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Aviation History
1910
1910 - 0938.PDF
pi Mr. Willows had intended, after repairing his machine, to complete the journey to Issy, and a Jarge crowd gathered there on Sunday afternoon' to welcome" him. The weather conditions, however, changed in the meantime, so that Mr. Willows deemed it advisable not to go on. He therefore had his balloon deflated, packed up and sent to Issy by rail, where it found a temporary home in M. Clement's dirigible shed. "Daily Mail" Garage at Wormwood Scrubbs. SINCE the Daily Mail airship garage on Wormwood Scrubbs was officially taken over by the Government on Saturday week, it has been proposed that it should be taken down and re-erected at Farnborough. This point, however, has not yet been settled, and other matters which are also under consideration are the question of a new door and the improvement of the floor. At present the latter is made of cinders, and it is proposed to replace this by concrete. The big curtain which closes the mouth of the shed has become very weather-beaten, and will have to be repaired or replaced, and in the latter case wooden shutters may be utilised instead of the canvas curtain. Trying to Beat the Balloon Record. ON Wednesday afternoon the Daily Graphit balloon left the grounds of the Crystal Palace in an attempt to beat the distance record °f I>355 miles set up by the balloon " America II " in the Gordon- Bennett race. It carried five passengers, these being Mr. Gaudron, pilot, Mr. Hunter, representing the Daily Graphic, Lieut. Maitland, NOVEMBER 12, 191a Mr. Pattlson and Mr. Collingwood. The balloon has a capacity of 163,000 cub. ft., and it is fitted with a double basket, one being below the other. According to the calculations made beforehand the balloon should have been able to keep up for 68 hours. It was anticipated that the landing would be effected in Russia, but it eventually landed in the forest near Korkhofen, in Bavaria, the dis tance being about 550 miles in a straight line from London. The cars were caught on the top of the trees, seven of which had to be felled before the balloon could be released. The balloon fell from a height of 19,450 ft., the last 12,000 of which were passed through in three minutes. Fortunately all the passengers escaped injury, but the envelope became a total wreck. A Derelict Balloon, THE inhabitants of Queen's Road, Peckham, were somewhat startled on the evening of the 1st inst. to find a balloon settling down on the roofs, and an air of mystery was given to the proceedings by the fact that the basket contained no passengers. It subsequently transpired that the balloon was the Hon. Mrs. Assheton-Harbord's " Nirvana," which had broken away from her moorings at Battersea while being prepared for a cross-Channel trip. After a collision with a gasometer which tore a hole in the envelope, the gas escaped somewhat rapidly and so brought the balloon to earth, or rather the roofs of the houses. A good deal of damage was done to chimney pots and such like, and it was some time before the gang of workmen could get it down from the roof. This, however, was eventually accomplished and the damaged balloon was sent back to the works at Battersea. CORRESPONDENCE. The name and address of the writer (not necessarily foi publication) MUST in all cases accompany letters intendea for insertion, or containing queries. Correspondents communicating with regard to letters which they have read in FLIGHT, would much facilitate ready reference by quoting the number of each such letter. NOTE.—Owing to the great mass of valuable and interesting corre spondence which we receive, immediate publication is impossible, out each letter will appear practically in sequence and at the earliest possible moment. CLASSIFICATION OF AEROPLANES. [880] It has occurred to me on many occasions when reading the description of new machines that the lengthy sentences or paragraphs referring to the general arrangement of the surfaces would be unnecessary if some sort of type classification were adopted. In locomotive engineering there has during the last decade or so been brought into use a most excellent method of classifying railway engines, which, «o far as I can see, might be equally well adapted to aerial locomotives. This classification system consists in the use of numerals arranged in a certain order to represent the wheels. The first figure, reading .FIG I QQpy( A. OtHt.Hi O —2-P«-0 O-P-3-3 2-r- I—O PUNNE.. FI64. I — 2-r- I ROE Fio 5 ri,-i —o ?\C7 FIGS from left to right, is used to denote the number of carrying wheels, the next indicates the number of driving wheels, and the last the trailing carrying wheels. Thus if an engine has, say, a leading four-wheeled bogie, four coupled driving wheels under the boiler- barrel, and a pair of carrying wheels under the firebox or footplate, it is spoken of as a 4-4-2 engine. If it is an older type with a single pair of leading wheels, four coupled driving wheels, and no trailing wheels, it is written down a 2 -4-0 type. Now what I want to suggest is that the same method should be applied to aeroplanes. I have thought over all the existing types, and I find they can all be expressed by the use of three figures with a hyphen between them. The numerals are, of course, to represent the planes, and the first one is to indicate the elevator, the second the main planes, and the third the tail. In application to aero planes we can go a step further than is possible in locomotive prac tice, for by the insertion of the letter P we can indicate the position of the propeller. I have made a few sketches to illustrate the application. Fig. 1 is a Farman machine, which would be referred to as a 1-2-P-2 machine. Fig. 2 is a Bleriot, which is a 0-P-1-1 type. Here the o indicates the absence of an elevator. Similarly the Wright machine, 3, would some time ago have been referred to as a 2-2-P2-0 machine, the o here indicating the absence of a tail, whilst that on which the late Hon. Chas. S. Rolls met his death was 2-2-P2-I. Even the elevatorless tailless type Dunne aeroplane can be expressed thus 0-2-P2-0. The new Valkyrie is a 2-P-1-0 machine; A. V. Roe, 0-P-3-3. My own type is, like the Curtiss, a 2-2-P-1. I trust that I have not written to an unnecessary length on a matter that may not be deemed of any importance, but it seems to me that you might save a little valuable space by adopting the above suggestion. October 6th. E. W. TWINING. [None better than ourselves can appreciate what an advantage any system of saving space would be to FLIGHT at the present time, but we have our new readers to consider as well as those who have studied the subject for a sufficiently long time to find no difficulty in assimilating Mr. Twining's idea. As a method of tabulating types of machines it has much „ to commend it, but as a method of description in the text we fear that the time is not yet. At anv mta it- ...111 U-v :_t i* ... . 1 • J * - * £16 3 yftLKYRIC FIC 6 2 —2-P-l TJEN^WRSTT. Fl09- rate £ wi.U be intere»ting to hear what others have to 936
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