Gyro Motor Company was an American aircraft engine manufacturer.

History

In 1901, inventor

Emile Berliner Emile Berliner (May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929) originally Emil Berliner, was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record (called a "gramophone record" in British and American English) used with a ...

(1851-1929) began building experimental helicopters that used Addams-Farwell rotary engine. The Gyro Motor Company was formed in 1909 by

to make rotary engines. His designs were improvements of the Addams-Farwell rotary engine Berliner used in early helicopter experiments. The engines at the time of his 1901 experiments generated just one horsepower per 20 pounds of weight. Addams-Farwell built a custom engine that weighed three to four pounds per hp. Berliner donated the engine to the

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...

, and pursued his own advanced version. He built a small factory on 774 Girard Street in Washington, D.C., next to another small factory for his Victor record players. Gyro incorporated with $100,000 in stock in 1911. It produced 3-, 5- and 7-cylinder models of the rotary engine, each with the same bore and stroke. His engines had a 40-pound cast nickel-steel cylinder assembly that was machined down to 6 1/2 pounds with spiraling cooling fins for strength. Emile experimented with graphite powder suspended in the fuel as a method of light-weight lubrication. A monoplane built by the Washington Aeroplane Company set an American endurance record with a Gyro Seven cylinder engine of 4 hours and 23 minutes in the air. In December 1912, Berliner traveled to Germany and set up a German manufacturing component in Adlershof to market the Gyro engines with a $500,000 capitalization. In London, pilot Beatty demonstrated a Wright aircraft retrofitted with a 50-hp Gyro engine. The Gyro progressed to 80-hp in the seven-cylinder model by 1913, and up to 110 hp in the Model L nine cylinder "Duplex" with a unique cam-driven exhaust valve. The French

Gnome Omega The Gnome 7 Omega (commonly called the Gnome 50 hp) is a French seven-cylinder, air-cooled aero engine produced by Gnome et Rhône. It was shown at the Paris Aero Salon held in December 1908 and was first flown in 1909. It was the world's f ...

and future variants proved to be more popular in sales.

Motorenfabrik Oberursel Motorenfabrik Oberursel A.G. was a German manufacturer of automobile, locomotive and aircraft engines situated in Oberursel (Taunus), near Frankfurt (Main), Germany. During World War I it supplied a major 100 hp-class rotary engine that was us ...

developed its own rotary from the

Gnome Monosoupape The ''Monosoupape'' ( French for single-valve), was a rotary engine design first introduced in 1913 by Gnome Engine Company (renamed Gnome et Rhône in 1915). It used a clever arrangement of internal transfer ports and a single pushrod-operated ...

that would power many World War I fighters. In June 1914, Berliner's nephew, Joseph Sanders, became the general manager. Sanders purchased the assets in May 1917, forming the Gyro Company. Gyro motor production ended during World War I, when a flood of advanced designs were introduced to the market.

History

Engines

See also

References

Bibliography