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Aviation History
1931
1931 - 0715.PDF
FLIGHT, JULY 10, 1931 at present, as the machine willnot go into production in its present form. The experimental machine is athree-seater, with pilot and one passenger side by side, butslightly staggered, and a third seat behind them. Owing to theforward position of the pilot's seat and the absence of an enginein the nose of the fuselage, the view forward is exceptionallygood. Large windows in the cabin give a good view outwards,although from the back seat the view is, as in most low-wing mono-planes, slightly interfered with. The two Salmson engines aremounted on the wing, and direct gravity feed is provided by carry-ing the petrol in a tank in the fuselage nose, in front of the in-strument board. The wheels are provided withbrakes, and a tail wheel is fitted in place of a tail skid. An ex-perimental arrangement for coupling the brakes to the con-trol column has been incor- porated, so that, when the pilotpulls the stick back for a three- point landing, the brakes areoperated. The interconnection can, however, be released whenthe brakes are operated by a centrally-placed lever in theorthodox manner. As the machine under review ispurely experimental, it is not thought necessary here to dealvery much with its general features as an aircraft, which may be somewhat alteredin the model to be placed on the market as soon as pro- duction gets going at the premises which have been tem-porarily acquired at Croydon aerodrome. It is, however, worth placing on record the fact that in the productionof the experimental machine a considerable amount of wind tunnel work on thick wing roots has been done,and that, as a result, the difficulties of thick wing roots behind wing engines placed close to the fuselage havebeen overcome, and methods have been found for keep- ing the airflow smooth and retaining the controllabilitydown to large angles of incidence. Structural Features The main reason for producing the monospar machinewas, as already stated, to try out in flight the Stieger THE FUSELAGE BOOM: Details of the construction. The corner strips and surrounding bracing are of Duralumin. The depth of the boom is approximately one foot, and it is placed in the bottom of the fuselage, the outer form of which is produced by hoops and stringers. system of single-spar construction, and, as this will beretained in the production model, although with minor modifications, some notes on it here may be of interest.It will probably be recollected from previous references to the Stieger monospar system that this consists of asingle main spar, strong in bending, but braced against torsion by what may best be described as " spiral " brac-ing wires, these wires consisting of two sets, which may be imagined as running around the wing in opposite direc-tions. Under the Mono-Spar Company's patents, the single spar may, of course, be of any suitable construc-tion. In the machine with which we deal here, it is an I-beam of duralumin, built up of several members. Theweb itself is a plain duralumin plate, with triangular holes stamped out for lightness, leaving a series of lattice barsto act as braces between top and bottom flanges. IN SKELETON: The Mono-Spar Company's Experimental Machine before it was covered, girder which forms the main fuselage member is clearly seen. 669 The shallow depth
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