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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1648.PDF
752 FLIGHT,16 Nov 1961 BIG DAY FOR THE BIRDMEN WHOEVER wins the Kremer Prize for the first manpoweredflight around a specified figure-of-eight course, the creditfor being the first to get off the ground unaided in a man- powered aircraft must go to the group of Southampton Universitygraduates led by Miss Anne Marsden, Alan Lassiere and David Williams. Their aircraft, illustrated on this page, has been under-going tests at Lasham Airfield for the past two months, and on Thursday of last week, November 9, 1961, with Derek Piggott atthe controls, the machine succeeded in taking off, making a flight of 5O-7Oyd, and attaining a height above the runway of about 5ft.This flight was made with no tow or external assistance of any kind, and no power other than the cycling action of the pilot. Most of the members of the Southampton group are post-graduate research students in the University's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Design work began in July I960,construction was started in December 1960, and construction was completed in September 1961. The aircraft was built in the SirGeorge Edwards Structures and Vibrations Laboratory at the university, and assistance was received from the AeronauticsDepartment. The project enjoyed the approval of the Head of the Department, Prof E. J. Richards—but not his conviction that theobjective was possible. As reported at the time, the group was one of two to receive a Royal Aeronautical Society grant (amounting to£1,500) in March of this year. At Lasham the group has had the assistance of Lasham GlidingCentre, and in particular the services as test pilot of the centre's chief flying instructor, Derek Piggott. It appears from Piggott'sinitial experience with the aircraft that, at this stage of the game, piloting skill and experience is of greater importance than athleticor muscular prowess. Piggott has stated that flying the machine is probably outside theability of the average pilot. Most of the difficulty in fact arises on the ground, and a number of ground loops have been experiencedfollowing violent swings which the pilot was unable to control. Landing the aircraft was described by Piggott as "quite a handful." The Southampton group's designated pilot for their attempts onthe Kremsr Prize is Martin Hyman, an Olympic runner, who at present is learning to glide at Lasham. Last week's performance by Above, Derek Piggott balances the aircraft by means of its ailerons in a wind of 3-5kt prior to flight. Above left, close-up of aircraft showing the pylon on which the 8ft diameter propeller is mounted Derek Piggott might indicate that the best chance of success maywell be to train a good pilot to be athletic rather than an athlete to fly. From the outset, the 80ft span aircraft was designed to standardglider techniques, and to comparable load factors, although its weight (1301b) is very much less than that of any normal—andmuch smaller—sailplane. The basic structure is of laminated spruce, the fuselage being a built-up box and the wings having two mainspars. Balsa is extensively used in the secondary structure, and the skin is nylon. Leading edges are skinned in balsa, and the lowflight speed and R (0.7 >' 10e) minimizes the effect of waviness and roughness and makes a laminar wing practicable. Using ProfRichard's china-clay method, a two-dimensional model has achieved laminar flow up to 60 per cent chord. As a photograph shows, the nose fairing is detachable. Behind itis the "bicycle" and propeller pylon, which are fabricated in light- alloy tubing (argon-arc welding was excellently done by Moor GreenIndustries). During early taxying trials the front part of the frame deflected under load, and the present design is fabricated in light-alloy sheet built up into a box structure. Trouble was also ex- perienced with the nosewheel; the original 14in pneumatic-tyredwheel was initially replaced by a tiny 3in wheel on a castoring mounting, and the final pattern is a light-alloy sheet unit in acastoring levered suspension. A second aircraft which has been designed and built with an eyeon the Kremer Prize is likely to be unveiled in the near future. This is the product of the Hatfield Manpowered Aircraft Club, who haveto date declined to disclose any details of their design. It is believed to have a span similar to the Southampton aircraft, but to weighappreciably less—a factor which would doubtless assist while the craft was airborne but could lead to severe problems in gusts, or onthe ground and while landing. On Thursday, November 9, Derek Piggott became airborne on three test runs at Lasham. On the first (above) he made three hops, to a maximum height of about 3ft; on the second he made another short hop; and on the third he achieved an estimated height of 5ft and distance of 50-70yd (pilot's estimates). Below, the beginning of an earlier run along the Lasham runway
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