Salmson

Salmson was a French engineering company, initially in the automobile and aeroplane manufacturing area, turning to pump manufacturing in the 1960s.

History

It was established by Émile Salmson (1858-1917) as Emile Salmson, Ing. as a workshop in Paris (1890), making steam-powered compressors and centrifugal pumps for railway and military purposes. Subsequently joined by engineers George Canton and Georg Unné, it was renamed Emile Salmson & Cie, building petrol-powered lifts and motors (1896).

The company became one of the first to make purpose-built aircraft engines, starting before World war I and continuing into World War II.

After World War I the company looked around for other work and started making car bodies and then complete cars.

Car production finished in 1957.

Focus also moved back to pump production and the facilities moved to Mayenne in 1961. The firm was bought by ITT-LMT in 1962 and then by Thomson in 1976.

Its headquarters today are in Chatou.

Aircraft manufacture

It moved to Billancourt and manufactured the Salmson 9 series of air and water-cooled radial engines. During World War I Salmson made its first complete aeroplanes, mainly the two-seat fighter/reconnaissance plane, the Salmson 2A2. These were used in combat by both the French and the American Expeditionary force. The company also designed a prototype of a single seat scout/fighter, the Salmson 3, but this was not produced in large quantities.

Salmson air-cooled aero-engines

Between 1920 and 1951 the Société des Moteurs Salmson in France developed and built a series of widely used air-cooled aircraft engines.

Design and development

After their successful water-cooled radial engines, developed from 1908 to 1918, Salmson changed their focus to air-cooling to reduce weight and increase specific power (power per unit weight). The majority of the engines produced by Salmson were of radial type with a few other arrangements such as the Salmson T6.E. In common with other engines produced by this manufacturer, the air-cooled radial engines featured the unorthodox Canton-Unné internal arrangement that dispensed with a master rod in favour of a cage of epicyclic gears driving the crankpin. Production ended in 1951 with the liquidation of the manufacturing company.

British Salmson

The 3,7 and 9 cylinder Salmsons were license built in Great Britain, during the 1920s and 1930s, by the British Salmson engine company as the British Salmson AD.3, British Salmson AC.7, British Salmson AC.9, and British Salmson AD.9.

Salmson 4

The Salmson 4 AB.2, or SAL-4 AB.2 (AB.2 - Reconnaissance Bomber two-seat) was a two-seat bomber designed and built in France during the closing stages of World War I.

Design and development

A variant of the Salmson 2, the Salmson 4 was essentially an enlarged version with a greater wingspan, three bay wings of greater area, enlarged vertical tail surfaces and detail changes to the engine installation. Twelve aircraft were built for l'Aéronautique Militaire before the end of WWI, all of which were assigned to operational escadrilles in anticipation of widespread deployment following orders for mass production, which were cancelled with the end of the war. They were withdrawn in 1920.

Specifications (SAL-4 AB.2)

Data from Salmson SAL-4

General characteristics