CHAPTER V
AEROPLANE DEVELOPMENT, 1903 TO 1918
ADER’S EXPERIMENTS—MAXIM’S MULTIPLANE—DUMONT’S AEROPLANE—WRIGHTS’ 1908 PLANE—VOISIN PUSHER—BLERIOT’S MONOPLANE—AVRO TRIPLANE—FARMAN’S AILERONS—OTHER TYPES
Althoughthe Wright brothers made their first flight in a heavier-than-air machine in December, 1903, it was not until September 15, 1904, that Orville Wright, flying the Wright biplane, succeeded in making the first turn, September 25 before they made the first circle, and October 4, 1905, before they managed to stay in the air for over half an hour. Moreover, it was not until 1908 that they made their first public flights.
Long before the Wrights first flew at Kitty Hawk military men realized the value of observation from the air, and balloons attached to cables had been used for that purpose in the Franco-Prussian and Boer wars for discovering the movement and disposition of troops. Clement Ader, however, was the first to succeed in securing an appropriation for the construction of a heavier-than-air machine which was to fly in any direction like a bird. In 1890 he induced the French Government to appropriate $100,000 for the construction of such an engine. After many experiments hismachine failed to get off the ground, and in 1897, after seven years of hard work, the French Government refused to appropriate any more money.
In 1905, however, as soon as the same government heard of the sustained manœuvred flight of 33 minutes, 17 seconds, done by the Wrights, they negotiated for the acquisition of the machine, provided it could attain a height of 3,000 feet. But at that time the Wrights had not flown over three hundred feet, nor risen above one hundred feet, and could not promise to fill the French requirements.
The British Government had also given Sir Hiram Maxim an appropriation for constructing a flying-machine about the same time that the French Government was financing Ader. Maxim built one of the multiplane type, measuring 120 feet, equipped with two steam-engines of 170 horse-power and weighing 7,000 pounds, but like Ader’s experiment it never got off the ground.
We have already noted the appropriations made by the United States Government to Samuel P. Langley for his aerodrome. It was the United States Government, upon the recommendation of President Theodore Roosevelt, which first ordered a military aeroplane in December, 1907, giving definite specifications for the same. The machine was required to carry two persons weighing 350 pounds and fuel enough for a 125-mile flight, with a speed of at least 40 miles per hour.
The Wrights were the only persons to submit bids and they delivered a machine which Orville Wrightflew at Fort Myer in September, 1908, making a new record of one hour, fourteen minutes, twenty seconds. An accident prevented the fulfilling of the two-passenger-carrying requirement. In August, 1909, however, the Wright biplane, with a wing spread of 40 feet and equipped with a 25 horse-power engine, flew one hour and twenty-three minutes with Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm as a passenger.
The success of the Wrights naturally stimulated the French, Alberto Santos-Dumont, the Brazilian, who had experimented successfully with lighter-than-air craft, first circling the Eiffel Tower, while Louis Bleriot, the Voisin brothers, Captain Louis Ferber, Henry Farman, Leon brothers, Delagrange, and others began to experiment with aeroplanes.
In 1906 Santos-Dumont flew 700 feet in an aeroplane in one sustained flight and in 1908 the Wrights visited France and gave public demonstration flights at Pau and other places. Their machine was a biplane driven by a small four-cylinder water-cooled engine and two large propellers. These were both actuated by chains gearing on the engine-shaft, one chain being crossed so as to make its propeller revolve in the direction opposite to the other, thus giving proper balance to the driving force. Alongside the engine and slightly in front of it was the pilot’s seat, and there was also a seat for a passenger in between, exactly in the centre, so that the added weight would not alter the balance.
Unlike present-day aeroplanes, this machine had no horizontal tail behind the main planes, and so it wascalled the “tail-first” type, or “Canard” or “duck,” owing to its long projection forward which resembled the neck of that bird. This type did not steer easily and was abandoned.
The 1908 Wright Plane
The Wright machine had vertical rudders aft, and relied on the two big elevator planes forward for its up and down steering. Its lateral, or rolling, movements were controlled by warping or twisting the wings so that while the angle of the wings on one side was increased and gave more lift, the angle on the other side decreased and gave less lift, thus enabling the pilot to right the machine. The elevators were controlled by means of a lever on the left-hand side of the pilot, the warp by a lever on his right, while by waggling the jointed top of the right-hand lever he also controlled the rudder. This complicated system of control was very difficult to master.
