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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 1076.PDF
480 FLIGHT THE B.E.2 SERIES exhaust. This was a manifold of saxophone shape, the raked- back outlet being at the forward end. This form of exhaust was also used on some Armstrong Whitworth F.K.3s and D.H.6s. More B.E.2Es were built than any other type of the B.E.2 series: current contracts were amended so that machines ordered as B.E.2Cs or 2Ds emerged as 2Es. But in action the B.E.2E was no more successful than the earlier variants had been. The observer still occupied the front seat, and no effective form of defensive armament had been devised. Furthermore, the machine was not popular with its pilots, for it had a reputation for structural weakness. Rumours that any strenuous manoeuvring would cause the extensions to collapse undermined crews' confidence, and performance was no better than that of the B.E.2C. If anything, therefore, the B.E.2E was even more helpless in combat than its predecessors had been. The first B.E.2E in France was probably the one which was on the strength of No. 21 Sqn. on July 1st, 1916; and the first squadron to go to France completely equipped with the type was No. 34, which arrived at its aerodrome at Allonville on July 15th, 1916. The B.E.2E was used on Home Defence duties, and in Palestine, Mesopotamia, Macedonia, and India, but without distinction. In France it outlived the B.E.2C and 2D and, at the beginning of the Battle of Ypres (July 31st, 1917) was still in service with squadrons No. 8, 12 and 100, and with the Special Duty Flight of the Ninth (H.Q.) Wing. The Americans bought twelve B.E.2Es for use as trainers in England, and some were among the 251 assorted aeroplanes supplied to Russia in 1916 and 1917. The B.E.2C, 2D and 2E were all normally powered by the 90 h.p. R.A.F.la engine, but several other types of engine were fitted at various times. Some B.Es had the 105 h.p. R.A.F.lb, a development of the R.A.F.la which had cylinders of slightly larger bore: a few machines had the R.A.F.ld, which had alu minium cylinders with deep fins and overhead inlet and exhaust valves. Some 17 B.E.2Cs had the 90 h.p. Curtiss OX-5 engine; at least three B.E.2s had the 75 h.p. Rolls-Royce Hawk; and some installations of the 150 h.p. Hispano-Suiza were made. The first official installation of a Hispano-Suiza was carried out at Farnborough, the airframe being that of B.E.2C No. 2599, but it is believed that an earlier and unofficial installation in a B.E.2C was made in France, in the workshops at St. Omer early in 1916. Done at the suggestion of Maj. A. Huggins, who was B.E.9 •'Pulpit." B.E.12 prototype. at that time the CO. of No. 1 Aircraft Depot at St. Omer, this was probably a "home-made" attempt to improve the B.E.'s poor performance. The Belgian Flying Corps also modified a number of its B.E.2Cs to take the 150 h.p. Hispano-Suiza engine and, while they were about it, transposed the pilot's and observer's seats, thus giving the latter a better field of fire. The officer chiefly responsible for the execution of these modifications to the Belgian B.Es was Armand Gilbert, a member of the 6th Belgian Squadron, which unit was equipped with B.E.2Cs. But even the additional power of the Hispano produced no worthwhile improvement in the B.E.'s performance, for the service ceiling was no better than 11,000ft. Glibert fell a victim to trie machine's shortcomings: on April 8th, 1917, he and his observer, Lt. Callant, were returning in a Hispano-B.E. from a reconnais sance of Bruges when they were shot down and killed. At home, a few B.E.2Es were also fitted with Hispano-Suiza engines. In response to demands from the squadrons in France, a few B.E.2Cs were equipped with armour plate around the engine and cockpits, and it is believed that No. 15 Sqn. had some of these machines at one time. No doubt they provided some data for (and may to some extent have inspired) the layout of the A.E.2, an armoured tractor biplane designed at Farnborough in 1917. Many developments were made from the basic design, by far the most remarkable being the B.E.9 of 1915. This weird machine was constructed by drastically modifying the Bristol-built B.E.2C airframe No. 1700, and represented a misguidedly determined attempt to provide forward-firing armament on a tractor machine. This was, of course, before the advent of interrupter gears. The engine was moved back under the centre section, and a nacelle for the observer/gunner was suspended on the forward end of the airscrew shaft: bracing struts supported the nacelle from the undercarriage. (It is of considerable interest to recall that an identical layout was adopted in the French SPAD types A.2, A.4, A.5 and D of 1915. The first two proto types crashed ignominiously and fatally at Avord, but some pro duction was undertaken, for at least one example—probably an A.4—was used by the Russians. Nor did Farnborough abandon the basic conception, for the projected F.E.10 single-seat fighter was designed to have the pilot's cockpit mounted in front of the airscrew.) The B.E.9 was usually referred to as the "Pulpit B.E.2C," and underwent service trials in France with No. 16 Squadron in the autumn of 1916. Of it, one ex-R.F.C. officer wrote:— ". . . Major Brooke-Popham . . . lives in my memory because he went up in a horrible contraption called the Pulpit B.E.2C, and refused to condemn it. In response to a growing complaint from B.E. pilots and observers that they were being shot down wholesale, and could do little to defend themselves owing to the cock-eyed position of the observer, some genius built a seat on to the front of the B.E., staying it from the undercarriage and wings. There the observer was supposed to sit, with his head a foot in front of the propeller. He had an excellent field of fire for his gun, and an excellent field of vision. Usually, too, he had an excellent attack of vertigo, from fright, every time the machine took off and landed."* Duncan Grinnell-Milne, who served in No. 16 Squadron for a time, wrote of the B.E.9 in similar/terms in his Wind in the Wires, and concluded: ". . . even in 1915, when almost every new machine was looked at with delighted wonder, it was recognized that in the B.E.9 unsuitability of design had reached its acme. The 'Pulpit' was soon returned to the depot." No B.E. 10s were actually built, but the type was designed as a development of the B.E.2C. It was to have been of part-metal construction, and was to have had full-span ailerons-cum-flaps similar to those of the S.E.4: the aerofoil section of the wings had a reflex trailing-edge. Four, numbered 1648 to 1651, were ordered from the British and Colonial Aeroplane Co. in 1914, and the steel tube construction of the fuselage earned the B.E.10 the nickname of "the gas-pipe aeroplane" at the Bristol works. The B.E.lOs were abandoned in favour of the B.E.2C after only a little work had been done towards their construction. Another Bristol-built B.E.2C, No. 1697, became the proto type B.E.12. This was an attempt to make the B.E. into a single-seat fighter, powered by the 140 h.p. R.A.F.4a vee- twelve engine, and was followed by the B.E.12A, which was a similar modification of the B.E.2E airfame. But their history is another story. B.E.s of various kinds were widely used for experimental purposes, but none was more usefully employed than the B.E.2C on which the first Constantinesco gun synchronizing gear was tested in August 1916. Some of the credit for this invaluable device is due to Major C. C. Colley of the Royal Field Artillery, who first suggested the application, in the form of a synchro nizing gear, of M. George Constantinesco's theory of wave trans mission; and to Major Bertram Hopkinson, who, on his own responsibility, gave Constantinesco an order for twelve gears, worth £600, and thereby provided the Rumanian inventor with * From "Flying and Soldiering," by R. R. Money.
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