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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 0377.PDF
FLIGHT, APRIL 19, 1934 THE COMPER "STREAK LT. COMPER and those associated with him are to be congratulated on their enterprise in chal- lenging the French constructors for the Deutsch de la Meurthe Cup. With the withdrawal, Announced last week, of the Italian entries for, it is be- lieved, the reason that the machines and engines could not be sufficiently developed and tested in time for the •contest, Great Britain will be the only non-French chal- lenger, and the Comper " Streak " will be the only British •entrant. • What makes the British challenge so courageous is the fact that the " Streak " is fitted with the de Havil- land " Gipsy Major " naturally-aspirated engine, which is of but 6.125 litres capacity, while the French machines will be able to call upon all the power that can be got irom supercharged engines of the full 8 litres capacity permitted by the Coupe Deutsch regulations. This means that Comper will have to face competitors with more than twice his power at their disposal. Comper's performance •estimates indicate, however, that his machine should not be nearly so inferior to the French as the difference in power might lead one to imagine. The effect of engine power is cumulative, and the larger and more powerful •engines require correspondingly more fuel in a given time, which means that the machine itself must be larger and of greater wing area if the landing speed is to be kept •down to reasonable limits. Everyone in British aviation will wish Fit. Lt. Comper all possible good fortune in his plucky attempt to wrest the Coupe Deutsch from the iFrench defenders. Last year Fit. Lt. N. Comper, Chief Engineer and Tech-nical Director of the Comper Aircraft Co., Ltd., put a hotted up " " Gipsy Major " engine into one of hislittle high-wing monoplanes, and in the face of very great handicap and serious competition raced it for the CoupeDeutsch de la Meurthe in France. The story of his gal- lant fight was recorded in FLIGHT for June 8, 1933. In ourissme of FLIGHT for May 11, 1933, we were able to publisha general arrangement drawing showing a development of a new machine called the " Streak," designed chieflyfor races of this nature—which, incidentally, Fit. Lt. Comper's experience in France had shown him to bedesirable. The original " Streak " was, we believe, designed with the idea of competing in the InternationalAir Races which a committee attempted to organise at Portsmouth last year. Unfortunately, these races did notmature, and the " Streak " never, therefore, came out. This year Fit. Lt. Comper has again decided to compete inthe French event, and on Thursday, April 12, the machine was flown successfully. During the first flight of the " Streak," made byFit. Lt. Comper himself, the new machine proved itself perfectly balanced, and it was found that control andstability were good. One possible exception was ^formed by the ailerons, which were found to be surprisingly sen-sitive. So much so, in fact, that flutter developed. In this connection it should be pointed out that the massbalances designed for the ailerons had not yet been fitted, and it may be that when this has been done the trouble RACY LOOKING : The two views of the new Comper "Streak " on this page bring out the racy lines of this machine. The head-on view, more particularly when the landing gear is retracted, shows how clean it is possible to get a machine of this nature. (FLIGHT Photos.) 377
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