mika
Still Wondering
Happy Birthday
BMW PressClub puts out historical pieces periodically. While we were in West Bend last year BMW was celebrating ninety years. Here is PART I of three parts on the history of the company.
Ninety Years of BMW –
the Symbol of Innovation.
PART I. BMW Aircraft Engines.
PART II. BMW Motorcycles.
PART III. BMW Cars.
Ninety Years of BMW –
the Symbol of Innovation.
The spirit of innovation has transcended through the history of BMW for no
less than 90 years. And indeed, this ongoing innovation of the white-and-blue
brand has been borne out and initiated consistently by the creativity, skill,
and consistency of the company’s employees. The products created in this
process have at all times combined proven and new technologies in a
most characteristic manner, forming a sophisticated, trendsetting symbiosis
at all times.
PART I. BMW Aircraft Engines.
All this came together as far back as in the year 1917 when, in February,
a new Chief Engineer joined Rapp-Motorenwerke: Max Friz came to Munich
from Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft, bringing with him the idea for an
aircraft engine he had not been able to turn into reality in his former job.
His concept was to build an extra-large, extra-high-compression
power unit enabling an aircraft to reach higher altitudes than ever before.
Precisely this was the greatest demand made by the military of engine
manufacturers during World War I, since the ability to reach a higher altitude
gave pilots a significant strategic benefit.
With air density decreasing as a function of height, conventional engines quite
literally ran out of air at altitudes above 3,000 metres or about 10,000 feet.
An engine with extra-large capacity and a higher compression ratio, on the
other hand, operates in thin air like a “normal” engine on the ground. But on
the other hand such an engine must be throttled back in its performance
when close to the ground in order to avoid any overload on the components.
Lightweight engineering: pistons and crankcase made of aluminium.
Introducing this concept, Friz took up a proposal Wilhelm Maybach had
made a year before, which however had not gone into series production.
This, quite simply, was that high performance was important, but far from
everything: Because at the same time engines had to be as robust, light and
aerodynamic as possible. Friz’ particularly innovative approach, therefore,
was to combine Maybach’s new idea with proven technologies. So on 20 May
1917 the Development Department registered the first construction drawing for a new engine conceived by Friz as a straight-six in the interest of
optimum mass balance with minimum vibrations.
This concept helped to significantly reduce the structural loads acting on
the aircraft, which in those early years was still a relatively fragile construction.
The slender frontal area of the engine and the compact arrangement of
the ancillaries served in addition to reduce air resistance. On the other hand
the substantial engine capacity of 19 litres and the high compression
ratio called for relatively large components. So to keep such extra weight within
limits, Friz opted for a crankcase and pistons made of aluminium.
In Friz’ design the cylinder head and cylinders formed one inseparable
unit, with the steel cylinder liners simply being bolted into the cylinder head
extending far down into the engine block itself. In this way Friz was able to do without a cylinder head gasket generally involving a number of critical features, dry sump lubrication and dual ignition serving instead to provide a reliable and consistent supply of oil and keep the engine running reliably at all times.
Just how modern this concept was in practice is borne out clearly by the valve
control system, with the valves being driven by rocker arms running on an
overhead camshaft which, in turn, was driven not by a chain, but rather by a
vertical layshaft.
High-altitude carburettor for enhanced output and fuel economy.
One of the most important components of the innovative power unit designed
and built by Friz was the special high-altitude carburettor – a system made up
of three mixing chambers, three air and fuel supply nozzles in each chamber
and five throttle butterflies interacting with one another to efficiently adjust the
fuel/air mixture to the respective altitude. To make the adjustments required,
the pilot had two levers for normal and high-altitude gas, that is a fuel/air
mixture control system destined to subsequently give the engine an excellent
balance of output and fuel economy.
The design and construction drawings had not even been completed when a
group of specialists from the German Reichwehr visited Rapp-Motorenwerke
in July 1917, seeking to obtain further information on the project. After Friz had
presented and explained his construction, the high-brass representatives
of the military were so convinced that they ordered 600 engines right away,
requesting delivery at the earliest possible time.
