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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0929.PDF
85 FLIGH1 17 July 1953 "V" of No. 85 Squadron—a late-production S.E.SA with Wolseley Viper engine and strengthened undercarriage. THE S.E.5 Historic Military Aircraft : No. 5 By J. M. BRUCE, M.A. THE S.E.5 was by far the most successful of all the aeroplanes designed at the Royal Aircraft Factory. Its name, and those of the Bristol Fighter and Sopwith Camel, probably symbolize the first war in the air to more people than any other group of contemporary machines. In the hands of such pilots as Mannock, Bishop, Ball, McCudden, McElroy and Rhys-Davids, the S.E. proved itself to be one of the most effective single-seat fighters ever built. The S.E.i was not a true ancestor of the S.E.5 but deserves a place in history as the first machine to be designed and built at His Majesty's Balloon Factory, Farnborough. No official encouragement to design and construct aeroplanes was given to the staff of the factory up to the end of 1910, despite their keen desire to do so, but in December of that year an opportunity presented itself in the shape of a Bleriot monoplane which had been sent to Farnborough from Lark Hill for repair. This machine had a 60 h.p. E.N.V. engine, and was regarded as so dangerous to fly that it had earned the nickname of The Maukiller. When authority for the repair of the Bleriot was sought from the Master General of Ordnance it was requested that the authorization should cover reconstruction. This authorization was granted in January, 1911, and reconstruction began under the general direction of Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman : the design work was carried out by F. M. Green and Geoffrey de Havilland. The aeroplane which emerged bore no resemblance to the original Bleriot; indeed, the only feature common to both machines was the E.N.V. engine. The product of the reconstruction was a remarkable canard biplane, which was designated the Santos Experimental No. 1, after Santos Dumont, who was regarded as having originated the tail-first arrangement with his I4bis : the Wright brothers were apparently unrecognized. The S.E.i was the only Santos Experimental to be built. It crashed on August 18th, 1911, killing Lt. Theodore J. Ridge, then assistant superintendent of the factory. The true progenitor of the later S.E. line was a tractor biplane of remarkably clean lines, known as the B.S.i, or Bleriot Scout. This designation, like that of B.E., signified that the aeroplane was of tractor layout, the origination of which was attributed to Louis Bleriot. The B.S.i was mainly designed by Geoffrey de Havilland, and was flying early in 1913. It was the first aeroplane in the world to be built to what later came to be known as the single-seat scout formula. The B.S.i was first designed to have the 140 h.p. 14-cylinder two-row Gnome rotary, but the 100 h.p. Gnome of similar configuration was actually fitted. The tail unit was similar to that of the B.E.3, but the rudder proved to be too small to balance the side area of the deep forward fuselage : there was no fin. The bad directional control led Geoffrey de Havilland to design a new rudder, but he continued to fly the B.S.i with its original rudder while the new one was being made. The S.E.1 (upper picture') and the B.S.I. THIS, J. M. Bruce's fifth contribution in his series dealing with famous military aircraft of earlier days, describes the ancestry, development and achievements of one of the greatest fighting aircraft of all time—the Farnborough-designed S.E.5. Former articles in the series appeared on October 17th last (D.H.4), November 7th (Bristol Fighter), December t2th (F.E.2) and February 27th (Handley Page 0 100 and 0/400). This proved to be the machine's undoing, for it crashed in March 1913, just after having been timed at a mean velocity of 91.4 m.p.h. over a measured course with Lt. de Havilland (as Sir Geoffrey then was) at die controls. The B.S.i was rebuilt and re-designated B.S.2, in which form the machine had a considerably larger rudder of higher aspect ratio, with a small area of fixed fin above and below the fuselage, whilst a divided elevator replaced the one-piece surface of the B.S.i. The B.S.2 was powered by an 80 h.p. Gnome nine- cylinder rotary engine. Before long the designation B.S.2 was dropped in favour of S.E.2, but now the initials S.E. signified "Scout Experimental," and had no connection with the S.E. 1 apart from the preservation of the numerical sequence. The design was further revised, and reappeared as the S.E.2A, still with the 80 h.p. Gnome, but with 1A1 SMSPK 71,1 ri . •••
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