__NOTOC__
The Green Engine Co was a British engine company founded by
Gustavus Green
Gustavus Green (11 March 1865 – 29 December 1964) was a British engineer who made significant contributions to the design of early aircraft engines.
He was born in Hounslow on 11 March 1865. He opened a bicycle factory in Bexhill-on-Sea, an ...
in
Bexhill to sell engines of his design. He flourished especially as a designer of aeroplane engines during the first two decades of the 20th century. The engines were actually manufactured by the
Aster Engineering Company.
History
The firm produced a range of
water-cooled
Cooling tower and water discharge of a nuclear power plant
Water cooling is a method of heat removal from components and industrial equipment. Evaporative cooling using water is often more efficient than air cooling. Water is inexpensive and no ...
, mostly
inline engines up to about 1915. Green engines powered many pioneering British aircraft, including those of
A. V. Roe,
Samuel Cody
Samuel Franklin Cowdery (later known as Samuel Franklin Cody; 6 March 1867 – 7 August 1913, born Davenport, Iowa, USA)) was a Wild West showman and early pioneer of manned flight. He is most famous for his work on the large kites known ...
, and
Short Brothers
Short Brothers plc, usually referred to as Shorts or Short, is an aerospace company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Shorts was founded in 1908 in London, and was the first company in the world to make production aeroplanes. It was particu ...
. They had several advanced features in common; cast steel single-piece cylinders and cylinder heads, two valves per cylinder driven by an overhead camshaft, white metal crankshaft bearings and copper and rubber-sealed water jackets.
Manufacture was at the
Aster Engineering Company of
Wembley
Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...
.
When the
Great War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
broke out, the company was known for its
motorcycle engine
A motorcycle engine is an engine that powers a motorcycle. Motorcycle engines are typically two-stroke or four-stroke internal combustion engines, but other engine types, such as Wankels and electric motors, have been used.
Although some moped ...
s and particularly associated with a "
pannier
A pannier is a basket, bag, box, or similar container, carried in pairs either slung over the back of a beast of burden, or attached to the sides of a bicycle or motorcycle. The term derives from a Middle English borrowing of the Old French '' ...
honeycomb" radiator design.
[Anon, ''The Motorcycle'', no. 695, Volume 13, 29 October 1914, p.482] It was already involved in aero-engine design. In 1909, the
C.4 had been the only motor to complete the tests for the
Patrick Alexander Competition but was not awarded the £1,000 prize, because the rules called for a engine while the C.4 only averaged . The competition was re-run the following year for more powerful engines: this time, Green gained the prize with the
D.4. Up to 1912 Green was the only source of all-British aircraft engines capable of producing and so the only choice when prizes were offered for all-British aircraft. The best known case is
John Moore-Brabazon
Lieutenant-Colonel John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon of Tara, , HonFRPS (8 February 1884 – 17 May 1964), was an English aviation pioneer and Conservative politician. He was the first Englishman to pilot a heavier-than- ...
's winning the £1,000 ''Daily Mail'' prize for a circular flight by a British pilot in an all-British aeroplane in his D.4-powered
Short Biplane No. 2 in 1910.
In 1914, the company was awarded a £5,000 prize by the Army Council in a Naval and Military Aeroplane Engine Competition
for their water-cooled
six-cylinder
The straight-six engine (also referred to as an inline-six engine; abbreviated I6 or L6) is a piston engine with six cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. A straight-six engine has perfect primary and secondary engine balan ...
"Engine No. 1", which was judged to possess the highest number of attributes desirable in an aeroplane engine.
It was designed to deliver maximum power at low speed and weighed .
Green continued to design motorcycle engines too, using cylinders similar to, though smaller than, those on their prize-winning aero-engine, having similar rubber-sealed copper jackets and removable overhead valve mechanisms designed to protect the cylinders from damage by broken valves, and forced lubrication throughout.
In 1914, ''Motor Cycle'' magazine reported on a
Zenith
The zenith (, ) is an imaginary point directly "above" a particular location, on the celestial sphere. "Above" means in the vertical direction (plumb line) opposite to the gravity direction at that location (nadir). The zenith is the "highest" ...
motorcycle supplied with the 'new' ()
V-twin
A V-twin engine, also called a V2 engine, is a two-cylinder piston engine where the cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration.
Although widely associated with motorcycles (installed either transversely or longi ...
, of bore and stroke. One interesting detail seen on many modern motorcycles was 'the fitting of a glass window in the crank case to show the level of the oil'.
Aircraft engines
Data from and
*V-8, 100 hp (1908–1909)
*
Green C.4 4-cylinder inline, 105 mm bore × 120mm stroke, 30–35 hp (1908–1910)
*
Green D.4 4-cylinder inline, 140 mm bore × 146 mm stroke, 50–60 hp (1909–1910)
*6-cylinder inline, 140 mm bore × 146 mm stroke, 82 hp (1912–1916)
*
Green E.6 6-cylinder inline, 140 mm bore × 152 mm stroke, 90–100 hp (1912–1916)
*6-cylinder inline, E.6 development, 140 mm bore × 152 mm stroke, 120 hp
[''Flight'' 23 October 1914 p.1062](_blank)
/ref>
*V-12, 275 hp (1914–1915)
Applications (grouped by engine power)
Source:
Aeroplanes
35 hp inline C.4
60 hp inline D.4
100 hp inline E.4
Airships
35 hp inline C.4
Army Balloon Factory Beta I
80 hp V-8
Army Balloon Factory Gamma I (the first all-British airship)
Boats
The ''Defender II'' a 1909 racing boat owned by Fred May was powered by a 60 hp Green aeroplane engine.
References
Notes
Bibliography
*Bartley, L.J. (1971). ''The History of Bexhill.'' p. 94 – first successful British aero engine.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
{{Green aeroengines
Aircraft industry in London
Defunct aircraft engine manufacturers of the United Kingdom
Motorcycle engine manufacturers
Motorcycle manufacturers of the United Kingdom
Engine manufacturers of the United Kingdom