The Galloway Atlantic is a 500 hp V12 aero engine that was ordered into production towards the end of WW1. The Atlantic saw postwar service in Handley Page V/1500 bombers built by Galloway’s parent company, William Beardmore & Co.[1] In contemporary publications the type is often referred to as the Beardmore, or BHP, Atlantic or 500 hp.[2]
The Galloway Atlantic is essentially a double form of the Galloway Adriatic with two banks of six cylinders set at 60 degrees working a single crankshaft. The articulated master-and-slave connecting rods allow corresponding cylinders in each row to be arranged directly opposite each other but gives the 6 cylinder bank with the articulated rods a longer stroke than the opposing bank.[3] [4]
The Atlantic was the most powerful engine fitted to the Handley Page V/1500 heavy bomber and was one of the most powerful aero-engines of its time.[5]
Aircraft number E8287 was the first of the Beardmore built Handley Page V/1500s and was fitted with four Galloway Atlantic engines. The aircraft had been handed over to the Royal Air Force by December of 1918. The Atlantic engines can be distinguished from the Rolls Royce Eagle engines, which were also in use on the V/1500, by the absence of exhaust pipes.
800 engines were ordered from Beardmore’s subsidiary companies; Arrol-Johnston and Galloway Engineering. Most were cancelled when WW1 ended. Only 72 engines were completed all of these being built at Galloway's factory in Kirkcudbright near Dumfries, Scotland.
The Atlantic was the last aircraft engine type manufactured by Galloway with the company focusing on automobile production during the 1920s.[6]
A preserved Galloway Atlantic engine is on display at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, Texas. The engine is on loan from the University of Texas at Dallas.