Just read an abbreviation please !

[pmdec]

Hi,

This picture is extracted from Gorrell'history of AEF (Voisin page). I try to understand abbreviations "almpston" and "cast 1 --".

May be "almpston" is "aluminium piston" and "cast 1 --" is "casted piston type 1" ? But I can't understand the "opposition", except if the first undermean forged !

Help welcome !!!

Thanks,
PM

[Bob Gardner]

Bonjour Pierre-Michel,

The American lists of French aircraft and engines drawn up in 1917 do have some abbreviations that need a moments thought to unravel them. The documents themselves are invaluable to researchers like me. I regret that I can't interpret these abbreviations of yours. But I have shared your puzzlement.

I came to the conclusion that the American who came to France to make the list did not speak French and that the French officer who gave him the details spoke little English and perhaps the American was in a hurry. Perhaps he also had poor handwriting which the typist could not read. So sometimes the abbreviations only make sense if you speak them aloud, phonetically. By this means I was able to understand the written engine type Therainy Deetwhich was actually a Lorraine-Dietrich. Later comes a Rorraine Ady, which probably means the same thing.

Other examples are; parasol Gnomes and bi-plane Gnomes. And what is the engine of a Breguet XIV described as a Ren 12 Fex 12 and another Breguet engine described as fey & fe?

Avec le Respect.

Bob

[pmdec]

Hi,

I absolutely agree with your conclusion! Some typos can be corrected by a careful reading and comparing the prop manufacturers and aircrafts pages. For Rorraine Ady, "R" and "L" have a similar pronunciation in French (R is like English air, and L quite the same as English). But there is no Ady Lorraine model, so ?

For Breguet XIV Renault engines, I think there was many models with minor difference. On propellers, or on propellers papers, I saw 12 Fe, 12 Fex, 12 Fey, 12 Fc, 12 Fcy ... I don't know what were the differences, and power is not "constant" : for example, there are 280 and 300 HP Fex ...

Best regards,
PM