Aeroplane Engine
Built by David Whitmore in October 2010
The prototype of this engine is the Hispano-Suiza company’s Type 12V which has 12 cylinders arranged in a ‘V’ shape. This type of engine was fitted into many small aircraft such as World War Two fighters. The famous Merlin engine powering the Hurricanes and Spitfires was similar. With supercharge it developed something around 1300 horse power.
Remarkably the model was developed by the Meccano Company of France at their Bobigny headquarters in the Paris suburbs in the period between the liberation of Paris and the end of the war. The instructions were hand-written in French and were accompanied by some diagrams and rather poor photographs.
This is a four-stoke engine with reducing gear and compressor, liquid cooled (ethylene glycol). Its 12 cylinders are arranged in two groups of six, in line, forming a ‘V’ with an angle of 60°. Its reducing gear is placed in the front and directly drives the crankshaft.
Interestingly, the French photographs indicate the original model was built in blue/gold Meccano, which had been used by Meccano UK in the 1930s but never post-war. The French Company continued producing blue/gold Meccano for many years.