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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 1640.PDF
DECEMBER 25, 1919 BY OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER. (BY AIR MAIL EXPRESS) GRAND PALAIS, CHAMPS ELYSEES, December 18, 1919. ALL is bustle and—apparently—confusion. The chug-chug of lorry engines and the honking of horns resound within the Grand Palais, which is to open its doors at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning on the first Aero Exhibition, held here since 1913. Packing-cases are being opened and lorries con stantly deliver new supplies containing wings, fuselages, engines and air-screws. At the moment of writing there are, practically speaking, only two stands which have any resem blance to being in order or nearly so. These are the Bleriot- Spad and the Handley Page, which are situated next to one another. After a brief chat with Mr. Cogni, charge d'affaires H.P., we saunter along, trying to get an impression of what tomorrow's finished exhibition will look like. We pause before the Nieuport stand on which three very racy-looking machines are exhibited, one of which is said to be the record- breaker on which, a few days ago, M. Sadi Lecointe did a speed of about 192 m .p.h. over a measured course. M. Lecointe, it might be mentioned, has now transferred his affections to the Nieuport firm, and it was on a Nieuport that he put up this extraordinary performance. Just as we are inspecting this record-breaking machine, M. Lecointe himself comes along, and we congratulate him on his achievement. With a typically French gesture, he indicates that it is nothing to speak about, that the piloting is a simple matter, and that the whole credit rests with the machine. However, there is not at present time for any lengthy discussion, and other exhibits are claiming attention. While making our way around empty packing-cases and over the half-completed floors of unfinished stands, we run into—almost literally—Col. Meares, who has sad news to tell about the fate of the Westland Limousines. It appears that these are fog-bound at Lympne in Kent, and there is now little chance of them arriving at the Grand Palais in time for the opening of the show. Two machines are expected, one of which is to be exhibited while the other is to be flying at Le Bourget aerodrome. Capt. Keep is in charge and will make the crossing if it be humanly possible. We try to cheer up Col. Meares with a quite innocent " Keep smiling," and he retaliates by accusing us of making horrible puns, with intent to commit a joke. Protesting our innocence, we leave Col. Meares to his own thoughts and wend our way to the Boulton & Paul stand, where we find Mr. J. D. North busy with paint pot and brush putting a few finishing touches on the all-metal Boulton & Paul P. 10. However, we persuade him to put down the brush and explain something about the construction of this extraordinarily interesting machine. This he agrees to do, and as the designer of the machine he does it with authority. The Boulton & Paul P. 10—although designed and built in a very short time—is the result of very long experience in rolling sheet steel into special sections, and it represents years of painstaking experiments and research work. It may be said without fear of offending anyone that the P. 10 probably marks the greatest step forward in aero plane construction of any machine at the Show, and the few French attempts at metal construction are at least two years behind it. In the middle of our enthusiastic examination of the P. 10 we suddenly remember that at home thousands of FLIGHT readers are looking to us to provide them with at least a brief resume of the main exhibits in next week's issue of FLIGHT, and that as we go to press two days earlier on account of Christmas there is no time to spare if we are to make the necessary round of the stands to enable us to do this. We, therefore, reluctantly tear ourselves away and look in at the Vickers stand. Here the main exhibit which has arrived so far is the saloon of a Vickers-Vimy Commercial. Otherwise it is much the same tale as that of the Westland machines, except that the Vickers is at Brooklands, waiting for the fog to lift. Some clear photographs on the stand give, however, an excellent idea of the machine—a Vickers Viking. She—one uses the feminine appellation instinctively from force of habit in spite of the name—is a two-stepped flying boat and carries her retractable land undercarriage about with her so as to be able to alight on either element. Excellent as this feature is, it does not enable her to brave the fog, and hence the actual machine will probably not be at the show when it opens to morrow morning. On leaving this stand we catch sight of Capt. Barnwell, who informs us that he has just had a sad disappointment. He had fondly imagined that the Bristol " Babe " would be the smallest machine at the Show, and has now discovered that one of the machines on the de Marcay stand is considerably smaller. We are able to offer him a certain amount of consolation by pointing out that whereas the " Babe " has flown—and flown very well—rumour has it that the little de Mar$ay only did straights, and appeared to have a ceiling of about 6 ft. (six). This may be—like the death of Mark Twain— greatly exaggerated, but certainly the machine looks as if it could do with a little more wing surface. A hurried glance at the Airco stand shows the beautiful white fuselage of the new Airco 16, with Napier Lion engine just arriving. One cannot quite judge of the machine with out the wings, but it promises to look extremely graceful when erected. From the Airco stand we proceed to complete the circuit, and in another half-hours' time we have gathered sufficient material to be able to compile some sort of an index of the main exhibits. As our round has been a hurried one we do not claim absolute completeness, but we feel that readers will prefer a brief and possibly somewhat incomplete resume of the exhibits generally to a complete reference to the machines on a few stands. In subsequent issues we trust 1642
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