 and In Spain the R-1820 was license-built as the Hispano-Suiza 9V or Hispano-Wright 9V.

I was sure I had seen a more reliable source but that is all I can see today and this indicates it was the Spanish not French who built these engines.

 

[MiTasol]

Just remembered Jane's AWA 1938 - last two lines below.

 

[Bretoal2]

Just remembered Jane's AWA 1938 - last two lines below.
View attachment 606693

You may read this (in French) :

Hispano-Suiza 9V — Wikipédia

Hispano-Suiza 14 Ha and Hb (later renamed 14 Aa and 14 Ab) were not true licences (from Wright R-1530 and R-2600) , but french development based on the HS 9V and 9Q.

The Hispano-Suiza design office began working on these 14-cylinder developments before Rudy Daub began designing the R-2600.

See too

Hispano-Suiza 14AA — Wikipédia
Hispano-Suiza 14AB — Wikipédia

However, all of Hispano's air cooled engines were an entire failure.

 

[b0ned0me]

Thank you both, much appreciated! I somehow missed the 9V mention although it's fairly obvious now it's pointed out.

toutefois dans des évolutions largement perfectionnées dont Hispano ne profita jamais

.

Les moteurs 9V étaient encore en production en 1939, mais furent abandonnés au début de la guerre. Il est évident qu'ils n'auraient jamais pu atteindre le potentiel du Cyclone d'origine, qui donnait déjà 1 000 ch à la même période.

I see what you mean about it being a failure. Seriously, only 710hp takeoff from the workhorse Cyclone?? That is astonishing.

So of the four foreign candidates Bristol, P&W and R-R never happened because of lobbying and obstructionism, and the Wright licence was taken but mis-implemented by Hispano. And domestically neither G-R nor Hispano seem to have managed to deliver any engines which were competitive in reliable power....

Truly the AdA was unfortunate in its suppliers. At least the RAF got some competitive domestic engines during the bad spell.

I still haven't found any mentions of UK interest in licenses which I suppose makes sense if they felt Bristol & R-R (and maybe even Napier) would come good eventually, they could just buy enough engines for the foreign airframes and a few extras for temporary shortfalls. La Chambre seems to have been trying to set up a third (and maybe fourth) supplier to give the existing two some competition.

 

[pbehn]

Thank you.
That is interesting because if the French were also talking to Wright then they were pursuing all four volume producer of high performance engines in the western world. G-R and Hispano clearly weren't keeping their customer happy!

I believe they also enquired about having RR Merlins built with the involvement of Ford in France.

 

[b0ned0me]

I believe they also enquired about having RR Merlins built with the involvement of Ford in France.

Yes, the first article I linked to goes into the Fordair project in a bit more detail than I have seen elsewhere. Apparently it covered the Griffon as well!

 

[pbehn]

Yes, the first article I linked to goes into the Fordair project in a bit more detail than I have seen elsewhere. Apparently it covered the Griffon as well!

As far as my French allows me to understand the link it shows the desperate unreality of the situation. Testing Merlins for use in French aircraft in late 1939 and early 1940 is just too late. I read an article I can no longer find on the "net" about early talks to set up license production of Merlins, but as was found with the RR factory in Glasgow and the Packard production in USA it takes years not months to achieve.

 

[MiTasol]

I still haven't found any mentions of UK interest in licenses which I suppose makes sense if they felt Bristol & R-R (and maybe even Napier) would come good eventually

Considering that the Bristol Jupiter and Mercury were licenced and built by more companies for civil use than any American engine I think that statement needs revision.

 

[b0ned0me]

As far as my French allows me to understand the link it shows the desperate unreality of the situation. Testing Merlins for use in French aircraft in late 1939 and early 1940 is just too late. I read an article I can no longer find on the "net" about early talks to set up license production of Merlins, but as was found with the RR factory in Glasgow and the Packard production in USA it takes years not months to achieve.

I had to run the page through google translate, schoolboy French from 30 years ago was not up to it. But yes, anything after probably 1937 is too late to help. It's very interesting to understand the differences and similarities between the industries, expansion plans etc and the direction things were going if they had not run out of time. Plan V versus Scheme M, etc.

Considering that the Bristol Jupiter and Mercury were licenced and built by more companies for civil use than any American engine I think that statement needs revision.

But were the Jupiter and Mercury of any more use to the RAF in 1940 than the (also prodigiously licenced) Hispano and G-R were to the AdA?
The Luftwaffe could rely on engines from DB and Jumo which were available in reasonable quantity and at the time reliable and powerful. To compete with them Bristol had the Pegasus and Mercury which were not suitable for fighters, the Taurus didn't work, the Hercules was late. Armstrong-Siddely had nothing useful for combat. Napier were nowhere. R-R had the Peregrine which was too small and a troubled period getting the Merlin fixed, standardised and into volume production.

From the reading I have done it seems the Air Ministry were developing terrible heartburn as they were at risk of ending up with heaps of airframes but no competitive power plants, and if R-R had failed with the Merlin it appears a purely Bristol-powered RAF would have been in a tough spot 1939-40

In fact it's quite noticeable that of all the engines being worked on in Europe in 1937-40 there are very few which were both usefully reliable and powerful at once.

 

[gingerbob]

As far as my French allows me to understand the link it shows the desperate unreality of the situation. Testing Merlins for use in French aircraft in late 1939 and early 1940 is just too late. I read an article I can no longer find on the "net" about early talks to set up license production of Merlins, but as was found with the RR factory in Glasgow and the Packard production in USA it takes years not months to achieve.

In hindsight it was desperate unreality, but until May 1940 (or perhaps a preview in April) nobody expected to be suddenly out of time.

