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Aviation History
1935
1935 - 1189.PDF
MAY 23, 1935. FLIGHT. This Grahame-White ten-seater distinguished itself shortly before the war by carrying twenty-one people from Hendon to Brooklands and back, although the Green engine was of only too h.p. On the right is Mr. Robert Blackburn, one of the earliest British designer-constructors, who is still busy producing aircraft for civil and military use. (Flight photographs.) and ailerons, while steering was by rudders placed at the wing tips. The machine had a great degree of automatic stability, but was inefficient aerodynamically on account of the large number of struts and bracing wires used in its construction. In mentioning the early British aeroplanes, those pro duced by Martin and Handasyde should not be forgotten. Somewhat resembling the contemporary French Antoinette monoplanes, they were always beautiful pieces of work manship, and Mr. G. H. Handasyde remained for many years faithful to his monoplane ideal. Not until the war came did he admit the merits of the biplane, of which 'he then designed a considerable number, mostly very successful. Mr. Handasyde is still designing, his latest production being the B.A. " Swallow " described in Flight last week. As the interest in flying grew it was inevitable that the question of flying schools should arise. The earliest pilots taught themselves, obviously ; there was no one to teach them. But after a while a number of schools were estab lished and training began in real earnest. Among the first schools were those at Eastchurch (Isle of Sheppey), on Salisbury Plain, at Brooklands and at Hendon. The machines used for school work differed considerably, but most of the early instruction was done on pusher biplanes. Shorts at Eastchurch, Bristols and Vickers on Salisbury Plain and at Brooklands, and Grahame-White at Hendon, all used the pusher extensively for instruction work. Usually, after a certain amount of flying, the pupil would sit in front and the instructor above and behind him, from a position where, should the pupil make a serious mistake, he could reach the control stick, though not the rudder bar. On the whole there were few casualties during this early school work, probably mainly due to the very low speed of the machines used, which were mostly Henrv Farmans built under (and sometimes without!) licence. The production of the 50 h.p. Gnome rotary engine reallv took the early aeroplanes out of the under-powered class and enabled them to fly properly. In 1913 A. V. Roe and Co. produced the Avro 504, which was destined to become and remain the standard training type for the British Air Force for a very large number of years. The machine was a tractor biplane with 80 h.p. Gnome rotarv engine, two seats in tandem inside a covered-in fuselage, and a central-skid undercarriage designed to withstand the shocks of unskilled landings. When the machine made its first appearance it was, very rightly, hailed as a great step forward, and even to-day it does not look antiquated. As regards marine aircraft, reference lias been made to the early float seaplanes made by Short Brothers. Gradually the twin-float undercarriage arrangement was A typical incident in the life of a pioneer is shown on the left, where A. V. Roe is standing beside the wreck of one of his early machines. The figure in the centre shows " British Pilot's Certificate No. 1," Lt.-Col. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon, President of the Royal Aeronautical Society. On the right the Hon. C. S. Rolls by one of his early Wright aeroplanes. He was killed through his elevator breaking off. Flight photographs.)
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