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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0505.PDF
507FLIGHT, 19 April1957 These Triplanes were fitted with the smaller tailplane. They belonged to No. 1 Squadron, R.N.A.S., at Bailleul, and were photographed about June 1917. Note that there are no roundels on the fuselage, and that the squadron marking is carried just forward of each serial number. THE SOPWITH TRIPLANE HISTORIC MILITARY AIRCRAFT No. 16 IT is an arresting fact that the first aerodynamic experimentsever conducted were those of Sir George Cayley, carried outin the year before the Battle of Trafalgar. In 1792 Cayley had made a toy helicopter of feathers, cork and wood, but by 1804he was experimenting with a crude home-made whirling arm on which he measured the air pressure on a surface at varying speedsand angles of incidence. Cayley continued his experiments, in the course of which heestablished a number of fundamental aerodynamic principles and gave intelligent consideration to the construction of apractical heavier-than-air flying machine. Some of Cayley's notes indicate that he appreciated the different characteristics ofhigh and low aspect ratio wings, but he realized that the materials available to him 150 years ago were not suitable for the con-struction of wings of high aspect ratio. For structural reasons, therefore, he was of the opinion that flying machines with super-posed surfaces in biplane and triplane configurations were likely to be successful; and he was the first to propose the constructionof multiplanes. Until his death on December 15, 1857, Cayley maintained hislively interest in aeronautics and continued his experiments. He built and flew successful gliders, and richly deserved the titlebestowed upon him by a contemporary pioneer, Henson: "The Father of Aerial Navigation." William Samuel Henson (1805-1888) was an engineer whoseambition it was to solve the problem of mechanical flight. While living at Chard in Somerset he became acquainted with JohnStringfellow (1799-1883), a manufacturer of lace-making machinery, who became deeply interested in Henson's experi-ments and associated himself with them. The two men planned to build a flying machine, Henson to design the airframe, String-fellow the power unit, which he conceived as a small, light steam engine. The detailed history of Henson's patent No. 9478 of 1842and the formation in 1843 of the Aerial Steam Transit Company are not relevant here, but, criticizing Henson's projected mono-plane of 150ft span, Sir George Cayley wrote in The Mechanics' Magazine for April 8, 1843 : "This consideration shows, that in order to obtain a sufficient quantityof surface to sustain great weights in the air, the extension [of the sustaining surface] ought not to be made in one plane but in parallelplanes one above the other at a convenient distance . . . would it not be more likely to answer the purpose to compact it into the form of athree decker, each deck being 8 to 10 feet from the other, to give free room for the passage of air between them?" PART 1 By J. M. BRUCE, M.A. THE author acknowledges with gratitude the assistance he has receivedfrom Mr. A. R. Weyl, A.F.R.Ae.S., A.F.I.A.S., F.B.I.S., who lent material from his collection; from Mr. Bruce Robertson, who againprovided the blocks of serial numbers and other information; and from Mr. H. H. Russell, who provided most notes on individual machines. It is believed that this is the earliest recorded reference to aheavier-than-air craft of triplane configuration. For lack of funds the Aerial Steam Transit Company cameto naught, and Henson and Stringfellow had to content them- selves with making a model of their vast project. Tested in1847, the model was not successful. Henson was discouraged at this conclusion to years of work and went to America. In Juneof the following year Stringfellow achieved success with a mono- plane of 10ft span, powered by a tiny steam engine, the cylinder ofwhich had a bore of Jin and a stroke of 2in. The aircraft had a climbing angle of 1 in 7, and flew for some 40 yards before wit-nesses at Cremorne Gardens, London. There can be no doubt that, had a suitable power unit been available to Stringfellow, hewould have ante-dated the Wright brothers' success by decades. His monoplane was the world's first successful heavier-than-airflying machine. In 1849 Stringfellow went to America, and the engine of hismonoplane found prosaic employment driving a small lace machine in the works of Heathcote and Co. of Tiverton. Eight and a half years after Cayley's death, the AeronauticalSociety of Great Britain was formed. At its first meeting, on June 27, 1866, members heard a treatise on Aerial Locomotionread by Francis Herbert Wenham. At that time they could not know that Wenham's paper was to become a classic or that itembodied almost every principle on which the aviation of half a century later was to be based. Wenham was an engineer who had made a close study of theflight of birds. At that early date he had already determined one of the fundamental characteristics of a fixed aerofoil, for his paper". . . proved that the effective sustaining area of a wing is limited to a narrow portion behind the leading edge; that, in order to increasethis area, the planes of a flying machine might advantageously be placed one above another. . . ."* Sketches of Wenham's own interpretation of his principle depict a rudimentary form of glider with five superposed wings of high aspect ratio, but there is no record that he built an aircraft to this or any other design. It seems, therefore, that Wenham's advocacy *"The War in the Air," Vol. I, page 44. . • •-•
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