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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 1345.PDF
OCTOBER 9, 1919 Fig. 5.—Oertz flying-boat of 1915, fitted with 240 h.p. Maybach engine. The machine was designed for a 260 h.p. Argus, but this could not be obtained successful test flights at Breitling, near Warnemiinde. This machine, which is shown in Fig. 2, was fitted with a 100 h.p. Argus engine placed down in the boat, and driving the airscrew through shafts and bevel gearing. Tins arrangement, the constructional details of which had been worked out by Dr. Oertz himself, was something quite new for those times, and this first boat already showed the characteristics of all later Oertz flying boats. Among these is, chiefly, the division of the planes into two halves -and the slanting struts, with means for quickly dismantling the complete plane cellule. In looking at this flying boat, the thing which at once attracts notice is the very large chord of the lower plane, compared with that of the top wing. The object of this arrangement was to raise the centre of pressure of the biplane, and thus reduce the undesirable pendulum effect caused by having the engine in the hull. The objec tions to this effect have, however, later proved to be of small importance. " One of the greatest difficulties of that time was to design a boat hull which should have the greatest possible amount of lateral stability when on the sea. The French flying boats of that date had very narrow hulls, which necessitated fitting auxiliary floats to the lower wings. In anything of a sea, these wing floats were a constant danger to the plane, owing to the shocks and stresses set up. It was in this respect that the art of the experienced yacht builder came to the rescue. Oertz provided a boat hull, which not only had a very good stream-line form, but which also possessed a very great amount of lateral stability on the sea ; so much so that it was possible for a man to walk half-way out on the lower plane without the machine heeling over enough for the plane to touch the sea. This great lateral stability on the sea has remained one of the features of all Oertz flying boats to this day. The credit of being the first to provide this lateral stability is not in the least reduced by the fact that the American Curtiss flying boat, which was used in the Transatlantic flight, shows the same feature. In order to reduce the danger of the lower wing tips cutting under when the machine is rolling in a sea or taking off, the lower wing tips were pro vided with flat spring boards which prevented, by their dynamic action, the tips from cutting under. m Fig. 6.—Oertz flying-boat (1917), with 240 h.p. Maybach engine ft 1 m m 1347
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