BMW had to stop producing aircraft engines after the end of World War I, so it started developing motorcycles and then cars. However, BMW never stopped developing aero engines.
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A Joint Venture Between BMW and Rolls-Royce Will Produce Aircraft Engines
MUNICH, West Germany (AP) BMW, the West German manufacturer of luxury automobiles, announced Thursday that it is resuming a business it left 31 years ago by forming a joint venture with Britain’s Rolls-Royce PLC to produce aviation engines.
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG announced that it would buy Kloekner-Humboldt-Deutz AG’s (KHD) aerospace technology division and combine the business into a joint venture with Rolls-Royce.
According to BMW, the company’s goal to diversify into new, yet connected, industrial sectors is reflected in the company’s return to airplane engines. The business chose not to provide information about the upcoming transactions.
According to Rolls-Royce, both partners would jointly own the KHD aerospace division.
BMW announced that it will own 50.5 percent of the aviation engine company, which will have its headquarters in Oberursel, close to Frankfurt. The remaining will belong to the British aircraft engine manufacturer.
The joint venture will develop, produce, and market jet engines with a maximum thrust of 20,000 pounds, which power small civilian and military jets with a maximum passenger capacity of roughly 100.
The partnership, known as BMW-Rolls-Royce, will work alongside the British company’s own Tay and Trent jet engine programs, according to a second news release. However, it declared that none of its current engine operations would be integrated into the project.
In order to address evolving airframe and re-engineering needs in the 75-seater-plus (aircraft) class, BMW-Rolls-Royce will next start designing and developing new engines with less than 20,000 pounds of thrust, according to a statement from Rolls-Royce.
According to a BMW spokesman, the KHD aerospace division, known as KHD Luftfahrttechnik GmbH and based in Oberursel, generates around $98 million in revenue each year and employs roughly 900 people.
According to George Shapiro, an analyst at Salomon Brothers Inc. in New York, the project seems to be Rolls-Royce’s attempt to strengthen its position in the aircraft engine market.
He stated, “I’ve always thought of Rolls-Royce as kind of the weak third-party participant.”
According to him, General Electric Co. and the Pratt & Whitney branch of United Technologies Corp. each control 40% to45% of the global engine market, while Rolls-Royce holds a 15% to 20% share.
The new business will be prepared for rapid expansion over the following five to ten years, according to BMW officials, who declined to provide sales projections.
According to insiders in the European aircraft sector, the joint venture may set its sights on annual sales of up to $595 million over the following ten years.
However, the experts warned that in order to achieve that target, the two parent businesses would likely need to spend up to 1 billion marks, or $595 million, on expansion.
Through World War II, BMW constructed aircraft engines, and by the end of the conflict, it was producing turbines for the recently invented jet airplane.
By selling its operations to the significant West German engineering giant MAN AG, which eventually combined them with Daimler-Benz AG, the Munich-based company exited the aircraft engine market.
The integrated engine operations initiative between Rolls-Royce and BMW is in line with industry trends. Earlier this year, Daimler-Benz decided to combine its operations for civil jet engines with those of Pratt & Whitney.
The arrangement between Daimler and Pratt & Whitney is being contested in court by General Electric, which claims it violates their joint engine development agreement with Daimler.
BMW 801
The BMW 801 was a potent German 14-cylinder air-cooled 41.8-liter (2,550 cu in) radial engine that was produced by BMW and utilized in a number of German Luftwaffe aircraft during World War II. The twin-row engine produced between 1,560 and 2,000 PS in its production versions. With more than 61,000 engines built, it was Germany’s most prolific radial engine during World War II.
The German transport and utility aircraft’s current radial types were to be replaced by the 801 at first. A prerequisite for high performance designs at the period was an inline engine due to its reduced frontal area and resulting lower drag, which was universally accepted among European designers[citation needed]. After Kurt Tank successfully adapted a BMW 801 to a new fighter design he was developing, the 801 gained notoriety as the engine for the renowned Focke-Wulf Fw 190. The BMW 801 radial also paved the way for the adoption of what is now known as an engine control unit: its Kommandogerat engine management system replaced a number of the aviation engine management control parameters of the time, enabling proper engine operation with just one throttle lever.