The birthday: 21 July 1917.
As a result of this completely surprising success within a company which
so far had not exactly enjoyed a great time in the market, Rapp-Motorenwerke
soon had to be re-organised: Founder Karl Rapp left the company and only a
few days after the Prussian officers had paid their visit, the Meeting of Partners
decided to give the company a new name – Bayerische Motoren Werke.
Just one day later, on 21 July 1917, the new name of the company was
entered in the trade register, the change then becoming absolutely official
another two days later when, on 23 July, the company’s Top Management
wrote to the Ministry of War: “We hereby inform you that as of today we
have changed the name of our company to Bayerische Motoren Werke.”
Even so the old name and logo, a horse in the silhouette of a black chess
figure, still appeared at the time on the company’s letterhead as a symbol for
the name Rapp. But now, reflecting the new name of the company, the
symbolic knight soon disappeared and was replaced by the white-and-blue
colours of Bavaria. And since the new name was too long, it was cut back
to three short letters: BMW. Then, on 5 October, the German Imperial Patent
Office registered the new logo as the trademark of the company.
Taking off for the first time on 23 December 1917 in the Rumpler C IV biplane,
BMW’s first engine bore the model designation “IIIa” in accordance with
the appropriate military classification and the new logo of the brand. With its
output of 185 horsepower, the engine fulfilled all the expectations of the
military users, who promptly placed an order for 2,500 units. And while not all
of these engines were completed by the end of the war, the engines used at
the time quickly gave the BMW brand its great reputation for reliability, power,
and economy.
World high-altitude record: 9,760 metres (32,013 feet).
Proceeding from this successful engine, the engineers at BMW built further
variants in the last few months of the war, among them the even larger 250-hp
BMW IV. This was indeed the engine which on 9 June 1919 took test pilot
Zeno Diemer to an unprecedented altitude of 9,760 metres or 32,013 feet.
Never before had anybody reached an altitude of this kind – meaning that Max
Friz had impressively proven the potential of his innovative engine concept.
Twelve-cylinder with magnesium crankcase for the “Rail Zeppelin”.
With the restrictions imposed on German aviation being gradually loosened in
the mid-20s, the six-cylinder again provided the starting point for the
ongoing development of BMW aircraft engines. What was needed at the time
were large engines able to develop a high level of consistent output
over a long period. So again, the engineers took an approach characteristic of
BMW innovations to this very day, optimising a proven basic design and
adding both trendsetting and reliable new concepts.
Taking this approach, the engineers at BMW put together two units of the
BMW IV six-cylinder in 1924, creating a 12-cylinder V-engine delivering
580 hp permanent output. And to save weight, they used not only aluminium
on the new engine, but in some cases even magnesium on the crankcase.
This powerful engine destined to become famous as the BMW VI quickly
became the benchmark of its time, numerous aircraft relying on the BMW V12
on both their maiden and record-breaking flights. And indeed, this unique
power unit quickly proved its merits not only in the air, but also in a particularly
spectacular manner in the early ‘30s in the German “Rail Zeppelin” a highspeed
train driven by a compressed air propeller at the rear. The BMW power
unit accelerated this streamlined railcar to a speed of no less than 230 km/h
or 143 mph, again setting up a new world record.
The final highlight was that the engine was not only delivered from Munich to
customers all over the world, but was also built by licensees in Czechoslovakia,
Japan and Russia all expressing their great confidence in the BMW VI power
unit.
In the late ’20s BMW further expanded its leading position as a manufacturer
of aircraft engines, now also focusing on the production of air-cooled
radial power units. To gain adequate experience with this new technology,
the specialists in Munich started building Pratt & Whitney Hornet engines
under a licence agreement as of 1929. For while, with its maximum output of
450 hp, the Hornet engine was not as powerful as BMW’s best-selling
12-cylinder BMW VI power unit, the radial engine was significantly lighter.
