Originally Posted by
Bing
The Secret Horsepower Race by Calum Douglas answers all the possible questions about the engine configuration choice of the British, American, and German manufacturer and is well worth a read. BMW for instance were basically told by the RLM to start building radials despite having no experience and started off by licence building some P&W models.
Interesting to think how the ‘political’ goings on may have been a decider of just what engine brand got to be used.
“..the company, acting under pressure from the Air Ministry, bought the aero-engine division of the bankrupt Cosmos Engineering Company based in the Bristol suburb of Fishponds, to form the nucleus of a new aero-engine operation..”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bris...oplane_Company