BMW
Many people are aware that BMW began manufacturing aircraft, and its emblem features an image of their renowned 801 engine mounted on an aircraft during World War II. Despite the fact that they originally began the war with cars, they soon switched to airplanes. The huge 41.8-liter engine, for which there was a demand of almost 61,000, was the most often used one and propelled them into the spotlight of success.
They did not continue or ever dabble in modern aircraft, unlike several of the firms listed below, although they do have close relations to (as in they own) Rolls-Royce, which continues to produce airplanes and, more recently, jet engines. That division is now solely responsible for BMW’s aviation efforts. But we’ll discuss that later. For the time being, suffice it to note that BMW was a success in the avionics industry and that, although losing the war, they produced ok aircraft with reasonable performance.
BEFORE BMW MADE CARS, IT MADE AVIATION PARTS
BMW was an airplane manufacturer before it began making automobiles. Due to the high demand for aircraft engines beginning in 1916 and lasting until the end of World War One,
BMW developed become Bavaria’s largest aircraft manufacturer throughout the course of the war, producing engines for a variety of German aircraft in addition to its own lineup of useful aircraft.
BMW began creating furniture and kitchen cabinets utilizing the considerable joinery equipment it had after the war when German industries were prohibited from making military aircraft.
BMW’s departure from Rolls-Royce brings a 90-year history of aviation engines to an end.
The German automaker BMW has sold 64% of its Rolls-Royce stock and appears to be leaving the aviation engine business entirely, where it was founded more than 90 years ago.
The BMW Group stated over the weekend that it was reducing its investment from little over 9% to about 3.25%, or more than 100 million shares, after initially deciding to sell 21 million. Up until this week, BMW was the sole largest shareholder in R-R. Who purchased the shares has not yet been made known.
BMW will obtain a “non-cash gain” of EUR300 million ($356 million) from the transaction. BMW raised EUR561 million in December 2003 by issuing a five-year bond with a convertible into R-R shares and an annual coupon of 1.87%. Investors might receive cash or R-R stock when the shares reach a particular threshold, according to BMW. The business says that more investors are anticipated to accept the offer, significantly decreasing BMW’s holding.
BMW’s pre-automobile history in aero engines would come to an end with its exit from R-R. In 1913, BMW’s forerunner Motorenfabrik Oberursel, which had created its own 7–14 cylinder versions of the Seguin brothers’ 50hp (37kW) Gnome rotary engine, began producing aviation engines.
The holding is the remaining portion of the joint venture between BMW and Rolls-Royce, formed in 1990 to design and manufacture the BR700 family of business jet and regional jet turbofans. After activities were halted after World War II, the joint venture signaled the industry’s return to producing aviation engines. After receiving an order for 200 of the engines from launch customer Gulfstream, who used the BR710 engine to power the GV business jet, the factory, located in Dahlewitz near Berlin, was designated as the development and assembly center for BR700 engines in 1992.
But since 1999, when BMW R-R was disbanded, rebranded R-R Deutschland, and fully absorbed into the R-R group worldwide, BMW has been edging out of the business. BMW’s 50% stake in R-R was changed into a 9% stake. Since the aviation engines asset had an impact on Munich-based BMW’s profit reporting due to the requirement to record notional losses on the R-R holding as the engine manufacturer’s stock plummeted last year, the company had been looking for a way out for a number of years.
When did BMW start producing jet engines?
The German automaker BMW, with its headquarters in Munich, was officially founded in March 1916. From 1917 to 1918 and again from 1933 to 1945, the business produced airplane engines. In actuality, the BMW Illa straight-six aviation engine was the company’s first creation.