Nothing comes to mind about British interest in licensing US engines (which, of course, doesn't prove anything)- mostly they seemed to have the idea that the Americans ought to build the "superior" British engines.

 

[Deleted member 68059]

D Deleted member 68059 may have come across something in his travels.

Sorry I dont have time at this present moment to look into this for you, however, I do not think I have any really obviously useful archive files on it, so I would have to do a skim-search which would be time consuming. I "suspect" that licence building of foreign engines would not have been a great solution for Britain, as the issue of supply of modern factory space and manpower would not have been alleviated from such an arrangement. I think if Britain had wanted foreign engines, they would have preferred to simply buy "crate" engines and have them shipped in. I imagine that a discussion along those lines must have taken place, but I do not think I have a record of it to hand. Some small interest might be found regarding British views on French engines in the early-30`s in this British Air Ministry letter.

 

[pbehn]

In hindsight it was desperate unreality, but until May 1940 (or perhaps a preview in April) nobody expected to be suddenly out of time.

Nothing comes to mind about British interest in licensing US engines (which, of course, doesn't prove anything)- mostly they seemed to have the idea that the Americans ought to build the "superior" British engines.

Which engine would they need? If you can foresee the Sabre being a dog for all its life then there is a case for using a US radial engine, but it would be cheaper just to buy the engines rather than setting up your own plant for the numbers put in Typhoons and Tempests.

 

[AMCKen]

Also see here:
Curtiss D-12 - Wikipedia

 

[MiTasol]

Well the Brits certainly did import US engines for British aircraft - the R-1830 for the Beauforts and Sunderlands being an example.

Although fitting the Hudson powerplant complete, including exhaust and most cowlings, to the Beaufort seems to have been an Australian idea (Aus bought and paid for a Pratt to be shipped to the UK as part of the design changes) how much of the conversion was UK designed and how much Aus designed is hard to know. My belief is the adaptor between the engine mount and undercarraige and nacelle was UK designed and the rest done in Aus however some of the part numbers indicate more was done in the UK. Certainly on aircraft 1-52 the whole power plant except the prop, the governor and the stupid Dowty accessory box were 100% Hudson. On later aircraft most parts, except the mount, dishpan and gills remained the same Lockheed numbers. The gills are a CAC design complete with CAC part numbers.

This installation must have required some redesign of the nacelle to accept the Hudson exhaust and I do not know if the Pratt or Taurus has the largest diameter. Maybe if I looked at a structural repair manual I could tell but I do not have the Aus SRM.

 

[b0ned0me]

Sorry I dont have time at this present moment to look into this for you, however, I do not think I have any really obviously useful archive files on it, so I would have to do a skim-search which would be time consuming. I "suspect" that licence building of foreign engines would not have been a great solution for Britain, as the issue of supply of modern factory space and manpower would not have been alleviated from such an arrangement. I think if Britain had wanted foreign engines, they would have preferred to simply buy "crate" engines and have them shipped in. I imagine that a discussion along those lines must have taken place, but I do not think I have a record of it to hand. Some small interest might be found regarding British views on French engines in the early-30`s in this British Air Ministry letter.

Thanks for the comment, that is very good to know. My strong suspicion is that if there was any 'serious' interest it would have left such traces in the archives that you would have come across it multiple times already. If it's so obscure as to not have shown up in your research or to warrant a mention in Sebastian Ritchies small book on the industry expansion then it likely never went very far. Certainly with 4 major domestic manufacturers (plus the smaller players like DH, Pobjoy, Cirrus etc and Alvis & Faireys aspirations) the market would look very well covered, even if there were unsuspected troubles ahead. So it does seem like an artefact of the internet rumour factory.

And that memo is gold, thank you for sharing. Such a wonderful example of how differently things can be seen at the time vs 90 years later. Evaporative cooling is "less ambitious" than glycol, the high expectations of the 14K and Hispano-Suizas development efforts which turned out to be so troubled. Fascinating. Even the throwaway comment about the 14K being politically inspired is intriguing, I've only ever seen that referred to as a commercial decision to avoid fees. So either the writer had the wrong end of the stick or they knew something that has dropped out of the standard narrative.

Well the Brits certainly did import US engines for British aircraft - the R-1830 for the Beauforts and Sunderlands being an example.

On the subject of finished engine imports, have you seen a source anywhere summarising the numbers? I assume a certain number must have come in as spares with US aircraft orders and presumably some others were acquired specifically for UK built aircraft. However I have not seen a breakdown of the numbers and whether engines were repurposed from one group to the other to any extent.

 

[pbehn]

Well the Brits certainly did import US engines for British aircraft - the R-1830 for the Beauforts and Sunderlands being an example.

Although fitting the Hudson powerplant complete, including exhaust and most cowlings, to the Beaufort seems to have been an Australian idea (Aus bought and paid for a Pratt to be shipped to the UK as part of the design changes) how much of the conversion was UK designed and how much Aus designed is hard to know. My belief is the adaptor between the engine mount and undercarraige and nacelle was UK designed and the rest done in Aus however some of the part numbers indicate more was done in the UK. Certainly on aircraft 1-52 the whole power plant except the prop, the governor and the stupid Dowty accessory box were 100% Hudson. On later aircraft most parts, except the mount, dishpan and gills remained the same Lockheed numbers. The gills are a CAC design complete with CAC part numbers.

This installation must have required some redesign of the nacelle to accept the Hudson exhaust and I do not know if the Pratt or Taurus has the largest diameter. Maybe if I looked at a structural repair manual I could tell but I do not have the Aus SRM.

The R-1830 was already in use in A/C supplied to UK so there were already the spares and servicing "lines" set up, the question is always numbers. Packard wouldn't entertain any order less than 5,000 units when discussing setting up a factory to make Merlins.