Aged 30 at the height of Word War 1, WO Bentley was supervising production of his 24.9 litre BR2 rotary aero engine. Already a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), a cadre of civilian volunteers, which had quick means of promoting wartime officers in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) he had been sent to Derby, where Rolls-Royce made air-cooled Renault aero engines, to meet Ernest W Hives (later Lord Hives) with whom he formed a bond lasting twenty years.
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Royal Air Force centenary celebrations must include Bentley. Better remembered now for cars than aero engines, at its creation on 1 April 1918 Lieutenant Walter Owen Bentley Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) became Captain WO Bentley RAF among all 50,000 Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) personnel transferred into the new service. A lot of its 2,500 aircraft were equipped with engines for which in 1919 the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors granted WO £8,000 [£156,000].
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