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Aviation History
1921
1921 - 0493.PDF
JULY 21, 1921 ONE OF THE •« MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN'S The Avro Racer, 450 h.p. Napier " Lion " engine. we have seen, and one of which is published herewith, show it as a biplane. The riddle is solved, however by the dis- •covery that the lower plane could be easily removed, with its Vee struts, when the machine becomes a monoplane with a single lift strut on each side. The fuselage is swept up to meet the upper plane, and it appears that the pilof sits inside this "hump." The engine of this machine is also a 300 h.p. Hispano, and the machine was expected to be very fast. Unfortunately, a collapsed wheel also resulted in damaging this machine to such an extent as to preclude flying it in the race. M. de Romanet, the pilot, was, however, at Hendon during the race, and was, we believe, quite taken with the Mars I. Following are brief data relating to the de Monge machine : Span, 26 ft. ; length o.a., 23 ft. ; chord at root, 8 • 5 ft. ; chord at tips, 3 • 3 ft. ; wing area, 160 sq. ft. ; weight in flying trim, 2,000 lbs. ; load per sq. ft., 12'5 lbs. ; load per h.p. (on 300 h.p.), 6-6 lbs. The Avro-Lion.—The very unfortunate accident which deleted the racer entered by Avros, and which resulted in serious injury to Major Westgarth-Heslam, deprived the Derby of a very interesting entrant. It appears that on landing the machine after a test flight, Heslam rather overshot the mark and struck some obstacle which started the machine bouncing, finally to crash into a railway cutting. The machine is badly damaged, and Major Heslam received rather severe injuries. He has, however, an apparently unlimited supply of grit, and this will, we hope, pull him through, as it has done before. The machine is, as regards the rear portion of the fuselage, the same as that flown by Heslam last year, but the front has been rebuilt to take the Napier " Lion." The covering in the rear portion is ply-wood, the construction being semi-mono- coque. The engine is covered in all but the tops of the cylinder blocks, and there are two radiators, mounted one on each side. The nose is tapered off, and a " spinner " over the propeller boss completes the streamlining. The tail plane and fin are covered with ply-wood, and this is curved into the fuselage so as to avoid as much as possible the creation of eddies. The span of the machine is 25 ft., and the wing chord 4 ft. 6 ins. The " Alula " Monoplane.—Although it was not a crashwhich prevented the " Alula " monoplane from starting in the Derby, its failure to do so (start, not crash) probably did-not come as a surprise to those who knew about the machine. To begin with, the " Alula " wing was rather too much ofan experiment to justify any hopes of it appearing in the race. The fuselage is that of the old " Semiquaver," somewhatcut down in depth, and on top of this is mounted the " Alula " wing. This particular form of wing has been arrived at byMr. Holle, of the Commercial Aeroplane Wing Syndicate, after years of study, and is claimed by its designer to prevent,or at any rate greatly reduce, end losses. Previous wings tested have been designed more for lifting heavy loads atrelatively low speeds, but the present wing was, we under stand, designed to give a high L/D at low angles and low liftcoefficients. The position of the c.p, was, we believe, a matter of some uncertainty, and further to complicatematters, the construction is unusual inasmuch as there are no wing spars, the wing being built more like a boat, with woodplanking and light stringers and ribs. Such a structure can scarcely be " stressed " by calculation with any degree ofcertainty, and we understand that, although experts who had seen the wing were of the opinion that it was probably quitestrong enough, no sand tests had been carried out. The machine was not ready for testing until the eveningbefore the race, and Courtney decided, after a short run over the ground, that he would not take the machine up.The undercarriage of the " Semiquaver " is very narrow, arid the weight of a heavy wing, placed high up, did not improvematters, with the result that, we learn, the machine could not be controlled properly while taxying. Under the circum-stances we cannot say that we blame Courtney for refusing to go on with the tests. The two serious accidents which hadalready happened in connection with tests on machines entered had given a quite sufficiently bad impression, and ifa third machine had had a serious accident, the harm done to aviation would have been further increased. When sandtests have been made and the trials proceeded with at leisure, it is time enough to begin thinking of racing themachine. THE ROYAL AERO CLUB OF THE U.K. OFFICIAL NOTICES TO MEMBERS COWES SEAPLANE MEETING THE Racing Committee of the Royal Aero Club have reluc- tantly been obliged to postpone the proposed Seaplane Races at Cowes fixed for August 1 and 2 next. A Meeting of the Racing Committee and Competitors will be held shortly to consider as to a new date and the advisa- bility of holding the Races elsewhere. AERIAL DERBY, JULY 16, 1921. RESULT Winner (Fastest Time) Trophy and £400— Gloucestershire Aircraft Co., Ltd. Mars I, 450 h.p. Napier lion (Pilot : John Herbert James). Time : 1 hr. 13 rains. 28 sees. 163-34 miles per hour. Handicap 1st Prize, Trophy and £200— "" ~ Gloucestershire Aircraft Co., Ltd. Mars I, 450 h.p. 2nd Prize, £100—Major-General Sir Sefton Brancker, K.C.B., and Philip S. Foster. S.E. 5a, 220 h.p. Wolseley Viper (Pilot:Flight Lieut. W. H. Longton, D.F.C., A.F.C., R.A.F.)r- 3rd Prize, £50— Alan Samuel Butler. Bristol Tourer, 240 h.p. SiddeleyPuma (Pilot : Alan Samuel Butler). FIRST AIR RACE, OXFORD V. CAMBRIDGE Result : Cambridge won by 9 pointsCambridge W. S. Philcox (Caius) ..H. A. Francis (Caius) R. K. Muir (St. Catha-rine's) Oxford A. V. Hurley (Keble) .. A. R. Boeree (Oriel) N. Pring (New), landed at Enfield on Third Circuit Points 15 Napier Lion (Pilot: John Herbert James). Points 6 Offices: THE ROYAL AERO CLUB, 3, CLIFFORD STREET, LONDON, W. 1. iv H. E. PERRIN, Secretary. 493
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