In 1910 the Wrights attached a horizontal tail at right angles to their rudder, and in 1911 they dropped the front elevators entirely. When the United States entered the war, Orville Wright, as engineer for the Dayton-Wright Company, supervised the building of the famous DH4’s, making several thousands of them for shipment to France.
Unlike many machines that followed, the Wright 1908 was launched from a carriage which ran on a rail until the planes were lifted into the air, leaving the carriage on the ground. This same principle was usedfor launching planes from battleships, although it is now abandoned.
Meanwhile Charles and Gabriel Voisin had successfully developed their machine. On March 21, 1909, Mr. Farman flew a little over a mile at Issy, near Paris, successfully turning, and on May 30 Leon Delagrange covered eight miles at Rome, and finally on September 21 he flew forty-one miles without stopping at Issy.
This Voisin biplane differed from the Wrights’ in that it followed the box-kite principle. It had a box-kite tail to which the rudders were mounted, while the wings had vertical partitions and the plane had no lateral controls, with the result that it could not fly in any kind of a wind without coming to grief. The first machine had a 50 horse-power Antoinette engine and the latter ones a 40 horse-power Vivinus—an ordinary automobile engine, heavy but reliable.
In 1909 the famous Gnome rotary engine appeared. It had 11 cylinders set like the spokes of a wheel; one was fitted to a Voisin biplane by M. Louis Paulhan. There were several innovations on this machine. The under-carriage and tail-booms and much of the understructure was made of steel tubing. Its greatest contribution to the modern aeroplane was the steering-wheel. This was operated by a rod or joy stick, which ran from the front elevator to a wheel in front of the pilot which was pushed forward to force the nose of the machine down, and pulled back to force it up. This made steering much easier. The rudders wereworked by wires leading to a pivoted bar on which the pilot’s feet rested. Pushing the right foot steered to the right, pushing the left foot steered to the left—which was also a very natural motion. This method of construction has been maintained to this day on all machines. The Voisin was the first “pusher” type of machine with single propeller in the rear of the engine and the plane. The Voisin was always heavy, but in 1915 it was built in large numbers for bombing purposes because the forward nacelle or nest which held the observer and gunner afforded such an unobstructed range of vision for the observer.
To M. Louis Bleriot goes the honor of first constructing monoplanes and of putting the engine in the nose of the machine with a tractor screw in front of it. He also first designed the fish-shaped, or stream-line, body, with the tail and elevator planes horizontally and the vertical rudder fixed at the rear end of the fuselage. This was the first successful tractor aeroplane with the propeller in front.
In 1909 M. Bleriot came to the fore with his type X1 machine, the prototype of all successful monoplanes. In this he incorporated the Wright idea of warping the wings to give lateral control, and so produced the first monoplane to be controllable in all directions. With this type of machine, equipped with a 28 horse-power three-cylinder Anzani air-cooled engine, M. Bleriot himself flew over the Channel on July 25, 1909. His type X1 model, with a few structural details, was the first to loop the loop regularly in 1912. After 1909,when fitted with Gnome or Le Rhone rotary engines, the performance of the machine was greatly improved. Since the Bleriot under-carriage, excellent for its purpose, could not be made so as to be pushed rapidly through the air, it was abandoned.
M. Bleriot introduced the stick form of control, so that by moving the control stick forward or backward the nose of the machine moved down or up. Pushing the stick to the right forced the right wing down, moving it to the left pushed the left wing down. The rudder was worked by the feet as in the Voisin. Thus a natural movement was given to all the controls and a great step forward was made.
The 1909 and 1910 Avro
Meanwhile in England Aylwin Verdon Roe was experimenting under strictly limited conditions. In 1908 he had got off the ground in a Canard-type biplane, and in the fall of that year he built a tractor biplane, and in the summer of the next year he had it completed. His engine was a 9 horse-power J. A. P. motorcycle engine, the lowest power which has ever flown an aeroplane. It was also the first successful triplane.
In general lines and plan the machine is the prototype of the modern tractor biplanes and triplanes; it had warping wings, tail elevators, and a rudder astern, while the control was by rudder and stick, similar to the Bleriot.
This little machine was further developed in 1909 and 1910. Later Mr. Roe abandoned the triplane forthe biplane, which he fitted with a Green engine of the vertical-cylinder type, which was the first of its kind installed in an aeroplane. Thereafter the triplane practically disappeared till it was revived by Glenn Curtiss, as well as British, French, and German designers during the war.
