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Aviation History
1930
UNTITLED0 - 0044.PDF
FLIGHT, JANUARY 3, 1930 SOME MONOPLANES THERE appears to be a tendency among British aircraftdesigners of late to take up again a rather closerstudy of the monoplane type than has been the case during the last ten years or more. That being so, the photo- graphs on this page are of interest in showing some early monoplanes of the 1911 period or so. The photograph in the top left-hand corner shows the cock- pit of an early Martin Handasyde monoplane. It will be noted that the cockpit is very shallow, the triangular-section fuselage being largely responsible for the high position of the seat. Mounting the windscreen on the control column now seems an unusual procedure, but probably the idea was also to relieve a certain amount of tail heaviness. The Handley-Page monoplane shown in the top right-hand corner was designed for automatic stability, and for many years " H.P." was a great believer in the crescent-shaped wing. The wing-tips were given a pronounced " washo-out " in addition to their sweep-back. Of very efficient aerodynamic design, but always rather heavy structurally, were the little monoplanes produced in the early days by the Nieuport brothers of^France. The photograph on the right shows an example exhibited at Olympia, where it attracted very favourable attention on account of its " clean " design. The engine used was a horizontal opposed water-cooled two-cylinder engine of some 30 h.p., and it is of interest to note that the performance was just about what one would expect of a modern machine with the same power and of approximately the same weight. Among the younger FLIGHT readers there may well be a belief that the cabin machine is a modern, or comparatively modern, " invention." That this is not the case is brought out by the photograph below, of a monoplane exhibited by Piggot Brothers in 1911. The machine had a very " fat " fuselage, of streamline form, and the pilot obtained his view such as it was) through windows in the fabric covering. Among the pioneers of British aircraft constructors were the]Blackburn Brothers, notably Mr. Robert Blackburn, and the photograph on the right shows the monoplane which he exhibited at Olympia in 1911. Like the Martin Handasyde monoplane, the Blackburn had a triangular-section fuselage, but the engine fitted was the first British radial air-cooled, the Isaacson. Looking at this early Blackburn monoplane one is struck by the very deeply-cambered aerofoils used, and by the liberal strutting in the undercarriage. Skids were used on nearly all early aircraft, sometimes a singkcentral one, and sometimes, as in the Blackburn, two skid each carrying two wheels. It seems likely that a good man1,m.p.h. could be added merely by substituting a moden undercarriage to this machine, and such an experimeirwould be very interesting. 44
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