Leon Levavasseur

2 February 2017

Levavasseur

Scientific American supplement (No. 1620), 19 January 1907

p. 25,957 has a photograph of a 24 cylinder, 360 hp, Levavasseur gasoline engine, weighing 3.6 lbs/hp. The caption notes that this is three 8 cylinder engines on one crank case (and the photograph shows that it is a V engine). It also has two ‘high-tension [voltage?] distributors’ at each end, ‘driven from the half-speed crankshaft’.

p. 25,958 [text on this engine] Refers to the success of Levavasseur’s existing lightweight Antoinette motor, which is ‘probably’ the motor with the lowest weight/power ratio yet reached. The Antoinettes are much used in motor launches, but also in the aircraft of Santos-Dumont, Ferber, and other ‘aeroplane workers’. The first motor produced 25 hp; then 50 hp; and now the 360 hp design is ‘by far the largest light-weight motor ever built’. Total weight is 600 kg (1,322 ¾ lbs), giving 3.67lb per hp. The engine consists of three 120 hp units of 8 cylinders each, on a common crankcase. There are 24 cylinders of 150 mm (5.905”) bore and stroke. Aluminium is widely used in the construction. Hollow steel shafts reduce weight.. The cylinders are ‘turned inside and out’ and fitted with sheet brass water jackets. The total length is about 3 metres (9.84 ft). The motor runs at 900 rpm. It is designed for a racing launch now being built, which will be entered for the 1908 races at Monaco.

[Full details of an earlier Levavasseur motor are in Supplement No. 1612]

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Scientific American, 23 February 1907

p.165 A paragraph on the Levavasseur Freak Motor Boat with an Antoinette motor:

This boat is driven by one of the light motors ‘previously mentioned’. The motor is rated at 50 hp. Its weight is 132.27 lbs (or 176.36 lbs with all accessories, ready to run). A boat with this motor went at a ‘good speed’ on the Seine, piloted by [among others] Captain Ferber and Alberto Santos-Dumont – ‘who were favorably impressed with its performance … giving almost the same sensation as an aeroplane in the air’.

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L’Aérophile, 15 February 1908 (reproduced in Aéro France, February 1958, 10:2, in MAELB)

p. 25 Captain Ferber, ‘Le moteur Antoinette’

An inventor made electrical machines, and a capitalist owned in Algeria a factory that made electric light – but the machines sometimes stopped. The inventor – Levavasseur – modified a few wires, and light was restored. The capitalist, Jules Gastambide, from that moment had much confidence in Levavasseur. So when Levavasseur proposed making a lightweight motor, Gastambide gave him a carte blanche.

That was in 1903. The motor was made, and installed in a boat that immediately achieved high speed. Levavasseur proposed that the motor be named after Gastambide’s daughter – Antoinette.

Antoinette powered boats won at Monaco in 1904, 1905, and 1906. In 1906 one of them reached an average of 50 kph over 200 kilometres, on Lake Gard.

The fame of the motor drew Ferber to Levavasseur in 1905. He wanted a powerful and light motor for an aeroplane. It was then that Ferber understood the motor. For efficiency, it must have many small cylinders. This is because an internal combustion engine undergoes very short, very powerful stresses on each ignition. All parts must be designed for this stress. If they could function continuously, they would produce a much greater force. [This is Ferber’s reasoning.] This is the principle of the turbine, and also is why Antoinette motors have between 8 and 32 cylinders. For each revolution there are more small explosions [if there are more cylinders], and the weight of components can be reduced. Moreover, use of many cylinders allows the suppression of a flywheel, which saves considerable weight.

On the Antoinette motor, the direction of rotation can be reversed by pressing a button that operates on the cam shaft. This is useful for boats and dirigibles.

In 1905 Ferber asked his superiors for credits to buy a 24 hp Antoinette motor. But the motor was not yet even designed, and so he was forced to order it at his own cost. After him, others who ordered it were Santos-Dumont, Blériot, and others. Seeing this, various capitalists, led mainly by Blériot, formed a company for the exploitation of the Antoinette motor. That was in May 1906. M. Gastambide was president of the administrative committee, and Blériot, vice-president.