They are great climbers and attain great speed in flying. The small 1910 Avro, equipped with a V water-cooled engine, was the forerunner of the single-seated fighters of the last days of the war.
Because of its fast-climbing ability the 80 horse-power Avro and the Sopwith Snipe were used for the defense of such cities as London and Paris against Zeps and aeroplanes. The large two-seater Avro, with only an 80 horse-power Gnome, flew over 80 miles an hour. As a war-machine early in the conflict it did excellent work bombing. Later, with slightly higher power, it was a very good training-machine. Among two-seated biplanes it marked as great an advance as did the Sopwith Tabloid. Among single-seaters, for the reason that it had been carefully lightened without loss of strength and all details for stream-line had been observed, the same is true.
The Farman Brothers’ Plane
While M. Bleriot was developing his monoplanes, Henry Farman left the Voisin brothers and began experimenting on his own account. The result of his experiments was first seen at the Great Rheims meeting when his Gnome-engine biplane appeared, and onNovember 9, 1909, he made a new world record of 145 miles in four hours, eighteen minutes, forty-five seconds! Like the Wrights’, his machine had a front elevator stuck out forward, but the vertical partitions had disappeared from the wings, though retained in the tail. The whole machine was built of wood, so that it was very much lighter than the Voisin. Its most remarkable step forward, however, was the use of balancing flappers, usually called ailerons, fitted into the rear edge of each wing. These ailerons were pulled down on one side to give that side extra lift when the machine tilted down on that side. Thus the ailerons had the same effect as warping the wings, and as it then became unnecessary to twist the wing itself, it became possible to build the whole wing structure as a fixed box-girder structure of wood and wire. This was lighter and stronger than was safe with a warping wing. For this reason aileron control is used on all aeroplanes of to-day.
The Farman biplane was fitted with the stick control used by M. Bleriot, the stick working wires fore and aft for the elevator and lateral for the ailerons. A rudder-bar for the feet operated the rudder wires. This was the beginning of the present-day idea of the pusher biplane.
In 1911 Farman abandoned the front elevator and used only the elevator control that was used by monoplanes, and he put the pilot and observer out in front of the machine so that the range of vision was entirely uninterrupted. Later this was covered and called anacelle or nest by the French. Here the machine-gun was mounted in the days of the World War.
In 1912 Maurice Farman, a brother of Henry, built a machine independent of his brother. He constructed a deep nacelle, giving greater comfort to the pilot. It had a forward rudder, and because long horns supported the rudder, it was called the mechanical cow. When this front elevator was abolished later, it was known as the “Shorthorn.” This was the prototype of the “gun busses” and early war training-machines in England.
In 1913 Henry Farman’s pusher design began to take on its ultimate form. The whole machine was more compact. The nacelle sheltered the pilot better, and the machine did not look as detached from tail and elevator as formerly. The general effect was more workmanlike and less flattened out. This type was ultimately combined with the “Shorthorn” by Maurice Farman into a machine nicknamed the Horace, a combination of Henry and Maurice. In 1917 it was used as a means of training and aerial travel rather than as a fighting-machine.
The 1909 Antoinette Monoplane
The Antoinette monoplane was evolved from the early experiments of MM. Gastambide and Mangin, and designed by the famous M. Levavasseur, the engine as well as the aeroplane. This is the plane in which Herbert Latham failed to cross the English Channel by only a few hundred yards. At the Rheims meetingin August, 1909, it was in full working order, and during the last few days of the meet there was a continual fight for the distance and duration records between Latham of the Antoinette, Henry Farman of the Farman, and Paulhan of the Voisin. The Antoinette was much the fastest, but its engine always failed to hold out long enough to beat the others. However, the Antoinette proved in other respects to be the fastest flying-machine of the year.
It was the first machine in which real care was taken to gain a correct stream-line form. The wings were king-post girders. The body was largely a box-girder composed of three-ply wood. The tail was separated from the rest of the plane by uncovered longerons.
Unfortunately, the internal structure of later machines of this type was weak, so that there were many fatal results from breaking in the air. The control was also very hard to learn. One wheel worked the warping of the wings, another worked the elevator, and there was a rudder-bar for the feet. In spite of this the plane was very beautiful to look at.
