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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0873.PDF
FLIGHT, 2 April 1954 393 PART 1 A "Flight" photograph of the B.E.1 in its original form, withSOh.p. Renault. THE B.E.2 SERIES Historic Military Aircraft No. 7 By J. M. BRUCE, M.A. Oh! they found a bit of iron what Some bloke had thrown away, And the Raf said, "This is just the thing We've sought for many a day." They built a weird machine, The strangest engine ever seen; They'd quite forgotten the thing was rotten, And they shoved it in a flying machine. THESE lines (in which "Raf" represents the Royal Air craft Factory) represent perhaps the most printable of the multitudinous aspersions cast upon the B.E.2C's ancestry by the long-suffering (and too often short-lived) pilots who were condemned to fly it and its near-relations on war service. Probably no other aeroplane of the Great War, Allied or enemy, earned so much vilification and obloquy as were heaped upon the hapless "Quirk." To trace the history of die B.E. series it is necessary to go back to April 1911, when a certain Voisin pusher biplane was sent to the Army Aircraft Factory for repair. This Voisin had a 60 h.p. water-cooled Wolseley vee-eight engine, and had been presented to the War Office by the Duke of Westminster. It has already been related (Flight, July 17th, 1953) how the S.E.I was built by "reconstructing" a Bleriot monoplane late in 1910, and the same subterfuge was again resorted to by the staff of the Factory in order to build a two-seat tractor biplane to the designs of F. M. Green and Geoffrey de Havilland. The only component which was common to both the Voisin and the reconstructed machine was the Wolseley engine, but even that was soon replaced by a 60 h.p. air-cooled Renault. Since the new aeroplane was of tractor layout, it was given the official designation of Bleriot Experimental, after Louis Bleriot, who was regarded as a pioneer of the tractor con figuration. The B.E.1 in its original form had a large flat radiator mounted between the front centre-section struts, and the Wolseley engine had a rudimentary hooded cowling. No doubt considerations of weight, drag, and crew visi bility pointed to the desira bility of removing the radia tor, and may have been a deciding factor for the sub stitution of the Renault. With either engine, but especially THE chequered history of the B.E.2 series of "Factory-designed" aircraft is traced in this article, which we are publishing in two parts; the second will appear in an early issue. The author desires to record his indebtedness to Mr. D. Bruce Robertson, who contributed much of the information relating to serial numbers. Previous articles in Mr. Bruce's historic-aircraft series were: D.H.4 (October 17th, 1952), Bristol Fighter (November 7th, 1952), F.E.2 (December 12th, 1952), Handley Page 0/100 and 0/400 (February 27th, 1953), S.E.5 (July 17th, 1953), and Sopwith Pup (January 1st, 1954). Then they ordered simply thousands more, And they sent them out to fight. When the blokes who had to fly them swore, The Raf said, "They're all right; The 'bus is stable as can be; We invented every bit of it ourselves, you see!" They were so darn' slow, they wouldn't go, And they called them Raf 2Cs! from "Cinquante-Quatre." (sung to the tune of "Dixie-Land") with the Wolseley, the B.E.1 was remarkably quiet in the air compared with contemporary machines with rotary motors, and was known as "the silent aeroplane." In structural and aerodynamic design the B.E.1 was ad vanced for its day, and considerable attention had been paid to the reduction of drag. The lower wing was slightly shorter than the upper, and lateral control was by wing-warping. There was no fin, and the rudder was attached to an unbraced upright post. The B.E.1 had a long and useful career. In January 1912 it was used in some of the earliest experiments carried out with wireless equipment fitted to an aeroplane. With Geoffrey de Havilland as pilot and Capt. H. P. T. Lefroy, R.E., as ob server, the B.E.1 carried out the first successful wireless- controlled artillery shoot in history on Salisbury Plain. In May 1912 Capt. Lefroy fitted the B.E. with a generator which was driven from the engine by bicycle chain. Experiments with wireless were continued in 1913 and 1914: the aero planes which were used were descendants of the B.E.1. By the time of the wireless experiments the machine was on the strength of No. 2 Squadron of the newly-formed Royal Flying Corps, having been handed over to the Air Battalion in March 1912. It was flown by Capt. C. J. Burke, the first CO. of No. 2 Squadron, and was often used at Farnborough for experimental purposes. This first B.E. survived many crashes and several undercarriages before its final demise in January 1915, by which time it had, in the words of Sir Walter Raleigh, "become the revered grandfather of the whole brood of Factory aeroplanes." The basic design was re fined in detail, and early in 1912 the first B.E.2 appeared, powered by a 70 h.p. Renault engine. It is difficult to ')
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