Sunbeam side-valve aircraft engines

The company quickly became one of the UK's leading engine manufacturers and even designed an aircraft of its own.

In December of that year, the aircraft began a long period of intensive flight tests, which ranged over most of southern England and continued until the outbreak of War in 1914.

The engine had two poppet side valves per cylinder, was water-cooled, weighed 905 lb dry, had four Claudel-Hobson carburettors, and two ignition magnetos.

Production ended in October 1916, after 74 units had been supplied to power the Short Type 184 seaplanes of the Royal Naval Air Service.

It is installed in the Short 184, aircraft number 8359, that played a minor role in the Battle of Jutland at the end of May 1916.

A Sunbeam Gurkha in the remains of a Short Type 184 at the Fleet Air Arm Museum . While Frederick Rutland 's aeroplane survived the First World War intact, it was damaged by bombing during the Second World War.