Radial engine with direct gasoline injection.
Once again, BMW’s development engineers struck out to optimise proven
technology, increasing engine output to 690 hp while leaving engine capacity
unchanged and adding only a bit of extra weight. To achieve this improvement,
both the crankcase and cylinder heads of the new BMW 132 were made of
aluminium, with a turbocharger to provide extra boost at high altitudes being
fitted directly on the rear end of the crankshaft.
Becoming a great success, this superior radial engine gained fame particularly
as the power unit featured in the three-engined Junkers Ju 52. Indeed,
in its process of ongoing development, the BMW 132 quickly became the
spearhead for other, innovative technologies: The BMW 132F, for example,
was BMW’s first power unit with direct gasoline injection. And in the mid-30s,
the development engineers converted the nine-cylinder to diesel combustion,
added water cooling on certain components, and gave the new engine the
designation BMW 114.
Running on special fuel and with multi-stage turbocharging, the radial
engine in its last stage of development even broke the 1,000-horsepower
“output barrier” at least for short spells and bursts of power.
But soon even this was not enough: In late 1938 the specialists in Munich
started developing a double-radial engine with no less than 14 cylinders,
that is two radial units with seven cylinders each behind one another.
To ensure an adequate flow of air for the cylinders at the rear, the “basic” ninecylinder
was cut back accordingly and the two radial units were slightly offset from one another. Displacing no less than 42 litres, the BMW 801 aircraft engine weighing approximately one tonne developed continuous output of no less than 1,500 hp.
The command unit: the first mechanical “on-board computer”.
Introducing an innovative engine control concept, BMW’s engineers
significantly facilitated and streamlined the process of operating the engine:
The so-called “Command Unit” cut back the conventional array of levers
for the pilot to one single control unit, thus making the job of controlling the
engine and flying the plane much easier and smoother than before.
Ensuring supreme reliability, this miracle in sophisticated mechanics automatically
controlled the fuel/air mixture and air charge process as a function
of load and height, as well as the ignition timing and setting of the propeller.
The result was a reduction of fuel consumption and an increase in operating
reliability.
In its basic configuration, the BMW 801 came with direct gasoline injection
and a mechanical turbocharger. But then, in the early ’40s, the latter
was slowly but surely replaced by a more sophisticated alternative, with the
turbocharging effect being provided by means of the flow energy in the
exhaust emissions. This created a radial engine with turbocharger technology
entering series production as the first aircraft engine of its kind in 1944.
VANOS even back then: an 18-cylinder with variable control timing.
To further increase engine output and performance, the engineers at BMW
increased the number of cylinders in the BMW 802 aircraft engine to no less
than 18. Cooling air plates made sure in this case that despite the small
spaces between cylinders, enough cooling air was still able to reach the points
subject to high thermal loads and temperatures.
The most particular feature on this 2,500-hp power unit was however the valve
timing, with both the intake and outlet valves being masterminded by cam
plates able to turn in opposite directions while the engine was running. So it is
fair to say that as far back as in 1942, the BMW 802 already came with an
early type of VANOS camshaft control now to be admired on modern BMW
car engines. Clearly, a significant innovation far ahead of its time.
Acknowledging you have a problem is the first step in any 12- step, self-help kind of program I have ever read about. motorcyclenews.com has BMW taking the first step to recovery: BMW admits quality control problems
motorevue.fr: Yamaha YBR-650
visordown.com: KTM unveil new-spec 990 Supermoto R
MotoGP.com: Full GP review – Misano
Roadracingworld.com: A preive of The Bol d’Or 24 Hour World Endurance Race
motorradonline.de: TT races without CO2
AMA Road Atlanta Results:
Superstock
Supersport
Superbike
Stuff
BMW and Mehrzeller’s polygon camping trailer takes Camp Beers into the future.squob.com
forums.bmwmoa.org: experiment – you folks write the sig line policy
Bike Candy
THE END
BMW PressClub puts out historical pieces periodically. While we were in West Bend last year BMW was celebrating ninety years. Here is PART I of three parts on the history of the company.
