History
The Hispano-Suiza V8 engine, was one of the most successful engines of world
war one. The company was formed in 1901 resulting from the meeting between the famous
Swiss engineer Marc Birkigt and a Spanish banker Damian Mateu. It was the first engine
to use an alloy block with steel liners screwed in for each cylinder. As a result
it weighed only 300 pounds. An astonishing 50,000 were made by the time it went out
of production in the late 1920's. Numerous companies made the engine under licence;
five in France; Wolsley in Britain; Wright in the USA where it powered the famous
Curtiss Jenny trainer.
The Hispano-Suiza 8BE is a Vee-type, eight-cylinder, liquid-cooled aviation engine
of 220 hp that drives the propeller through a reduction gearing system. It is one
of the series of 150 to 340 hp V-8 engines of similar basic design produced by Hispano-Suiza
(or license-built by other manufacturers) during and after World War I. Hispano-Suiza,
or "Hisso," engines were especially compact for the amount of power produced. They
were used in numerous types of aircraft including models of the SPAD. American versions
of the 150 hp Hispano A, built under license by Wright-Martin, were used in later
models of the Curtiss JN-4 trainer as well as the JN-6, the Lewis and Vought VE-7,
Consolidated PT-1, and other American aircraft.
More powerful ‘Hissos’ were used in the U.S. assembled SE-5E.
The engine illustrated is similar to those typically used in such aircraft as the
Caudron R-11, the SPAD XI, and the SPAD XIII.
