11 Facts About BMW 003

1.

BMW 003 is an early axial turbojet engine produced by BMW AG in Germany during World War II.

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2.

The only production aircraft to use the BMW 003 were the Heinkel He 162 and the later C-series, four-engined versions of the Arado Ar 234.

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3.

About 3500 BMW 003 engines were built in Germany, but very few were ever installed in aircraft.

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4.

In 1939, BMW 003 bought out Bramo, and in the acquisition, obtained both engine projects.

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5.

General usage of the BMW 003 powerplant was abandoned for the Me 262, except for two experimental examples of the plane known as the Me 262 A-1b.

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6.

Work on the BMW 003 continued anyway, and by late 1942 it had been made far more powerful and reliable.

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7.

BMW 003 utilized nearly the same starting method as its slightly more powerful Jumo 004 competitor: one of Norbert Riedel's 10 PS flat-twin two-stroke engines, installed within the engine's intake diverter as a mechanical APU, to get the 003's central shaft rotating for operation.

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8.

BMW 003 was intended for export to Japan, but working examples of the engine were never supplied.

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9.

BMW 003 was selected as the basis for a gas turbine development project for the German military's anticipated need for what is today called a turboshaft powerplant for multiple needs — this project was called the GT 101, using the BMW 003 axial-flow turbojet as the starting point in mid-November 1944.

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10.

Blueprints for BMW 003 engines had been seized by Soviet forces from both the Basdorf-Zuhlsdorf plant near Berlin and the notorious Mittelwerk slave labor facility near Nordhausen.

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11.

Production of the BMW 003 was set up at the "Red October" GAZ 466 in Leningrad and in Kuznetsov along KMPO, where the engine was mass-produced from 1947 under the designation RD-20 .

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