Rogers &apm; Geary Wasp

 

Name Wasp Designer unknown
Type Ignition Capacity 6cc
Production run unknown Country of Origin unknown
Photo by Kec Croft and Eric Offen Year of manufacture unknown

 

Notes:

The following notes on the Rogers and Geary (plus some relatives) where supplied by Ken Croft:

The 6cc Wasp was made around 1939 by "Rogers and Geary" of Leicester England, and was sold by Model Aircraft Stores of Bournemouth, England. Rogers and Geary also made the following engines for Model Aircraft Stores:- the 18cc Comet of about 1935, the 2.31cc and 2.5cc Spitfire in 1936, the 3.5cc Hornet around 1939, then the 6cc Stentor made after the war for about 4 years. All are spark ignition engines, and all are so rare that we have no idea how many were made. The Geary family are still around but know nothing of the engines, the original chap presumably long gone.

The original Comet was designed by a Mr Brookes from Bournemouth, who it seems persuaded Mr Rogers to build them. How Mr Geary gets involved I do not know. I doubt if Mr Brookes was involved in the Wasp, as it is clearly based on the principles of the Baby Cyclone, whereas the Comet was a big sideport lump bearing no resemblance to the Wasp. The Hornet was virtually a scaled down wasp. I built a copy of one of those too, see the picture.

As I have said, all these motors are very rare. If I put them in order of rarity starting with rarest, this would be the Comet [Gordon Williams made about a dozen repro castings and John Maddaford made up and sold about 11 of them!], then the Hornet, I have never seen a real one, then the Wasp, I know of a few of them, then the Spitfires, but I bet there are less than a dozen known examples, then the Stentor. I used to think there were plenty of the post-war Stentors around because I personally had a few, but we rarely see them these days. John Goodall has castings avalable for the Stentor, to John Maddaford's patterns. There have been quite a few repros made, and they are a nice flying engine once you sort out their reluctance to hold a 2-cycle.

I do not believe there is any knowledge of how many Rogers and Geary engines were made, either in total or of individual types. They are keenly valued collectors engines. ps, my repro Wasp is not totally repro, the complete cylinder is a genuine original item! Sorry about the photos, which are scans of old film pistures. [How digital has improved things.] The Hornet is currently in a model in the loft, so decent new digital pictures are not easy. The Stentor is an original engine that I restored for myself.

Not a lot I can say about this engine except that originals (like the one shown here from Eric Offen) are rare and very valuable. I sure do like that totally impractical and vulnerable spun nose cone though. Adds terrific charm to the engine though (IMHO, of course ).

 

Ruler

 

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