The 1910 Breguet
The first successful machine of this type was designed by M. Breguet, a French engineer, who had begun experimenting in 1908, and it appeared the latter part of 1910. The first of the year he produced a machine which was nicknamed the “coffee-pot,” because it was enclosed entirely in aluminum. This was developed later into a bombing-machine which had manyinteresting features. It was almost entirely constructed of steel tubes covered with aluminum plates, which led some to call it an armored aeroplane, which it was not. The tail, which was one piece with the rudder, was carried on a huge universal joint at the tip of the body, so that it swivelled up or down or sideways in response to the controls. The wings had one huge steel tubular spar, and as a result only one row of interplane struts.
The under-carriage had a shock-absorber of a pneumatic-spring construction, which was highly satisfactory, and was the prototype of the elastic-rubber devices.
The machine was heavy, but it was fast and a great weight-carrier. Because of minor defects in detail the machine never was generally used, but it was the first step toward the big tractor biplane of to-day. The Breguet 1913 seaplane, equipped with a Salmson engine, 200 horse-power, was one of the first to utilize large horse-power and was thus the forerunner of the huge flying-boat of to-day.
The Nieuport
In 1911 the brothers Charles and Edouard de Nieuport produced the monoplane more commonly known as the Nieuport. The fuselage was a very thick body, tapering well to rear. The pilot and passenger sat close together, with only their heads and shoulders visible above the fuselage. All unnecessary obstruction was removed to reduce head resistance. The under-carriage consisted only of three V’s of steel tube,of stream-line section, connected to a single longitudinal skid, thus diminishing it to a noteworthy degree.
This made a very fast machine. With only a seven-cylinder, 50 horse-power Gnome engine it travelled 70 miles an hour, and with a fourteen-cylinder, double-row, 50 horse-power Gnome, rated at 100 horse-power but actually developing 70 horse-power, it reached between 80 and 90 miles an hour. M. Weyman, in the James Gordon Bennett race in the Isle of Sheppey, made an average speed of 79.5 miles an hour, so that allowing for the corners, he must have done around 90 miles an hour on straights.
The fast modern tractor biplanes show the influence of the flat stream-lined, all-inclusive body of the Nieuport.
The most remarkable of the small machines of 1916 was the Nieuport biplane, with the 90 horse-power engine and later the 110 horse-power Le Rhone engine. This was similar to the German Fokker, an excellent fighting-machine, and a direct successor of the Sopwith Tabloid. It was noteworthy for the odd V formed by the struts between the wings.
The 1912 B. E. (British Experimental)
In 1912 the British Government, realizing the importance of the aeroplane as a war-machine for scouting purposes, established the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, with Geoffrey de Havilland, one of the early British experimenters, as designer. Machines of his invention have been called D. H.’s. His 1912 aeroplane contains some of the ideas embodied in theAvro, Breguet, and the Nieuport. The machine had the lightness of a Nieuport, the stream-line of a Breguet, and the stability of an Avro. It was very light for its size and capacity, and with a 70 horse-power Renault engine it attained a speed of about 70 miles an hour, and it responded in the air and on the ground in a manner never before attained. It was the prototype of a long line of Royal Aircraft Factory designs, through all the range of B. E.’s on to the R. E. series and the S. E. series.
The initials B. E. originally stood for Bleriot Experimental, as M. Bleriot was officially credited with having originated the tractor-type aeroplane. Later B. E. was understood to indicate British Experimental. The subsequent development into R. E. indicated Reconnaissance Experimental, these being large biplanes with water-cooled engines and more tank capacity, intended for long-distance flights. S. E. indicates Scouting Experimental, the idea being that fast single-seaters would be used for scouting. They were, however, only used for fighting.
Another R. A. F. series is the F. E. or large pusher biplane, descended from the Henry Farman. The initials stood originally for Farman Experimental, but now stand for Fighting Experimental, the type being variants of the Vickers Gun Bus.
The 1914 B. E. 2c
Just before the war broke out the British R. A. F. produced an uncapsizable biplane nicknamed “StabilityJane.” Officially she was known as the B. E. 2c and was another type of Mr. De Havilland’s original B. E. Once it was in the air the machine flew itself and the pilot had only to keep it on its course. It was so slow in speed and manœuvring that it was called the “suicide bus,” yet the type was useful for certain purposes.
The 1912 Deperdussin
A very small monoplane, designed by MM. Bechereau and Koolhoven for the Deperdussin firm to compete in the James Gordon Bennett race at Rheims, proved to be the fastest machine built to the close of 1912. It was a tiny plane with a fourteen-cylinder, 100 horse-power Gnome engine. It covered 126½ miles in an hour—the first time a man had ever travelled faster than two miles a minute for a whole hour—and won the race. Allowing for corners, it must have flown well over 130 miles an hour on the straight course.
