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Aviation History
1935
1935 - 1182.PDF
552 FLIGHT. MAY 23, 1935. Early types : the upper left-hand photograph shows a Blackburn monoplane (50 h.p. Gnome engine), and that on the right an early Martinsyde monoplane (50 h.p. Antoinette). Note the wind shield in front of the control wheel. Of the lower pictures, that on the left shows the Dunne automatically-stable biplane (50 h.p. Green) and that on the right Horatio Barber's " Valkyrie " tail-first machine (Gnome). (Flight photographs.) a heavy weight a cable passed over a pulley in this tower along the ground to the far end of the starting rail, where the cable passed over another pulley and back to the aero plane. The pilot started his engine and, when he was satisfied with its running, moved a lever which released the weight in the tower ; the machine was pulled forward along the rail and, as it reached the far end, the cable attachment disengaged automatically. By working his elevators the pilot then caused the machine to rise. In the meantime other experimenters had been at work in Europe, notably the Farman Brothers, the Voisin Brothers and L. Bleriot in Fiance, and A. V. Roe in England. Originally the Voisin Brothers in France built pusher biplanes with biplane tails and a small front ele vator, and it was on machines of this type that Henry Farman made his early flights, before he himself became a designer and constructor. These Voisin biplanes had no lateral control, but had, instead, vertical surfaces between the wings which acted as fin area and caused the machine to right itself as soon as it began to sideslip. When Henry Farman began to design his own aeroplanes, he discarded these vertical surfaces and introduced hinged flaps on the trailing edge ; in other words, the ailerons we know to-day, although in the earliest machines the ailerons on opposite sides were not interconnected, so that when the machine was standing still the ailerons hung down vertically, and did not assume their position in continua tion of the trailing edge until the machine had gathered considerable headway. Louis Bleriot, almost from the very beginning, pinned his faith in the monoplane tractor type of machine, and he used wing warping for lateral control. The Bleriot monoplanes were considered very pretty machines in the early days, and it was on one of these, the type XI, that in 1909 Bleriot flew across the English Channel, incident ally damaging his undercarriage as he landed near Dover. Some pioneers : on the left is an early portrait of Mr. T. O. M. Sopwith who, after piloting Howard Wright and Bleriot machines, established himself as a constructor and produced a series of famous aeroplanes. The central group includes, from left to right, Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright, Horace Short, and Griffith Brewer. On the right is Mr. G. H. Hartdasyde. (Flight photographs.)
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