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26-530: J. A. Prestwich Industries , was a British engineering equipment manufacturing company named after founder John Alfred Prestwich , which was formed in 1951 by the amalgamation of J. A. Prestwich and Company Limited and Pencils Ltd. John Prestwich, an engineer, commenced manufacture of scientific instruments in 1895, when he was 20, initially behind his father's house at 1 Lansdowne Road, Tottenham , London . By 1911 he had moved to new premises in Tariff Road, within

52-438: A V-twin of 90mm bore and 85mm stroke (1082cc). The engine had a larger flywheel than the motorcycle engine and an enclosed magneto drive. The engine was illustrated fitted to a Morgan three-wheeler. In light of JAP's development of high-powered light engines for speedway, some low volume pre-war car manufacturers, including G.N. , T.B. , Morgan Motor Company and Reliant , used JAP engines to power their vehicles. This use of

78-423: A reliable lightweight engine for power. JAP motorcycle engines were often used in this application. A JAP engine was originally fitted in A V Roe's 1909 triplane, regarded as the first all-British aircraft, and for a while Prestwich and Roe had a partnership. J. A. Prestwich at first would deliver the same engine to the aircraft manufacturer, allowing them to make local modifications – mainly larger venturi tubes for

104-599: Is now (2011) a division of Magellan Aerospace , producing aircraft, missile, and space vehicle components at the same location adjacent to Middletown's Hook Field Municipal Airport . Originally formed as the Cincinnati Aeronautical Corporation, the Aeronautical Corporation of America was founded November 11, 1928, in Cincinnati, Ohio . The name was generally abbreviated to Aeronca. Backed by

130-523: The 7AC Champion and the 11AC Chief . While the Champ shared its tandem seating arrangement with the prewar tandem trainer—and the Chief shared its name and seating arrangement with the prewar Chief designs—both were new fresh paper designs and designed for production economy, sharing over 80% of the components. One of the very few aircraft manufacturers that used an assembly line production layout. A benefit of

156-603: The Jean A. Roche -designed Aeronca C-2 monoplane , often called the "Flying Bathtub", in 1929 , the C designation standing for Cincinnati. The next major model was the Scout of 1937 , a two-seater, which was developed into the Chief and Super Chief the next year. The Ohio River flood of 1937 at the Lunken Airport resulted in the entire airport area being washed away. Aeronca's factory

182-545: The Waco CG-4A . Aeronca's World War II designs—the Defender, TG-5 and L-3 variants—differed significantly from nearly all previous and subsequent Aeroncas by replacing Aeronca's traditional three- longeron , triangular-cross-section fuselage with a four - longeron , rectangular-cross-section fuselage for additional strength. In 1945, following the end of World War II, Aeronca returned to civilian production with two new models,

208-483: The railway maintenance ganger's Wickham trolley , from 1948, used a vee-twin JAP engine. This drove through a large flat flywheel and a friction drive . In the 1950s other Wickham trolleys used the 600 cc JAP engine and drove through a clutch, tail shaft and bevel drive. J. A. Prestwich also made small utility engines under the JAP name for a variety of uses, both stationary and in motorised equipment. They ranged in size from

234-472: The 1960s. Prestwich also made engines for aeroplanes. In 1919 Prestwich formed Pencils Limited to exploit his invention of new machinery and the company made Master Pencils, also in Tariff Road. In the nineteen thirties engine production increasingly focused on small industrial and agricultural engines. During WWII Prestwich produced around 240,000 industrial petrol engines in support of the war effort, together with millions of aircraft parts, fuses, etc. In 1951

260-678: The Champion design to the new Champion Aircraft Corporation of Osceola, Wisconsin , which continued building variants of the Champion as well as the derivative design, the Citabria . The venerable aircraft design was acquired again by the Bellanca Aircraft Company in 1970 and again to American Champion in 1988, where it remains in production. Aeronca purchased the Longren Aircraft Corporation in 1959. However, by 1965 it

286-611: The Chief with a higher rear seat, was used in training many of the pilots who flew in World War II . Several observation and liaison aircraft designs were also produced during and after the war, seeing extensive front line use, including the L-3 / O-58 . A glider-trainer version of the Defender, the Aeronca TG-5 , replaced the engine with a third seat, facilitating the training of combat glider pilots destined to fly larger craft, such as

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312-547: The JAP extended into motor racing after WWII. Most were used in specialist UK lightweight formulas, or more extensively in Formula 3 and Formula 2 racing and in hillclimbing after developments by John Cooper . Cooper cars powered by JAP engines won the British Hill Climb Championship for eleven consecutive years. In its later life, J. A. Prestwich produced components for other vehicle manufacturers, including

338-541: The JAP name, some, such as the model 3 OHV engine made for Arthur Lyon & Co for their ALCO generator sets, had timing covers with the name ALCO Featherweight cast in. J.A.P. also had a factory in Chelmsford Road, Southgate, London , employing 40 to 50 people, where these engines were being made in 1955. John Alfred Prestwich John Alfred Prestwich (1874 – 1952) was an English engineer and inventor. He founded JA Prestwich Industries Ltd in 1895 and

