Is there any reliable info of British interest in licensing US engines during the 1930s?
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This is a complicated issue.
As others have pointed out, it is not easy to start production of an aero engine even with the full co-operation of the licensor. Differences in manufacturing techniques and standards all come into play. The licensor may hold back information on their newest designs or manufacturing techniques. They may also insist on non-compete agreements or other inconvenient terms.
When making decisions concerning the licensing of technology, one is often working with imperfect information. Your established suppliers will tell you about their new designs and argue convincingly that you would be making a big mistake to switch.
Money is a further issue. Nobody likes paying royalties. This is the commonly given reason why the P-82 switched from the Packard built Merlin to the V-1710.
As others have pointed out, it is not easy to start production of an aero engine even with the full co-operation of the licensor. Differences in manufacturing techniques and standards all come into play. The licensor may hold back information on their newest designs or manufacturing techniques. They may also insist on non-compete agreements or other inconvenient terms.
When making decisions concerning the licensing of technology, one is often working with imperfect information. Your established suppliers will tell you about their new designs and argue convincingly that you would be making a big mistake to switch.
Money is a further issue. Nobody likes paying royalties. This is the commonly given reason why the P-82 switched from the Packard built Merlin to the V-1710.
Would US engines have been better than English ones, Rolls-Royce would have built licensed Allison V-1710 and Bristol, P&W.... Certainly not Wright ones...
Please, read Bulman's memoirs, you wil see that never England thinked about producing US engines, but always wanted to have their engines build in America. Including Napier Sabre !
Please, read Bulman's memoirs, you wil see that never England thinked about producing US engines, but always wanted to have their engines build in America. Including Napier Sabre !
MiTasol
1st Lieutenant
Is this the book you mean?
Yes !!!!
Alvis licensed the French GR designs (e.g., Alvis Pelides - Wikipedia). but although apparently making some progress, found no interest. I imagine the Bristol developments were seen as more promising.
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The G-R designs seem to have been not much better than what Armstrong-Whitworth were producing, the lack of a center bearing precluding anything more than modest power levels.
As an incidental comment, I have seen a slightly more detailed comment regarding Pratt & Whitney licensing in the UK, apparently Lord Nuffield was promoting this to the air ministry as part of his broader Wolseley aero-engine efforts. The AM was supposedly completely uninterested and the idea fell by the wayside even before the big snit about cost accounting which finished the Wolseley venture. But as usual no specifics about dates, types or anything to indicate it was a serious venture.
It seems they would have been better off focusing on their liquid cooled engines. There was a somewhat similar issue in Italy with Isotta-Fraschini licensing the GR 14K - they didn't seem to have much success either.
Development of Hispano-Suiza air-cooled engines was absolutely not in the culture of the company. But it was imposed by the Official Services who did not want (we do not know for what reasons!) that the production of French engines be specialized, i.e Gnome-Rhône = air-cooled engines, Hispano-Suiza = liquid-cooled engines.
The Hispano-Suiza 14 Aa and 14 Ab engines were requested and imposed on all the prototypes studied from 1935, though these engines were not yet type-tested and homologated. The result was catastrophic, because these two engines never functioned correctly.
This aberration is one of the causes (among many others) of the decline of French engine manufacturers at the end of the 1930s.
Yes, the main problem was center bearing. The first G&R series including center bearing was 14P, later 14R, but development was rather slow owing to many factors, mainly lack of official interest and typically French social and political problems.
License-building Pratt & Whitney engines in France was very seriously considered in 1937-1938, But the project never came to fruition for multiple reasons: political instability, and above all reactions and maneuvers by national engine manufacturers to retain their privileges, etc.
You may read (in French) :
And same situation with english engines :
Regards
Alain