Ninety Years of BMW –
the Symbol of Innovation.
PART I. BMW Aircraft Engines.
PART II. BMW Motorcycles.
PART III. BMW Cars.
Ninety Years of BMW –
the Symbol of Innovation.
The spirit of innovation has transcended through the history of BMW for no
less than 90 years. And indeed, this ongoing innovation of the white-and-blue
brand has been borne out and initiated consistently by the creativity, skill,
and consistency of the company’s employees. The products created in this
process have at all times combined proven and new technologies in a
most characteristic manner, forming a sophisticated, trendsetting symbiosis
at all times.
PART I. BMW Aircraft Engines.
All this came together as far back as in the year 1917 when, in February,
a new Chief Engineer joined Rapp-Motorenwerke: Max Friz came to Munich
from Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft, bringing with him the idea for an
aircraft engine he had not been able to turn into reality in his former job.
His concept was to build an extra-large, extra-high-compression
power unit enabling an aircraft to reach higher altitudes than ever before.
Precisely this was the greatest demand made by the military of engine
manufacturers during World War I, since the ability to reach a higher altitude
gave pilots a significant strategic benefit.
With air density decreasing as a function of height, conventional engines quite
literally ran out of air at altitudes above 3,000 metres or about 10,000 feet.
An engine with extra-large capacity and a higher compression ratio, on the
other hand, operates in thin air like a “normal” engine on the ground. But on
the other hand such an engine must be throttled back in its performance
when close to the ground in order to avoid any overload on the components.
Lightweight engineering: pistons and crankcase made of aluminium.
Introducing this concept, Friz took up a proposal Wilhelm Maybach had
made a year before, which however had not gone into series production.
This, quite simply, was that high performance was important, but far from
everything: Because at the same time engines had to be as robust, light and
aerodynamic as possible. Friz’ particularly innovative approach, therefore,
was to combine Maybach’s new idea with proven technologies. So on 20 May
1917 the Development Department registered the first construction drawing for a new engine conceived by Friz as a straight-six in the interest of
optimum mass balance with minimum vibrations.
This concept helped to significantly reduce the structural loads acting on
the aircraft, which in those early years was still a relatively fragile construction.
The slender frontal area of the engine and the compact arrangement of
the ancillaries served in addition to reduce air resistance. On the other hand
the substantial engine capacity of 19 litres and the high compression
ratio called for relatively large components. So to keep such extra weight within
limits, Friz opted for a crankcase and pistons made of aluminium.
In Friz’ design the cylinder head and cylinders formed one inseparable
unit, with the steel cylinder liners simply being bolted into the cylinder head
extending far down into the engine block itself. In this way Friz was able to do without a cylinder head gasket generally involving a number of critical features, dry sump lubrication and dual ignition serving instead to provide a reliable and consistent supply of oil and keep the engine running reliably at all times.
Just how modern this concept was in practice is borne out clearly by the valve
control system, with the valves being driven by rocker arms running on an
overhead camshaft which, in turn, was driven not by a chain, but rather by a
vertical layshaft.
High-altitude carburettor for enhanced output and fuel economy.
One of the most important components of the innovative power unit designed
and built by Friz was the special high-altitude carburettor – a system made up
of three mixing chambers, three air and fuel supply nozzles in each chamber
and five throttle butterflies interacting with one another to efficiently adjust the
fuel/air mixture to the respective altitude. To make the adjustments required,
the pilot had two levers for normal and high-altitude gas, that is a fuel/air
mixture control system destined to subsequently give the engine an excellent
balance of output and fuel economy.
The design and construction drawings had not even been completed when a
group of specialists from the German Reichwehr visited Rapp-Motorenwerke
in July 1917, seeking to obtain further information on the project. After Friz had
presented and explained his construction, the high-brass representatives
of the military were so convinced that they ordered 600 engines right away,
requesting delivery at the earliest possible time.
