Gnome & Rhône
| Industry | Aerospace engineering, motorcycles |
|---|---|
| Fate | Nationalized |
| Successor | Snecma |
| Founded | 12 January 1915 |
| Defunct | 29 May 1945 |
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
| Products | Aircraft engines, motorcycles |
Gnome et Rhône was a major French aircraft engine manufacturer. Between 1914 and 1918 they produced 25,000 of their 9-cylinder Delta and Le Rhône 110 hp (81 kW) rotary designs, while another 75,000 were produced by various licensees. These engines powered the majority of aircraft in the first half of the war, both Allied designs as well as German examples produced by Motorenfabrik Oberursel.
In the post-war era they started a new design series originally based on the Bristol Jupiter, but evolving into the excellent 1,000 hp-class (750 kW) Gnome-Rhône 14K Mistral Major radial, which was likewise licensed and used around the world during World War II. They were a major supplier of engine to the German Luftwaffe, producing both their own designs as well as German ones under licence. Their factories were the target of highly accurate bombing, knocking them out of the war.
The company was nationalized as a part of Snecma in 1949, but the brand lived on for a time as the manufacturer of Gnome et Rhône motorcycles and Gnome et Rhône bicycles.
In 1895 the 26-year-old French engineer Louis Seguin bought a license for the Gnom gas engine from the German firm Motorenfabrik Oberursel. Sold under the French translation, the Gnome was a single-cylinder stationary engine of about 4 hp (3 kW) that ran on kerosene (known in the UK and South Africa as paraffin) intended to be used in industrial applications. The Gnome used a unique valve system with only one rod-operated exhaust valve, and a "hidden" intake valve located on the cylinder head.
On 6 June 1905 Louis Seguin and his brother Laurent formed the Société Des Moteurs Gnome (the Gnome Motor Company) to produce automobile engines. They soon started development of one of the first purpose-designed aircraft engines, combining several Gnome cylinders into a rotary engine. The design emerged in the spring of 1909 as the 7-cylinder rotary Gnome Omega, delivering 50 hp (37 kW) from 75 kg. More than 1,700 of these engines would be built in France, along with license-built models in Germany, Sweden, Britain, the United States and Russia. The Gnome powered Henry Farman's Farman III aircraft to take the world records for distance and endurance, as well as powering the first aircraft to break 100 km/h, as well as the first seaplane ever to fly in 1910, powering France to become the leading country in aviation at the time. Léon Lemartin and Jules Védrines were two young engineers who participated in the design, development and implementation of the Omega, and in the milieu of the pioneering days of flight they both went on to become successful pilots.
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