364-556: The Northumberland Park area of Tottenham, London, and which still exists as of 2015 . Prestwich was initially best known for his cinematography cameras and projectors. He worked with S.Z. de Ferranti and later the cinema pioneer William Friese-Greene . Circa 1902 J. A. Prestwich and Company began manufacturing motorcycle engines which were used in many motorcycle marques . The motorcycle engines were associated with racing and record success and were used in speedway bikes into

390-553: The assets of J. A. Prestwich and Company Limited and Pencils Ltd were taken over by J. A. Prestwich Industries Limited which was registered on 23 April 1951 and floated on the London Stock Exchange shortly after. By 1957 practically all the shares in the company had been acquired by Villiers Engineering Company Limited of Wolverhampton, which also made motorcycle and industrial engines. The engineering works in Northumberland Park closed in 1963 and J. A. Prestwich Industries Limited

416-451: The carburettor, to allow for greater air intake at altitude. In the late 1920s and early 1930s J. A. Prestwich produced various heavier engines under licence, including those for the UK market for Aeronca . JAP engines were extensively used in cyclecars in the 1910 to 1914 period when they were popular with small manufacturers. In 1914 JAP announced a new engine made specifically for the cyclecar:

442-486: The concurrent development was that the new designs had about 80% of their parts in common. Nevertheless, the tandem-seat Champ—resembling the extremely popular Piper J-3 Cub —was favored by the market, evidenced by its outselling its sibling, the Chief, at a rate of 4 to 1. Between 1945 and 1951, nearly 8,000 Champions were manufactured; while over the same period, approximately 2,000 Chiefs were produced. Aeronca ceased light aircraft production in 1951, and in 1954 sold

468-637: The cylinder head for the Lotus Cortina and the early versions of the Ford-based Lotus Elan engine. Cinematographic equipment including cameras , printers, mutoscopes , cutting and perforating machines, and projectors , such as the Bioscope projectors for the Warwick Trading Company and Charles Urban , were produced by the company in the early part of the 20th century. Early models of

494-475: The engine into the 1970s primarily for grass track, speedway and long track use. Variants included the use of 4 valve heads, twin spark plugs and early electronic ignition systems. Some were modified to run as alcohol fuelled engines primarily for speedway use. All the engines were 4 stroke. Use of the engine declined in the 1970s as competing engines from Jawa-CZ and Weslake were developed giving better performance. Early aircraft were light and basic, and needed

520-430: The financial and political support of the prominent Taft family and future Ohio senator Robert A. Taft who was one of the firm's directors, Aeronca became the first American company to build a commercially successful general aviation aircraft . The corporation changed its name to Aeronca Aircraft Corporation in 1941. When production ended in 1951, Aeronca had sold 17,408 aircraft in 55 models. Production began with

546-762: The forerunner of Vincent Motorcycles . Machines that incorporated its engines included the AJS Model D , fabricated for the Russians in the First World War. JAP exported significant numbers of engines to foreign motorcycle manufacturers including Dresch and Terrot in France, and Ardie , Hecker and Tornax in Germany. Latterly, JAP engines (under Villiers control) were used in motorcycle racing, and most commonly speedway or dirt track. Various enthusiasts continued development of

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572-409: The smallest model 0 two-stroke engine to the much larger type 6 engine, and were used on rotovators , generating sets, milking sets, water pumps, lawnmowers, hay elevators and other agricultural machines. Most were 4-stroke, but there were some 2-stroke engines such as the model 0; they were quite reliable, and examples can still be seen at vintage rallies around Britain. While most of the engines bore

598-587: Was a pioneer in the early development of cinematography projectors and cameras. The company also manufactured famous JAP motorcycle engines. He worked with S.Z. de Ferranti and later cinema pioneer William Friese-Greene . He was awarded the Edward Longstreth Medal by the Franklin Institute in 1919. This United Kingdom business-related biographical article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Aeronca Aeronca

624-457: Was destroyed, along with the tooling and almost all of the very early blueprints and drawings. As a result, two years later the decision was made to move out of the floodplain to Hook Field Municipal Airport in Middletown, Ohio . By October of 1940 the plant had to expand by 25,000 sq ft (2,300 m ) to keep up with production demands. The Defender , a tandem trainer version of

650-834: Was liquidated in 1964. Papers, photographs and publicity material relating to the company are held at the Bruce Castle Museum , Tottenham and the Science Museum Library & Archives at the Science Museum at Wroughton . From 1903 to 1908 complete motorcycles were produced from the development of the first overhead valve motorcycle engine to be produced in the UK. After that the factory concentrated on supplying its engines to other manufacturers, including Brough Superior , Triumph Motorcycles , A. J. Stevens & Co. Ltd , Enfield Cycle Co , Hazlewoods Limited , Zenith Motorcycles , Grindlay Peerless and HRD Motorcycles ,

676-446: Was nearly bankrupt and a new president, Alfred A. Handschumacher, was hired to return the company to profitability. In the early 1970s, Aeronca was contracted by Bede Aircraft to assemble its first Bede BD-5J Microjet —the world's smallest jet airplane—but, after its experiences with the prototype, Aeronca declined to be further involved with the program. In 1978 Aeronca planned to start aircraft production again with production of

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