The birthday: 21 July 1917.
As a result of this completely surprising success within a company which
so far had not exactly enjoyed a great time in the market, Rapp-Motorenwerke
soon had to be re-organised: Founder Karl Rapp left the company and only a
few days after the Prussian officers had paid their visit, the Meeting of Partners
decided to give the company a new name – Bayerische Motoren Werke.
Just one day later, on 21 July 1917, the new name of the company was
entered in the trade register, the change then becoming absolutely official
another two days later when, on 23 July, the company’s Top Management
wrote to the Ministry of War: “We hereby inform you that as of today we
have changed the name of our company to Bayerische Motoren Werke.”
Even so the old name and logo, a horse in the silhouette of a black chess
figure, still appeared at the time on the company’s letterhead as a symbol for
the name Rapp. But now, reflecting the new name of the company, the
symbolic knight soon disappeared and was replaced by the white-and-blue
colours of Bavaria. And since the new name was too long, it was cut back
to three short letters: BMW. Then, on 5 October, the German Imperial Patent
Office registered the new logo as the trademark of the company.
Taking off for the first time on 23 December 1917 in the Rumpler C IV biplane,
BMW’s first engine bore the model designation “IIIa” in accordance with
the appropriate military classification and the new logo of the brand. With its
output of 185 horsepower, the engine fulfilled all the expectations of the
military users, who promptly placed an order for 2,500 units. And while not all
of these engines were completed by the end of the war, the engines used at
the time quickly gave the BMW brand its great reputation for reliability, power,
and economy.
World high-altitude record: 9,760 metres (32,013 feet).
Proceeding from this successful engine, the engineers at BMW built further
variants in the last few months of the war, among them the even larger 250-hp
BMW IV. This was indeed the engine which on 9 June 1919 took test pilot
Zeno Diemer to an unprecedented altitude of 9,760 metres or 32,013 feet.
Never before had anybody reached an altitude of this kind – meaning that Max
Friz had impressively proven the potential of his innovative engine concept.
Twelve-cylinder with magnesium crankcase for the “Rail Zeppelin”.
With the restrictions imposed on German aviation being gradually loosened in
the mid-20s, the six-cylinder again provided the starting point for the
ongoing development of BMW aircraft engines. What was needed at the time
were large engines able to develop a high level of consistent output
over a long period. So again, the engineers took an approach characteristic of
BMW innovations to this very day, optimising a proven basic design and
adding both trendsetting and reliable new concepts.
Taking this approach, the engineers at BMW put together two units of the
BMW IV six-cylinder in 1924, creating a 12-cylinder V-engine delivering
580 hp permanent output. And to save weight, they used not only aluminium
on the new engine, but in some cases even magnesium on the crankcase.
This powerful engine destined to become famous as the BMW VI quickly
became the benchmark of its time, numerous aircraft relying on the BMW V12
on both their maiden and record-breaking flights. And indeed, this unique
power unit quickly proved its merits not only in the air, but also in a particularly
spectacular manner in the early ‘30s in the German “Rail Zeppelin” a highspeed
train driven by a compressed air propeller at the rear. The BMW power
unit accelerated this streamlined railcar to a speed of no less than 230 km/h
or 143 mph, again setting up a new world record.
The final highlight was that the engine was not only delivered from Munich to
customers all over the world, but was also built by licensees in Czechoslovakia,
Japan and Russia all expressing their great confidence in the BMW VI power
unit.
In the late ’20s BMW further expanded its leading position as a manufacturer
of aircraft engines, now also focusing on the production of air-cooled
radial power units. To gain adequate experience with this new technology,
the specialists in Munich started building Pratt & Whitney Hornet engines
under a licence agreement as of 1929. For while, with its maximum output of
450 hp, the Hornet engine was not as powerful as BMW’s best-selling
12-cylinder BMW VI power unit, the radial engine was significantly lighter.