The little machine was stream-lined, even to the extent of placing a stream-lined support behind the pilot’s head. Two wheels, an axle, and four carefully stream-lined struts made up the under-carriage. The plane was remarkable for having its fuselage built wholly of three-ply wood, built on a mould without any bracing inside. It was the prototype of all the very high-speed machines of to-day. In 1916-17 the three-ply fuselage was adopted in all German fighting-machines and this country is gradually appreciatingthe improvement and has made many fuselages of three-ply wood.
The 1912 Curtiss Flying-Boat
But perhaps the most remarkable achievement of 1912 was the Curtiss flying-boat. Glenn Curtiss, who won the James Gordon Bennett race in 1909, had succeeded in rising from the water in 1911 with a similar biplane fitted with a central pontoon float instead of a wheeled under-carriage. This he made into a genuine flying-boat, consisting of a proper hydroplane-boat, with wings and engine superimposed. All the great modern flying-boats have descended from this, and it is the forerunner of the great passenger-carrying seaplanes of the future. Curtiss is also credited with the invention of ailerons.
The 1912 Short Seaplane
Another type of seaplane was also developed in 1912 when, after many trials, the Short brothers, of Eastchurch, England, built a successful seagoing biplane, equipped with twin floats instead of the ordinary landing-gear. This, with only an 80 horse-power Gnome engine, was the first flying-machine to arise from or alight on any kind of sea.
The 1912 Taube
The German Taube was yet another development of 1912. This plane is so called because the wings are swept back and curved up at the tips like those of adove. The builders were Herr Wels and Herr Etrich, of Austria, in 1908. Herr Etrich took the design to Germany, where it was adopted by Herr Rumpler.
This machine was designed to be inherently stable, that is, uncapsizable, and it was successful to a great degree. If it had altitude enough it generally succeeded when falling in recovering its proper position before striking the ground. Other builders had striven for inherent stability, but had failed to get beyond a certain point. Owing to the greater financial support obtainable in Germany the 1912 type Taube lasted, with small changes, far into 1915, when it was succeeded by the large German biplanes, which had greater speed and carrying power. Several machines in Britain and the United States have attained a considerable reputation as having inherent stability.
The 1913 Sopwith Tabloid
T. O. M. Sopwith, Harry G. Hawker, the Australian pilot who first went to Newfoundland to fly the Atlantic, and Mr. Sigrist, Mr. Sopwith’s chief engineer, turned out early in 1913 an extremely small tractor biplane, equipped with an 80 horse-power Gnome engine, which surprised the aeronautical world by doing a top speed of 95 miles per hour and a climb of 15,000 feet in ten minutes, while it could fly as slowly as 45 miles per hour. It was achieved by skilfully reducing the weight, paying close attention to the designing of the wings, and by carefully stream-lining external parts. All the modern high-speed fighting-biplanes,such as the “Camels,” “Snipes,” “Kittens,” “Bullets,” “Hawks,” and others, are descended from the original “Tabloid,” so called because it had so many good points concentrated in it. Because of its fast-climbing ability it was used for the defense of such cities as London and Paris against the Zeps and aeroplanes.
The 1914 Vickers Gun Bus
The first genuine gun-carrying biplane, designed and built by Vickers, London, came early in 1914. Clearly of Farman inspiration, it had an especially strong nacelle to stand the working of a heavy gun. Equipped with a 100 horse-power Gnome engine it made over 70 miles an hour. It was known everywhere as the “Gun Bus,” and the name stuck to the whole class.
The 1914 German Albatross Biplane
Meanwhile the Germans were busy developing machines, so that another development of 1914 was the Albatross tractor biplane, with a six-cylinder vertical water-cooled Mercedes engine of 100 horse-power. This engine was the ancestor of the Liberty engine and of all the big German tractor biplanes. The plane resembled the French Breguets and British Avros of 1910.
The 1915 Twin Caudron
The first aeroplane to fly with consistent success equipped with more than one engine was the twin-motored Caudron, with two 110 horse-power Le Rhone engines. Various other similar experiments had been made and some machines were designed which afterward made good. The French twin Caudron, however, may claim to be the first twin-engined aeroplane. The engines were placed one on each side of the fuselage but inaccessible to the pilot.