14 Dec 06
BMW
Aviation engineers Karl Rapp and Gustav Otto set up an engine and aircraft factory at Munich's first airfield, Oberwiesenfeld, just before WWI. The firm was initially called the Otto Werke, but became the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW) in 1916, then the Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) a year later, when it also adopted the blue and white propeller symbol as its emblem, and its first self-designed engine completed test runs. (The BFW name continued independently, eventually becoming Messerschmitt - see below.) BMW supplied engines to Albatros for fighters and civilian biplanes; the Albatros DVa with a BMW IIIa engine achieved high-altitude records in early 1918, and the Fokker D.VII was one of Germany's best bombers in WWI. A BMW-engined Rohrbach flying boat completed the first intercontinental flight to Persia (1924), and in 1930, a BMW-powered Dornier Whale flying boat crossed the Atlantic in just 44 hours.
Aeroplane production had been temporarily halted in Germany after WWI, however, under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and BMW had diversified firstly into motorcycles and then, from 1928, cars. It started in the auto industry by buying the former Dixi factory in Eisenach, and making a version of the Austin Seven, known as the 3/15. The aircraft division was set up as a separate entity - BMW Flugmotorenbau GmbH - in 1934, and went on to make engines including a version of the 14-cylinder Pratt & Whitney Hornet. These were supplied to the civil aviation industry, including the growing Lufthansa airline, and also to the Luftwaffe, in planes made by Blohm & Voss, Arado, Heinkel, Dornier, Fieseler, Focke-Wulf, Junkers and Fokker. BMW-engined planes saw service in the Spanish Civil War as well as WWII, the Focke-Wulf Condor reconnaissance bomber being used personally by Hitler and his staff. BMW's first turbine jet engine, the 003, made its debut in 1943, and went into the Heinkel He162 and Arado Ar234 towards the end of the war.
Arado AR234
Post-war, however, aero activities were suspended again with a three-year ban on production imposed - not least in reparation for BMW's use of concentration camp prisoners as forced labour in its factories. The 003 engine was built under licence in the Soviet Union, though, as well as in Japan and France. When production resumed in Germany, BMW's facility in Allach continued to make engines - General Electric units - under licence for the Lockheed Starfighter F-104 fighter jet, but in 1955, half of this BMW Triebwerkbau division was sold off to truck-builder MAN, which also made Rolls-Royce aero engines; MAN, took the other half five years later.
BMW did not return to the aeronautical industry until 1990, when it formed a joint venture with Rolls-Royce (then recently privatised) to make aero engines. The BMW-Rolls-Royce BR 700-series turbofan engines have been fitted to planes including the Boeing 717 civilian regional aircraft, Bombardier Global Express and Gulfstream V executive jets and the BAE Nimrod MR4A bomber. In the 1990 deal BMW took a 2% stake in Rolls-Royce, a share increased to 10% nine years later, which turned out to be a crucial factor in BMW's negotiations to use the Rolls-Royce brand name for car-making. The separate Rolls-Royce aero division took full control of the engine-making joint venture in 2000.
Discover our other Automobile and Aeroplane Retrospectives