Radial engine with direct gasoline injection.
Once again, BMW’s development engineers struck out to optimise proven
technology, increasing engine output to 690 hp while leaving engine capacity
unchanged and adding only a bit of extra weight. To achieve this improvement,
both the crankcase and cylinder heads of the new BMW 132 were made of
aluminium, with a turbocharger to provide extra boost at high altitudes being
fitted directly on the rear end of the crankshaft.
Becoming a great success, this superior radial engine gained fame particularly
as the power unit featured in the three-engined Junkers Ju 52. Indeed,
in its process of ongoing development, the BMW 132 quickly became the
spearhead for other, innovative technologies: The BMW 132F, for example,
was BMW’s first power unit with direct gasoline injection. And in the mid-30s,
the development engineers converted the nine-cylinder to diesel combustion,
added water cooling on certain components, and gave the new engine the
designation BMW 114.
Running on special fuel and with multi-stage turbocharging, the radial
engine in its last stage of development even broke the 1,000-horsepower
“output barrier” at least for short spells and bursts of power.
But soon even this was not enough: In late 1938 the specialists in Munich
started developing a double-radial engine with no less than 14 cylinders,
that is two radial units with seven cylinders each behind one another.
To ensure an adequate flow of air for the cylinders at the rear, the “basic” ninecylinder
was cut back accordingly and the two radial units were slightly offset from one another. Displacing no less than 42 litres, the BMW 801 aircraft engine weighing approximately one tonne developed continuous output of no less than 1,500 hp.
The command unit: the first mechanical “on-board computer”.
Introducing an innovative engine control concept, BMW’s engineers
significantly facilitated and streamlined the process of operating the engine:
The so-called “Command Unit” cut back the conventional array of levers
for the pilot to one single control unit, thus making the job of controlling the
engine and flying the plane much easier and smoother than before.
Ensuring supreme reliability, this miracle in sophisticated mechanics automatically
controlled the fuel/air mixture and air charge process as a function
of load and height, as well as the ignition timing and setting of the propeller.
The result was a reduction of fuel consumption and an increase in operating
reliability.
In its basic configuration, the BMW 801 came with direct gasoline injection
and a mechanical turbocharger. But then, in the early ’40s, the latter
was slowly but surely replaced by a more sophisticated alternative, with the
turbocharging effect being provided by means of the flow energy in the
exhaust emissions. This created a radial engine with turbocharger technology
entering series production as the first aircraft engine of its kind in 1944.
VANOS even back then: an 18-cylinder with variable control timing.
To further increase engine output and performance, the engineers at BMW
increased the number of cylinders in the BMW 802 aircraft engine to no less
than 18. Cooling air plates made sure in this case that despite the small
spaces between cylinders, enough cooling air was still able to reach the points
subject to high thermal loads and temperatures.
The most particular feature on this 2,500-hp power unit was however the valve
timing, with both the intake and outlet valves being masterminded by cam
plates able to turn in opposite directions while the engine was running. So it is
fair to say that as far back as in 1942, the BMW 802 already came with an
early type of VANOS camshaft control now to be admired on modern BMW
car engines. Clearly, a significant innovation far ahead of its time.
Acknowledging you have a problem is the first step in any 12- step, self-help kind of program I have ever read about. motorcyclenews.com has BMW taking the first step to recovery: BMW admits quality control problems
motorevue.fr: Yamaha YBR-650
visordown.com: KTM unveil new-spec 990 Supermoto R
MotoGP.com: Full GP review – Misano
Roadracingworld.com: A preive of The Bol d’Or 24 Hour World Endurance Race
motorradonline.de: TT races without CO2
AMA Road Atlanta Results:
Superstock
Supersport
Superbike
Stuff
BMW and Mehrzeller’s polygon camping trailer takes Camp Beers into the future.squob.com
forums.bmwmoa.org: experiment – you folks write the sig line policy
Bike Candy
THE END
