Aircraft Engine Historical Society

[Richard T Eger]

At first, the Aircraft Engine Historical Society website didn't strike a chord with me, as it looked to contain information only on American and British engines, hardly the stuff of Luftwaffe interest. However, looks can be deceiving and one really needs to explore this site thoroughly. It has a very helpful search engine and one of the site's most noteworthy features is exploration of the Sarah Clark collection at NARA II. There are a fair number of color photos of German engines in museums. Another unique feature is a very extensive guide to scanning of historical documents. The site address is:

http://www.enginehistory.org/

Search Engine

Working down the main page, one comes directly to the search engine. It is here that one of the hidden assets of this site jumps to life. If you type in Jumo 004, it will look for any Jumo engine. Photographs available of Jumo engines in various museum collections can than be viewed through the internal links. If there is a book or review reference, this will also have an internal link for viewing.

One weakness is that some engine and engine location identification information is not given. Also, on one page, the thumbnail size references are so small that the photos are hard to make out. However, the enlargements are of excellent size and quality.

Book Reviews

Working down the main page, you come to the site index on the left. As I said, much of the site is devoted to American and British engines and thus, so far, every index listing above book reviews has nothing covering German engines. One book reviewed is "The Bombing of Rolls-Royce at Derby in two World Wars". Within this is some discussion of the BMW 801 and Do 217. Beyond this review, the books reviewed have a decided anglo/American slant.

Author's Page

Scanning Archival Material, by Daniel D. Whitney

A wonderful hidden gem of a treatise on this subject in pdf format well worth printing out, Whitney covers the following aspects:

How Scanners Work
Using Scanned Document Files
Exploiting the Advantages of Scanning
File Compression
Adobe Acrobat Format (pdf)
Transparencies
So How Should I Scan and Process Documents?
Issues and Integrity
Summary
Additional reading

The 6 pages of text are followed by a page showing how a poor original document scanned in full color at 4,729 KB, can actually be improved upon by proper color channel selection, reducing document size to 35 to 36 KB.

This page is followed with a table entitled "Alternative Raster File Formats, Benefits and Applications", giving the pro's and con's of bmp, tiff, gif, and jpeg formats.

References

Index of Selected Engine Information in the Sarah Clark Files at the National Archives II, by Kimble D. McCutcheon

Quoting from the site:

"The Sarah Clark Files contain a wealth of information on Air Force aircraft, engines, and equipment from 1916 to 1951. This is a copy of engine topics in the finding aid."

While the emphasis is probably on U.S. built engines, McCutcheon goes to considerable trouble to explain what the Sarah Clark collection is and how to search within it. I have been through the same indexes he has and their is a wealth of information in the Sarah Clark collection on German engines and aircraft, so becoming a bit familiar with its in's and out's is time well spent.

As McCutcheon describes the index, its arrangement is a bit arcane, which is being generous. In general, the index is arranged in chronological packets of time. Each packet will start out at the lowest decimal filing system number, then work up in ascending numerical sequence. Once done, the next packet and so on will run through the sequence, repeating over and over. For the 1939-45 time frame, you will have numerous seemingly overlapping packets time-wise. See McCutcheon's binder listings to see what I mean by this. Thus, if you want to hunt up information on BMW engines, you'll need to slog your way through a large chunk of the index. Nor can you really count on just looking for one decimal filing system number, like the 452.7 noted in McCutcheon's illustration. You might find related information under a variety of numbers. So, to do a thorough job of it, plan to spend about half a day jotting notes from these records. As can be seen, the RD numbers are the connection needed to get to the actual storage boxes.

Of especial value on the site is that McCutcheon has copied in pdf format all the 452 series engine reference index pages, which include foreign engines. Each page is downloadable to your computer. So, if engines are your thing, you can download all these pages to your computer and make your selections before you get to NARA II.

Galleries

Engine Images from the National Air and Space Museum

While no German engines are noted in the photos here, 2 color photos show storage racks of engines.

Images from museums in the former Eastern Bloc, by Tom Speer

--Aviation Museum, Krakow

Junkers Jumo 205 - 1 color photo
(A number of other engines are not identified)

Images from Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleißheim, by Terry Burks

Argus As 17a - 1 color photo, 1 plaque
Argus Model 4 - 1 color photo, 1 plaque
BMW M2 B15 - 1 color photo, 1 plaque
BMW 132a - 1 color photo, 1 plaque
BMW 803 - 1 color photo, 1 plaque
Daimler D IV a - 1 color photo, 1 plaque
DB 610 - 1 color photo, 1 plaque
Haacke HFM 3 - 1 color photo, 1 plaque
Junkers L5 - 1 color photo, 1 plaque
Jumo 211 F - 1 color photo, 1 plaque
Porsche PFM 3200 - 1 color photo, 1 plaque

Image Gallery: Fenland & West Norfolk Aviation Museum, by Gary and Janet Brossett

Junkers Jumo 211 wreck - 1 color photo

Image Gallery: EAA Museum in Oshkosh, WI, by Jim Buckel

Heinkel-Hirth He S 011 - 3 color photos

Links - Links to about 20 museum and engine sites.

Engines in Museums - tabular listings

San Diego Aerospace Museum

Junkers Jumo 004B-1
Walter 109-500A

The Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum

Hirth HM-504A-2

National Air and Space Museum

Air Technical Arsenal TSU-11 (Hitachi Hatsukaze Ha 11 Model 11 and Jet)
Opel (Argus) Type III
Argus As III
Argus As III DZ
Argus AS 10 R
Austro Daimler V-12
BMW Model IIIA
BMW 003
BMW 003A
BMW 801 (2)
BMW 801C
Turboshaft, BMW Model 6002
Benz BZ 4S
Daimler-Motoren (Mercedes) DIII Avu
Daimler-Benz DB 601-1E
Daimler-Benz DB 603 A (2)
Daimler-Benz DB 603 A-2
Daimler-Benz DB 605
Engine, Junkers 388L-1 (2)
Engine, Me 410A-3/U1 (2)
Hirth 500-B1
Hitachi Hatsukaze 11, Ha 11 Model 11 (Hirth) (2)
Heinkel-Hirth RR2
Heinkel He S 011 (2)
Jumo 004 (6)
Jumo 004 B4 (5)
Junkers Jumo 207 D-V2
Junkers Jumo 210 D
Junkers Jumo 211
Junkers Jumo 211-9 (2)
Junkers Jumo 213
Junkers Jumo 213A-1
Turbojet, Ne-20 (2)
Mock-up (wood) Engine, Turbojet, Air Technical Arsenal TR-30
Turbojet, Air Technical Arsenal TR-30

Regards,
Richard