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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 0123.PDF
JANUARY 15TH, 1942 FLIGHT 4<J An unusual example of a three-engined arrangement : the Blohm and Voss Ha. 138. that of putting them on the lower wing of a biplane, and this was the line of development followed by nearly all designers. When the twin-engined monoplane tame along it followed the same basic idea ; that, too, was natural, since the retractable undercarriages could be housed in * the engine nacelles. For really high performance, however, the placing of ^OBgines on the wings seemed to some designers a wrong approach to the subject of combining high power with low drag. They argued that two engines placed in tandem should offer less lesistance, since the frontal area was no greater than that of a single engine (this was in the days before "wetted area" had become a fashionable expres sion in aviation circles!). One of the earliest and most successful advocates of tandem engines was Dr. Claude Dornier, of Friedrichshafen, whose early flying boats of the Wal (whale) type had this arrangement. Still in connection with the saving of drag, two Italian variants of th • tandem engine scheme came along, The Meindl Wn 16 (right) is the old- time pusher with tail booms instead of the open girder, and with a modern three-wheeled undercarriage. The Fokker G.I (below) represents the class in which the tail is carried on two fuselages, while the crew occupies a central nacelle. In this case a rear gunner was carried. one designed for the Schneider International seaplane con test and the other for the world's seaplane speed record. The latter machine had its two engines coupled together and driving contra-rotating airscrews, but in the former the pilot sat between the two engines, and the tail was carried on two booms from the wing. In more recent times we have seen a number of aircraft types with two tail booms, but the choice has usually been dictated by reasons other than drag-reduction. Some of these types are illustrated to show the considerable variety possible within the general scheme. For small civil types of aircraft the only reason for carrying the tail on two booms from the wing is that the designer wishes to avoid the very high drag of the open tail girder of the earliest aircraft. This idea actually dates
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