The Green Engine Co was a British engine company founded by Gustavus Green in Bexhill to sell engines of his design. He flourished especially as a designer of aeroplane engines during the first two decades of the 20th century. The engines were actually manufactured by the Aster Engineering Company.
Contents
History
The firm produced a range of water-cooled, mostly inline engines up to about 1915. Green's engines powered many pioneering British aircraft, including those of Alliott Verdon Roe (Avro founder), Samuel Cody and the Short Brothers. They had several advanced features in common; cast steel single-piece cylinders and cylinder heads, two valves per cylinder driven by an overhead camshaft, white metal crankshaft bearings and copper and rubber-sealed water jackets. Manufacture was at the Aster Engineering Company of Wembley. (Mention in H Penrose book The Pioneer Years says there was a factory in Twickenham)? When the Great War of 1914–18 broke out in Europe the company was known for its motorcycle engines and particularly associated with "pannier honeycomb" radiator design but was already involved in aero-engine design. In 1909 the Green C.4 had been the only motor to complete the tests for the Patrick Alexander Competition but was not awarded the prize of £1,000, rather controversially, because the rules called for a 35 horsepower engine while the C.4 only averaged 31.5 horsepower. The competition was re-run the following year for more powerful engines: this time Green's gained the prize with the D.4. Up to 1912 Green's were the only source of all-British aircraft engines capable of producing 60 h.p., and so the only choice when prizes were offered for all-British aircraft. The best known case is Moore-Brabazon's winning the £1,000 Daily Mail prize for a circular 1-mile flight by a British pilot in an all-British aeroplane in his Green D.4 powered Short Biplane No. 2 in 1910.
In 1914 the company was awarded a £5,000 prize by the Army Council in a Naval and Military Aeroplane Engine Competition for their Green 100-h.p. water-cooled six-cylinder "Engine No. 1", which was judged to possess the highest number of attributes desirable in an aeroplane engine. It was designed to deliver maximum power at low speed and weighed 442 lb.
Green's continued to design motorcycle engines too, using cylinders similar to, though smaller than, those on their prize-winning aero-engine, having similar rubber-sealed copper jackets and removable overhead valve mechanisms designed to protect the cylinders from damage by broken valves, and forced lubrication throughout. In 1914, Motor Cycle magazine reported on a Zenith motorcycle supplied with the 'new' 964cc (8HP) V-twin Green engine, of 85mm bore and stroke. One interesting detail seen on many modern motorcycles was 'the fitting of a glass window in the crank case to show the level of the oil'.
Aircraft engines
Data from Gunston 1986, p. 72 and Lumsden 1994, pp. 154–6
Applications (grouped by engine power)
Source:Goodall & Tagg 2001
Boats
The Defender II a 1909 racing boat owned by Fred May was powered by a 60 hp Green aeroplane engine. In World War I, the well made, reliable but heavy (450 lbs or 204 kg) 82 hp Green inline engine was produced for fast boats rather than aircraft.