The BMW 801 was a powerful German 41.8-litre (2,550 cu in) air-cooled 14-cylinder-radial aircraft engine built by BMW and used in a number of German Luftwaffe aircraft of World War II. Production versions of the twin-row engine generated between 1,560 and 2,000 PS. It was the most produced radial engine of Germany in World War II with more than 61,000 built.
BMW 801
BMW 801 engine, BMW Museum, Munich, Germany (2013)
BMW 801 D2 at the Flugmuseum Aviaticum, Austria (2007)
BMW-Kommandogerät, a single-lever power control device for the BMW801, designed by Heinrich Leibach.
The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is called a "star engine" in some other languages.
Radial engine in a biplane
Master rod (upright) and slaved connecting rods from a two-row, fourteen-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-1535 Twin Wasp Junior
Continental radial, 1944
Pratt & Whitney R-1340 radial mounted in Sikorsky H-19 helicopter