Considerable difficulty was experienced in reaching a satisfactory arrangement with the Rolls-Royce Co. We expected to duplicate this engine at the plant of the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Co., at Buffalo, N. Y., but the British concern objected to this arrangement on the ground that the Pierce-Arrow people were commercial competitors.
It was several months before we could agree on a factory and arrive at a contract satisfactory to both sides. Meanwhile the Liberty engine had scored its great success, and the expected enormous production of Liberties tended to cool the enthusiasm of our aircraft authorities for the Rolls-Royce, as it was evident that the Liberty itself would be as serviceable and as advanced in type as the British product.
The Rolls-Royce Co. wished to manufacture here its "190," an engine developing from 250 to 270 horsepower; and for this effort it was prepared to send to the United States at once a complete set of jigs, gauges, and all other necessary tooling of a Rolls-Royce plant. With this equipment ready at hand the company expected to produce about 500 American-built Rolls-Royce engines before the 1st of July, 1918.
But so rapidly was the evolution of aircraft engines going ahead that even during the time of these negotiations it became evident that something more than 250 horsepower would soon be needed in the fighting planes on the Western front. We therefore abandoned the Rolls-Royce model 190 and started negotiations for the 270-horsepower engine, the latest and most powerful one produced by the Rolls-Royce Co. But for this engine the British concern could not furnish the tooling, which would have to be made new in this country, and this would reduce the schedule of deliveries. As a result no American-built Rolls-Royce engine was ever made.
Another disappointing experience in attempting to produce a foreign designed motor in this country was the project to bring the manufacture of Bugatti engines to the United States. When our European aircraft commission arrived in France, the first experimental Bugatti engine had just made its appearance. It was apparently a long step in advance of any other motor that had been produced. This French mechanism was a geared 16-cylinder engine. It weighed approximately 1,100 pounds and was expected to develop 510 horsepower. It seemed to be the motor to supplement our own Liberty engine construction. Although heavier than a Liberty, it was much more powerful. The first Bugatti engine built in France was purchased by the Bolling commission and hurried to the United States with the urgent recommendation that we put it into production immediately and push its manufacture as energetically as we were pushing that of the Liberty engine.
The Signal Corps acted immediately upon this advice and prepared to proceed with the Bugatti on a scale that promised to make its development as spectacular as that of the Liberty. The Duesenberg Motor Corporation, of Elizabeth, N. J., was even then tooling up for the production of Liberty engines. We took this concern from its Liberty work and directed it to assume leadership in the production of Bugattis. The Liberty engine construction had been centered in the Detroit district. We now prepared to establish a new aviation engine district in the East, associating in it such concerns as the Fiat Plant at Schenectady, N. Y., the Herschell-Spillman Co., of North Tonawanda, N. Y., and several others. For a time the expectation for the Bugatti production ran almost as high as the enthusiasm for the Liberty engine, but the whole undertaking ended virtually in failure, a failure again due to the tremendous difficulty in adapting foreign engineering plans to American factory production.
This was the story of it. In due time the sample Bugatti engine arrived, and with it were several French engineers and expert mechanics. But, once set up, the Bugatti motor would not function, nor was it in condition to run; for, as we discovered, during its test in France a soldier had been struck by its flying propeller. His body had been thrown twice to the roof of the testing shed, and the shocks had bent the engine's crank shaft. Then, too, we learned for the first time that the design and development of this engine had not been carried through to completion and that a great deal of work would be required before the device could be put into manufacture. The tests in France had developed that such a fundamental feature as the oiling system needed complete readjustment, and this was only indicative of the amount of work yet to be done on the engineering side of the production. We did our best with this engine; but to redesign it and develop it so that it could pass the severe 50-hour test demanded by our Joint Army and Navy Technical Board was the work of months, and after that the tooling up of plants had to be accomplished. The American Bugatti was just getting into production when the armistice was signed, a total of only 11 having been delivered.
As we have seen, we were already building several hundred Hispano-Suiza 150-horsepower engines for our training planes. Soon after the arrival of our aircraft commission in France we were advised to go into the additional manufacture of the latest Hispano-Suiza geared engine of 220-horsepower. Consequently the Washington office at once arranged with the Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation, which was building the smaller Hispano-Suizas, to undertake the production of this newer model also. The preparations for this manufacture had gone on in the Wright-Martin plant for a considerable period of time when further advice from Europe informed us that the Hispano-Suiza 220 was not performing successfully on account of trouble with the gearing. This fact, of course, canceled the new contract with the Wright-Martin Co., the incident being another of those ups and downs with which the undertaking was replete.
Along in the summer of 1918 the Hispano-Suiza designers in Europe brought out a 300-horsepower engine. By this date the development of military flying had made it apparent that engines of such great horsepower could be used advantageously on the smaller planes. However, the engine plants of the allied countries were already taxed to their capacities by their existing contracts, and the demands of these countries for high-powered engines could not be supplied unless we in America could increase our manufacturing facilities even further.