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Aviation History
1915
1915 - 0636.PDF
1/jtGHT trusty little mount would loop with so heavy a pilot. Although not strapped in, and with special prepara tions entirely absent, having had no thought of looping when starting on his flight, Hall shoved her nose down and pulled the stick, and lo ! a beautiful loop which, coming unexpectedly as it did, gave everybody quite a start. Everything went well, and what was, if I am not mistaken, the first loop by a civilian pilot in public, since the outbreak of war, was accomplished. Ever since acquiring his fleet of Caudrons, Beatty has had a great leaning towards these 'buses, and only the difficulty of changing over to the standard control from the peculiar Wright control, which, once mastered, is, no doubt, highly satisfactory, but which must, I should think, be extremely difficult to unlearn, has prevented him from enjoying the comforts of the closed-in Caudron nacelle. About a week ago, however, Beatty made up his mind to forget temporarily the two sticks which he has manipulated so long and so successfully, and to begin over again by familiarising himself with the central lever. With Beatty there is never far between the making of a resolution and putting it into effect. He was at it, therefore, imme diately in his typically determined way, and is, I hear, alnady flying the Caudron as well as the next man. Knowing Beatty as I do, it would not surprise me in the least to see him presently sitting neck and neck with some of the older hands in their own particular field of handling the Caudron. XXX With the alertness for sensing the ever-occurring changes in requirements, that is so characteristically American, and with their up-to-date methods of manu facture, that are typical of the Curtiss Aeroplane Company, and which enable them to meet these requirements, this firm have lately produced a machine which will be known as Model R, designed with a view to combine good speed and climb with weight-carrying AUGUST 27, 1915. capacity. This Curtiss military tractor is in its present form built as a three seater, the observers being placed approximately over the e.g., while the pilot sits well back in a separate cockpit slightly to the rear of the planes. The engine—a 160 h p. Curtiss—drives a three-bladed propeller, which, as in other types of Curtiss machines, is of comparatively small diameter, allowing a very low chassis to be employed. Judging from reports of the preliminary flights that took place at the firm's flying ground at Buffalo, N.Y., the new machine promises exceedingly well. In the first trip the pilot, Raymond V. Morris, accompanied by two passengers, Lieut. Mcllvain of the Marine Corps and C. W. Webster of the Curtiss Aeroplane Co., climbed to a height of 8,200 feet in 27 minutes, which besides constituting an American altitude record, sounds pretty satisfactory. Later in the day Morris was up again, this time accompanied by three passengers, and established another American record by reaching a height of 8,300 ft. Had it not been for the fact that the barograph took it into its head to cease barographing at this point, a considerably greater height would have been achieved. Experts who witnessed the flight, the official observer, who was one of the passengers, and the pilot all agreed, I understand, that the machine would have been good for another 4,000 ft. at least. When a new barograph, registering up to 25,000 ft., is ready, Morris and a passenger are to have a try at beating one or two world's records, not only the one of 6,170 metres, established by Lieut. Bier at Aspern in June, 1914, but also Oelerich's record of 8,150 metres for pilot alone, which he made at Lindenthal, Leipzig, in July, 1914. And, knowing how well the smaller Curtiss machines have climbed over here with Sydney Pickles at the helm, I shall not be in the least surprised either to see Morris getting ahead of the German record. "VEOLUS." » ® ® ® A 100 h p. Vickers gun 'bus, reproduced from a photo, taken somewhere on earth by a reader of "FLIGHT." 636
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