engines - first half of 30's

Which types of engines were produced by Romanian aircraft industry in the first half of 30's? Did Romanians produce any engine from Bristol Mercury family this time?

The first engine to be manufactured at I.A.R. Brasov was the Lorraine-Dietrich of 450 hp, starting from 1930. It was followed by Gnome&Rhône K-7, also of 450 hp.

I am not aware of any Bristol Mercury engine being built there, although reportedly the licence was bought by the Rumanians.

Gen. Dénes

Thanks! Any additional info about this licence?

Hi Guys,

Wasn't the Bristol/Gnome-Rhone competition for Romanian orders the subject of a major bribery scandal in the 1930s?

Cheers,

Sid.

I doubt. Could you write a bit more about mentioned affair?

I heard some rumours but I don't think it was Bristol the other contender.However,nothing was proved until today.Maybe you carefully check your sources.

Sid is almost right, this was about the engine for the IAR-80. A team was created and sent to european engine manufacturers to find the best engine for IAR-80, they did this and found Bristol to offer what they needed. They came to Romania with their report and evertyhing was ok, even started to manufacture the "sdv-uri" but a sudden order put a stop to it and the engine never got into production, instead we begun manufacturing the gnome rhome under license (a faulty engine which was not even "omologat" in France). In order for the engine to pass certification tests in Romania, the IAR engineers had to trick the test, later it was found out and an investigation begun, mr. Dan Antoniu found in the archives a note from the policeman investigating the case saying to his superiors something like "after investigateing the matter I came to the conclusion that the engineers who did this have little fault, the whole thing goes much higher, should I continue my investigation or stop here ?" he also said he found the answer to that letter which told him to stop there.

As you can see due to some corupt politicians who were bribed by Gnome Rhome, IAR engineers got some time in the prision and the whole war effort was undermined by using worse engines then the ones supposed to fit the IAR.

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on August 25, 2005 12:21 pm

Is the story in Dan Antoniu's book about the IAR-80?

Ahh I forgot to mention, as I said Sid is "almost right" because this did not happen in the first half of the 30's.

Zayets part of the story is, the other part was told to me privately by mr. Dan Antoniu - so I hope I remember corectly what he said, not to say any stupid things.

If Dan Antoniu said that (the best source for IAR-80 nowadays) that means he's right . He researches very good everything.I knew part of the story because I always thought it was about GR in competition with a German engine but probably I have mixed two stories here (Bristol/Gnome and Jumo )

Maybe George can say if my memory serves me correct.

Hi Guys,

As a matter of interest, what was the maximum power produced by a production model of the Bristol Mercury series compared with the maximum power produced by a production model of the Gnome-Rhone 14 series?

Was the G-R14 really such a bad choice for Romania?

Cheers,

Sid.

The K14 was modified by romanian engineers and improved.
Few bad things that come to mind about the K14: extremly high oil consumption, also in the Stalingrad campaign the engines prove less reliable and the IAR squadrons were almost put out of action due to the engine atrition.


Ok, now I read in IAR book and seems I made a mistake and Sid was right - the whole thing with Bristol vs. GR started in '34. I will try to translate what it says in the book:

The original K14 although it said it could deliver 870 HP it actually delivered only 750 HP, but the romanian improved version K14 IVc32 delivered 1000HP. Unfortunatelly it was impossible to solve the oil consumption problem. the AIR engineer Carp was sent into justice by same elements who acted in favour of GR engines, mr. Carp quit his job and left to Swizerland after the matters were solved.


About Bristol Mercury IV and Pegasus XVIII:
http://www.luftfahrtmuseum.com/htmi/itf/brmr4.htm
http://www.bcam.net/engines/bristpeg.htm

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on August 25, 2005 04:52 pm

1934? Are you sure?

Ask Dan Antoniu and George Cicos, they read the archives and published that date in IAR-80 book, I am sure they will be able to give a better answer.

Edited: as I see there is no mention of GR type, as for the Mercury it was an older engine then Pegasus XVIII and I remember reading that Mercury was used on some airplane before, so what you see in that document might talk about different engines then the ones produced in 1934. Also that letter asks the polish military atache in what condition did Poland recieve the license to build GR and Bristol engines and how much it cost.

Edited2: Bristol Mercury 500 HP was used on IAR-16 prototipe and was quite performant compared to other prototipes.

Edited3: please read again this quote from the book:

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on August 25, 2005 08:34 pm