That allowed for larger premises and tooling, Nowadays, everything is factory made, to 1/100 of a millimeter. For that reason the motors are expensive. Workers cannot hurry with such fine work. There exists a building called the ‘batterie basse’, because it looks like the battery of an old, three deck ship. There four motors can be tested at a time on benches. These benches are made to measure the torque of the motors by the means suggested by Colonel Renard, absorbing power through the intermediary of a moulinet [a rotating resisting device of some sort?].

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L'A'erophile, 15 February 1908 (16:4)

'Portraits d'Aviateurs Contemporains. L'eon Levavasseur'

Born 8 January 1863 at Cherbourg, son of a navy ('marine') officer. After brilliant studies at Angoul^eme, he went to Paris at age 17, intending to study fine arts. He wanted to be a painter. But he was seduced by electricity. He invented an arc lamp, and entered the Patin factory as an engineer. There he invented transformers and alternators. At Orleansville he set up 'un premier transport de force par courants alternatifs'. Then he studied gasoline ('p'etrole') motors, taking apart the motors then available. He left the factory in 1901 and set up on his own. In 1902 he proposed to Jules Gastambide the building of an aeroplane. From that came a light motor that he tried out at Monaco on the boat Antoinette – this was the motor so sought after by aviation men after 1905. The Soci'et'e Antoinette was formed, of which L. was the technical director. He followed the fundamental laws of mechanics rather than detailed formulae [copy illegible on last -23 lines].

58 ''Histoire du moteur “Antoinette”'

An inventor and a capitalist – the inventor made electric machines and the capitalist had in Algeria an electric light company – where the machines sometimes stopped. Levavasseur, the inventor, modified some wires, and the troubles stopped. The capitalist, Jules Gastambide, had confidence in Levavasseur. So, when L proposed the making of an extra-light motor, which would revolutionize the world, G gave him a carte blanche. This was in 1903. The motor was made and fitted to an aeroplane. Trials were made secretly at Villotran (Oise) . No shelter had been made for this plane, so that wind and rain put it out of service. Gastambide had little faith at that time in the commercial future of planes – so wanted to put the motor into something more sellable.

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Lucien Marchis et al, Vingt-cinq ans d’Aéronautique française, 2 vols., Chambre Syndicale des Industries Aéronautiques, Paris 1934.

pp. 46-7 On the Antoinette V8 motor: direct injection to each cylinder gave the motor greater power. But there was a disadvantage in the small diameter of the injector orifices, which was only 2/10 of a millimeter. The slightest impurity in the fuel would block the injector, causing the cylinder in question to stop functioning. It was impossible to know which cylinder had failed without inspecting all the orifices. A mechanic had to do this before every flight, especially because of the difficulty of turns [in which maximum power was needed?]. [note 1, p. 47 says that Herbster, Farman’s mechanic, prepared the Voisin-Farman 1 for the Deutsch-Archdeacon prize flight by dismounting all the injectors and passing through all the microscopic injection holes the bristles of a brush of suitable dimensions. This was related my M. Clerget, who was in Farman’s hangar at Issy, along with Archdeacon.]

The cooling of the Antoinette motor: water, leaving the engine, was sent by an ‘ordinary pump’ to a water/vapour separator. Steam passed to a series of light aluminium collectors mounted on a copper ramp and placed along the sides of the fuselage, where they received wind blown back by the propeller. These collectors constituted a steam condenser. Another pump sent condensed water to a reservoir above the engine. [This may have been the system installed on some aircraft, for example the Antoinette monoplane of 1909 onwards. It was not used on the Farman aircraft of 1907 and early 1908, on which steam from the engine was apparently allowed to escape. Within minutes the engine had no cooling fluid. By mid 1908 some system of condensation of steam and recirculation of the water, probably through a radiator, was being used by Farman and Delagrange.]

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