The Gnome engine was the work of the three Seguin brothers, Louis,

Laurent and Augustin. They were talented engineers and the grandsons of
famous French engineer Marc Seguin. In 1906 the eldest brother, Louis,
had formed the Socit des Moteurs Gnome[7] to build stationary engines
for industrial use, having licensed production of the Gnom single-cylinder
stationary engine from Motorenfabrik Oberurselwho, in turn, built
licensed Gnome engines for German aircraft during World War I.

Louis was joined by his brother Laurent who designed a rotary engine
specifically for aircraft use, using Gnom engine cylinders. The brothers'
first experimental engine is said to have been a 5-cylinder model that
developed 34 hp (25 kW), and was a radial rather than rotary engine, but
no photographs survive of the five-cylinder experimental model. The
Seguin brothers then turned to rotary engines in the interests of better
cooling, and the world's first production rotary engine, the 7-cylinder, aircooled 50 hp (37 kW) "Omega" was shown at the 1908 Paris automobile
show. The first Gnome Omega built still exists, and is now in the collection
of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.[8] The Seguins used
the highest strength material available - recently developed nickel steel
alloy - and kept the weight down by machining components from solid
metal, using the best American and German machine tools to create the
engine's components; the cylinder wall of a 50 hp Gnome was only 1.5
mm thick, while the connecting rods were milled with deep central
channels to reduce weight. While somewhat low powered in terms of
horsepower per litre, its power-to-weight ratio was an outstanding 1 hp
(0.75 kW) per kg.

The following year, 1909, the inventor Roger Ravaud fitted one to his
Aroscaphe, a combination hydrofoil/aircraft, which he entered in the
motor boat and aviation contests at Monaco. However, Henry Farman's
use of the Gnome at the famous Rheims aircraft meet that year brought it
to prominence, when he won the Grand Prix for the greatest non-stop
distance flown180 kilometres (110 mi)and also set a world record for
endurance flight. The very first successful seaplane flight, of Henri Fabre's
Le Canard, was powered by a Gnome Omega on March 28, 1910 near
Marseille.

Production of Gnome rotaries increased rapidly, with some 4,000 being

produced before World War I, and Gnome also produced a two-row version
(the 100 h.p. Double Omega), the larger 70 hp Gnome Lambda and the
160 hp two-row Double Lambda. By the standards of other engines of the
period, the Gnome was considered not particularly temperamental, and

was credited as the first engine able to run for ten hours between
overhauls.[citation needed]

In 1913 the Seguin brothers introduced the new Monosoupape ("single

valve") series, which replaced inlet valves in the pistons by using a single
valve in each cylinder head, which doubled as inlet and exhaust valve. The
engine speed was controlled by varying the opening time and extent of
the exhaust valves using levers acting on the valve tappet rollers, a
system later abandoned due to valves burning. The weight of the
Monosoupape was slightly less than the earlier two-valve engines, and it
used less lubricating oil. The 100 hp Monosoupape was built with 9
cylinders, and developed its rated power at 1,200 rpm.[9] The later 160 hp
nine-cylinder Gnome 9N rotary engine used the Monosoupape valve
design, and was the last known rotary engine design to use such a
cylinder head valving format.
Rotary engines produced by the Clerget and Le Rhne companies used
conventional pushrod-operated valves in the cylinder head, but used the
same principle of drawing the fuel mixture through the crankshaft, with
the Le Rhnes having prominent copper intake tubes running from the
crankcase to the top of each cylinder to admit the intake charge.
The 80 hp (60 kW) seven-cylinder Gnome was the standard at the
outbreak of World War I, as the Gnome Lambda, and it quickly found itself
being used in a large number of aircraft designs. It was so good that it was
licensed by a number of companies, including the German Motorenfabrik
Oberursel firm who designed the original Gnom engine. Oberursel was
later purchased by Fokker, whose 80 hp Gnome Lambda copy was known
as the Oberursel U.0. It was not at all uncommon for French Gnomes, as
used in the earliest examples of the Bristol Scout biplane, to meet German
versions, powering Fokker E.I Eindeckers, in combat, from the latter half of
1915 on.
A German Oberursel U.III engine on museum display

The only attempts to produce twin-row rotary engines in any volume were
undertaken by Gnome, with their Double Lambda fourteen-cylinder 160 hp
design, and with the German Oberursel firm's early World War I clone of
the Double Lambda design, the U.III of the same power rating. While an
example of the Double Lambda went on to power one of the Deperdussin
Monocoque racing aircraft to a world-record speed of nearly 204 km/h
(126 mph) in September 1913, the Oberursel U.III is only known to have
been fitted into a few German production military aircraft, the Fokker E.IV
fighter monoplane and Fokker D.III fighter biplane, both of whose failures
to become successful combat types were partially due to the poor quality
2

of the German powerplant, which was prone to wearing out after only a
few hours of combat flight.

.
. 1906
MOTEURS ] [ 7
GNOM
Motorenfabrik Oberursel
.

. GNOM
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.

7 50 ) 37 ( " "
1908 .
] [ 8 Seguins -
-

50 1.5
.
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.
1909 Ravaud
Aroscaphe /
.

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28 1910 .
rotaries 4000
) 100 ( 70
160 .

] . [
1913 " ) Monosoupape " (

3

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.
Monosoupape
. 100 Monosoupape 9
1200 [ 9 ] . 160
9N Monosoupape
.
Clerget

Rhnes
.
80 ) 60 (

.
Motorenfabrik Oberursel GNOM .
Oberursel
Oberursel U.0 80 .

EI Eindeckers 1915 .
Oberursel U.III

160
Oberursel
U.III .
Deperdussin 204
/ ) 126 ( 1913
Oberursel U.III
E.IV D.III

.
The rotary engine was an early type of internal-combustion engine, usually
designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial
configuration, in which the crankshaft remained stationary, with the entire
crankcase and its attached cylinders rotating around it as a unit in
operation. Its main application was in aviation, although it also saw use
before its primary aviation role, in a few early motorcycles and
automobiles.
This type of engine was widely used as an alternative to conventional
inline engines (straight or V) during World War I and the years immediately
preceding that conflict. They have been described as "a very efficient
]solution to the problems of power output, weight, and reliability".[1

By the early 1920s, however, the inherent limitations of this type of engine
had rendered it obsolete, with the power output increasingly going into
overcoming the air-resistance of the spinning engine itself. The rotating
mass of the engine also had a significant gyroscopic precession:
depending on the type of aircraft, this produced stability and control
problems, especially for inexperienced pilots. Another factor in the demise
of the rotary was the fundamentally inefficient use of fuel and lubricating
oil, caused in part by the need to aspirate the fuel/air mixture through the
hollow crankshaft and crankcase, as in a two-stroke engine.


.

.

) ( V .
" " [ 1 ] .
1920s

. :

.
/
.