Liberty 12 service engines 4,806
OX-5 elementary training-engines1,261
Le Rhone advanced training-engines994
De Havilland-4 observation planes524
Hispano 180 advanced training-engines343
Hispano 150 advanced training-engines 254
JN6-H advanced training-planes 174
JN4-D elementary training-planes 131

The Packard Motor Car Company made the final deliveries of Liberty 12 motors during the week ended March 21, 1919. This completes all contracts. The following shows the number and per cent produced by each factory:

FirmNumber
produced
P.C.
of total
Packard Motor Car Co.6,50032
Lincoln Motor Co.6,50032
Ford Motor Co.3,95019
General Motors Co. 2,52812
Nordyke & Marmon Co.1,000 5
———
Total20,478

The Hispano-Suiza

It is evident from the records made by the German Mercedes, which are given in another chapter, that it was the best aviation motor in existence in July, 1914. Naturally, this motor had considerable influence on the aeronautical engineers of the Allies. Mr. Marc Birkright, a Swiss engineer to the Hispano-Suiza Company, automobile builders in Barcelona, Spain, and Paris, designed the aviation motor which now holds the world’s record for altitude—28,900 feet. When he designed the motor he had in mind the construction of the machine-tools necessary to build the same.

In the summer of 1915 the first motor of 150 horse-power was delivered to France after a test of 15 consecutive hours. The next two were tested for 50 hours, and proved satisfactory. France placed a large order, and the Hispano-Suiza factory began production at the end of 1915. Before the end of the war three Italian, fourteen French, one British, one Japanese, and one Spanish factory, besides 25,000 people in America, were producing Hispano-Suiza engines.

The motor had great success in the single-seater fighters flown by such men as Captain Georges Guynemer, Lieutenant Fonck, Nungesser, and dozens of other aces.

With the exception of increasing the horse-power from 150 to 180, 200, 300, very few changes were made in this motor in this country.

Four hundred and fifty engines were ordered by the French Government of the General Aeronautic Company of America early in 1916. When the Wright-Martin Aircraft Company was formed in September of that year, less than 100 motors had been delivered. At the end of July, 1917, 1,000 motors were on their books.

From July, 1917, the American factory concentrated on the 150 horse-power engine. The Wright-Martin Company had to build its own plant for aluminum castings for the engine. In November of that year the company was ordered to build 200 horse-power engines, and later the 300 horse-power was ordered. In May, 1918, the French and British Governments decided to use the 300 horse-power motor in large quantities, and by October the factories of the company in New Brunswick and Long Island City were tooled up to produce 1,000 motors a month, which represented a $50,000,000 order. Early in the spring of 1918, 15 motors a day were produced, and in August of that year the company was committed to a schedule of 30 engines a day.