Argus Motoren
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Argus Motoren was a German aircraft engine manufacturing firm, known for their series of small inverted-V engines and the pulsejet used on the V1 flying bomb. They were shut down at the end of World War II.
The company first started in Berlin in 1906 as a subsidiary of Henri Jeannin's automobile business, spun off entirely in November 1906. Their early products were car and boat engines, but later that year they were contracted to produce engines for the French airship, Ville de Paris, supplying them with a converted boat motor. They turned increasingly to the aviation market, and were widely used by 1910, receiving an order from Sikorsky for one of his large airplanes under construction in Russia. During World War I Argus produced engines for the German army and air corps.
After the war Germany was forbidden from producing aircraft, and the company turned again to automobile engines. They were bought by Horch Automobile in 1919. In 1926 they resumed aircraft engine design, producing a series of inverted inline and V-block engines. Although all were at the "low-power" end of the market by the start of World War II, they saw extensive use in training aircraft and other utility roles. Most famous of these designs are the Argus As 10, used in the Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, and the Argus As 410, used on many German trainers, including the Arado Ar 96.
List of Argus engines
- Argus As III, 6-cylinder upright inline, used in WWI aircraft
- Argus As 5, odd radial-like arrangement 24-cylinder inline
- Argus As 8, 4-cylinder inverted inline
- Argus As 10, 8-cylinder inverted V
- Argus As 16, 4-cylinder inverted inline
- Argus As 401, development and renumbering of the As 10
- Argus As 402
- Argus As 410, 12-cylinder inverted V
- Argus As 411, 12-cylinder inverted V
- Argus As 412, 24-cylinder H-block, prototyped
- Argus As 413, similar to 412, never built