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Aviation History
1913
1913 - 1062.PDF
l/ycHfj an impromptu performance of this character by a beginner. The machine slides down partially backwards and partially sideways. In the ordinary way it is the beginning of the end for the unhappy pilot. To Pegoud it is nothing alarming. He sits calmly in his seat, and he brings the machine round on to a level keel as if nothing has happened. It is, of course, essential that Pegoud should have sufficient altitude for his operations. He loses an immense height between the start and the finish of all his evolu tions ; in some of them we estimated that he must have been descending at the rate of about 500 feet a minute, which is far faster than an express lift as operated in America, although it is not so fast as men are sometimes sent down the shaft of a mine. When we described Pegoud's evolutions last week, we based the descriptions, as we explained, on information given to us by M. Norbert Chereau, M. Bleriot's representative in London, but one of the diagrams was incorrect in showing the pilot on the outside of the circle whilst looping the loop. In all the experiments of OCTOBER 4, 1913. position he can slide into a vertical dive, and when thus vertical he can turn over on to his back as he does in the first experiment. When on his back he remains there frequently for over a minute at a time, so that everyone has an excellent opportunity of thoroughly appreciating the fact that he is really upside down. There is absolutely no doubt about the position. We watched one such flight lying prone on the grass, and looking at the machine through field glasses. The aeroplane was directly overhead, and the pilot's cap became the focus in the line of sight. He was absolutely vertically upside down, and flying fast, in what in that position seemed to be a horizontal path, but which in reality must have been a steep glide. Pegoud practises two modes of recovery from such a position. Either he uses his elevator so as to make another vertical dive, from which he flattens out in the ordinary way, or else he rolls over by the aid of the warp. This latter manoeuvre is the most extraordinary of all. It is also quite the most difficult to follow, for unless one watches it very closely indeed it is difficult to realise that " Flight" Copyright. PEGOUD'S REMARKABLE FLIGHTS AT BROOKLANDS—On the left a view of the upward watchers following his evolutions, and on the right Pegoud being taken round the enclosure after his flights by Major Lindsay Lloyd to enable him to receive a few personal congratulations upon bis work. this kind at Brooklands, Pegoud looped the loop with himself on the inside of the circle. It is not that Pegoud would in the least object to being on the outside of the circle, for so far as he is concerned there is hardly any conceivable position in which he would feel incon venienced. But, an interesting question arises as to whether it is possible to loop the loop with an aeroplane in which a pilot is on the outside of the circle. The wing surfaces in their inverted position are, of course, far less effective than in their proper position, and although they suffice when thus inverted to sustain flight in the form of a steep glide, which is what Pegoud's upside down flying amounts to, it is questionable whether they could be made to force the machine over the loop. Pegoud himself has said that he cannot roll his machine upside down from a position in which he is originally right way up, the point being, presumably, that the direction of the acting force is governed by the camber of the wing, and is always in such a direction as to prevent a complete rolling over. He can roll over into what is practically a vertical bank, from which he has actually changed his position into one that is right way up. It will be observed that although he cannot roll over from right way up to upside down, he can do the other thing, and it is done so amazingly quickly that before most people on the ground have realised that anything has happened, Pegoud is flying towards them in a normal attitude, and for several seconds most of the spectators are under the impression that he must be still in his inverted position. It is, in short, an almost indescribable manoeuvre, which needs to be seen in order to be appreciated. None of the diagrams that we published last week in the least gives any idea of what actually takes place. In a diagram one is limited to a line drawn on the plane of the paper, and with the exception of the simple upside down flight, not one of the manoeuvres is thus confined to a single plane of operations. In looping the loop, which Pegoud did some four times in succession on Saturday, the machine comes almost to a standstill at the top of the circle, or that is how it 1088
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