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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0875.PDF
2 April 1954 395 B.E.2B. Prototype of the B.E.2C. Production type, Renault-engined B.E.2C. 8f 2C with R.A.F. 1a engine, vee undercarriage and camouflage. time it carried, somewhat optimistically, a rifle firing in cendiary bullets for anti-Zeppelin work, and made several bombing raids, notably on Ostend and Zeebrugge. When Samson's squadron went to the Dardanelles No. 50 was among their equipment, and played her pan nobly. She was still with the squadron when it was designated No. 3 Wing, R.N.A.S., and as late as September 18th, 1915, she took a 1001b bomb to Berghaz Liman, where the missile suitably discomforted enemy shipping. Of No. 50, Samson wrote (in his Fights and Flights) "She went right through the Dar danelles Campaign, doing a lot of useful work, though at the last I must say I only flew her occasionally simply for old acquaintance' sake." No. 3 Wing returned to England in January 1916, but by then No. 50 was considered to be unfit to travel, and she was broken up. From the historical standpoint, the early B.E. design has no greater claim to fame than the fact that it was the type on which the first flying V.C. was won. The award was made posthumously to 2nd Lt. W. B. Rhodes-Moorhouse of No. 2 Squadron, R.F.C., for his great gallantry in bombing Courtrai railway station on April 26th, 1915. He came down to 300 ft to drop his 100 lb bomb, and was mortally wounded imme diately afterwards. Despite other wounds sustained on his homeward journey, Rhodes-Moorhouse flew his B.E. back to his squadron's aerodrome at Merville, although there were others at which he could have landed sooner. He died from his wounds the next day. Much early experimental work was carried out with B.E.2As. Experiments with oleo undercarriages had begun as early as 1911, and various forms were fitted to B.Es. One was similar to that used on the F.E.2B and R.E.7: the B.E.2A which had this undercarriage also had a modified tail unit incorporating a fixed fin and strut-braced tailplane. Other oleo undercarriages had varying forms of the standard twin- skid layout, and one of the B.E.2As so fitted had modified interplane struts. One of the early B.E.s was used in experi ments with all-metal airscrews in the spring of 1914. Alu minium and steel were the metals used to make the airscrews, and the preference of the time was for the latter metal. Of interest ako was the B.E.2A which had two substantial fin surfaces above die centre-section; a somewhat similar arrange ment was also fitted to an R.E.I. This B.E.2A, too, had a modified tailplane braced from a central kingpost, and a very large windscreen was fitted in front of die pilot's cockpit. The machine was probably used in the stability experiments men tioned later in this history. The basic design continued to be improved in detail, and in 1914 the B.E.2B appeared. This machine had a revised fuselage with deeper coamings around the cockpits: indeed, this fuselage form was retained in the B.E.2C. The disposi tion of the elevator controls was also modified, and the cables were wholly external from a point just aft of the pilot's seat to the control horns on the elevators. In its ultimate form the B.E.2B was fitted with ailerons in place of the warping-wing control which had been used on all preceding B.E.s. There can be little doubt that at least some B.E.2Bs were produced by rebuilding B.E.2As. On June 10th, 1912, a young Cambridge graduate named Edward Teshmaker Busk took up an appointment as assistant engineer physicist at the Royal Aircraft Factory. He had been trained as an engineer, but was keenly interested in fly ing, and had begun to fly on Valkyrie monoplanes at die Aero nautical Syndicate Ltd.'s school at Hendon in February 1912. After his appointment to Farnborough, he continued his fly ing under the guidance of Geoffrey de Havilland until he was able to fly well enough to carry out the many experiments he made in studying the problem of stability—a flying quality which at that time was considered to be highly desirable. Busk began his experiments with the B.E.2A, and flew it up to and beyond the limits of its controllability at a time when practically nothing was known about the behaviour of aero planes after loss of control. By June 1914, after months of patient work, he developed the B.E. design into a completely inherently stable aeroplane: this was B.E.2C. The first machine had the fuselage of a B.E.2B but with non-standard arrangement of the control leads to the tail surfaces. The engine was the usual 70 h.p. Renault, mounted with its sump uncowled in die manner of all early B.E.s, and with long exhaust pipes running along the underside of die fuselage.
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