FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1913
1913 - 0043.PDF
JANUARY II, 1913. ALTHOUGH aviation has had a great deal more support from official quarters in France than it has here in England, things have not been going too well with some few French firms of late. News came, not so long since, that M. Roger Sommer had decided to give up his aeroplane manufacturing business at Monzon, and to return once more to devoting all his energies to his former business, that of felt manufacturing. He had hoped, it is reported, that his new stabilizing device, which FLIGHT described fully in the report of the last Paris Aero Show, would have put his machines in greater favour with the Government. It has not done so, it appears, and for this and other reasons, perhaps better known to himself, M. Sommer decided that it was better not to continue. • • • It came as a still greater shock to me to hear a few days since, from a friend of mine in Paris, that M. Robert Esnault Pelterie has decided to retire as well. His reason was, so I was told, that he had spent so much on aviation and was getting so little in return. M. Esnault Pelterie, as designer and constructor of the celebrated R.E.P. monoplanes and engines, was one of the very first of monoplane pioneers in the world, and his work all through is generally recognised as being some of the very cleverest that has been directed towards the perfection of the flying machine. His monoplanes have been universally written down as the best specimen of a pure engineering job among aero planes of French origin. And yet, in spite of the good performances that stand to their credit, it is evident'that they do not sell sufficiently well. Where then has M. Robert Esnault Pelterie failed? Are his machines listed at too high a price ? Are they, being mainly of steel, too difficult to repair when they become damaged ? Wherein does the trouble lie ? * * • Coming back to our British industry, it occurs to me there will be soon a good opening for a collapsible hangar that is capable of being dismantled in a minimum of time and stowed away on an ordinary sized motor car of the type that is usually employed to chase aviators with spare parts when they are undertaking a long flight. At the new Isle of Grain Naval Air Station at the mouth of the Medway, there is a French Bessonneau collapsible hangar erected, and this fact, even if the Navy have not yet acquired the hangar in question, indicates that there should be a demand for them. • » • It struck me as being rather interesting to hear that the French Astra firm, who are at present constructing an Astra-Torres dirigible to the order of the British Govern ment are obtaining their proofed fabric for this and other machines from a Scottish firm—the "W.W." Proofing Company of Glasgow. • *> * Messrs. J. Samuel White and Co., Ltd., of East Cowes, I.W., a firm of Government contractors who have up to the present time specialised, apart from their ordinary yachting work, in the production of torpedo boat destroyers and Diesel engines, have decided to put in operation an aviation department, which will be under the direction of Mr. Howard T. Wright. His pioneer work in connection with aviation is too widely known to need enlarging upon. Under Mr. Howard Wright's direction they intend to commence, straight away, on the construction of hydro-aeroplanes, land aeroplanes, r^JGHf] and aeromotors, which latter will be of the stationary- cylindered air-cooled variety. Their first machine to be turned out will be a hydro, equipped with a 160-h.p Gnome engine, and furnished with lifting surfaces of a new design of Mr. Howard Wright's, which has given unusual promise as the result of laboratory experiments. Most of us will have the opportunity of seeing this interesting new machine, if not before, at the forthcoming Aero Exhibition at Olympia next month. Young Marcel Desoutter, he is, by the way, only nineteen years of age, and withal one of the very soundest of the monoplane and biplane pilots we have in this country—had some rather unusual experiences on Saturday last at Hendon. Going up for one of his exhibition flights, which as a rule last about twenty minutes, he rose and was above the clouds by the time he had reached an altitude of 3,000 ft. While it was rather gusty near the ground, it was quite calm above, and by the appearance of the clouds below him he judged that the wind was simply a ground wind. Thus, being confident he could find the aerodrome again, he stayed up above the clouds for five minutes, keeping his mind's eye in the direction in which the aerodrome ought to lie. • » * He had no compass on board, so that he simply had to rely on his own sense of direction. As it happened there was a high wind at the height at which he was flying, and so when he came down where he thought the aerodrome ought to be and started looking around for it he found that " someone had taken it away " as he put it. A little later he spied a patch of water which he mistook to be the Welsh Harp waters at Hendon, and as it was getting quite dark he reckoned it best to get on dry land. The field he selected was on the side of a fairly steep slope. It had seemed perfectly flat till he was just on the point of touching the ground. Luckily he landed up the slope. • • a From the rustics who gathered around he learned that he had descended at Cuffley, a little village in Hertford shire. Finding out from them his true direction back to the aerodrome, and that he was less than ten miles away, he determined to start back again and addressed one of the said rustics with a view to getting him to give his propeller a pull over. To Desoutter's astonishment he replied " It ain't no good, guvnor, I wouldn't lay me 'ands on the thing, not if you give me a 'undred quid." As a matter of fact, all the rest of them who were there had the same holy fear of the machine, for it was the first time they had seen an aeroplane. Seeing that it was useless to attempt to get off, Desoutter asked them if they would be good enough to help him push the machine under the shelter of a tree. They were even too frightened to do that, and so he had to do the job by himself. • * • Having got the machine well pegged down and covered over, he made an attempt to let the aerodrome people know of his whereabouts, but he could find no 'phone in the place ; so he waited forty minutes for a train, and by a very roundabout route got back to the aerodrome about a quarter past seven, much to the relief of his friends there. They had almost given him up for lost, had lighted flares and sent up rockets to guide him should he see them, and had telephoned to most places within 43
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
