L.Opdyke French Aeroplanes Before the Great War (Schiffer)
Deleted by request of (c)Schiffer Publishing
Gregoire-Gyp
Gregoire owes more of his reputation to his fast cars built between 1900 and 1922 than to his brief efforts in aviation.
Gregoire 1909: He designed and built a monoplane powered with a motor of his own design; it was tested at St Cheron des Champs, about 15 km from Chartres, at the end of September. Gregoire himself was at the controls, seems to have been surprised at the take-off, and broke a wheel on landing. It was then shown at the 1909 Paris Exposition with a sale price of 1000F.
A rectangular uncovered fuselage carried a triangular tailplane and elevator and a long triangular rudder at the rear. The design featured a heavy tubular spar in 2 parts, connected in the middle with the equivalent of an automobile differential; through his steering wheel the pilot could twist the 2 rectangular wing panels to produce different angles of attack and so control bank. Pulling the wheel back and forth changed the angle equally for both at once; the wings were detachable and could be moved bodily back and forth (on the ground) to allow for variation in loading according to whether or not a passenger was carried. Steering was done with a rudder controlled through the pilot's back-rest. It first flew on 6 November 1909, piloted by the student pilot de Lailhacar.
(Length: 11m; wing area: 22 sqm; gross weight: 300 kg without pilot; 40 hp water-cooled Gyp)
Журнал Flight
Flight, October 30, 1909
FLYER SILHOUETTES FROM THE PARIS SALON.
GREGOIRE-GYP.
MONOPLANE, principally interesting on account of the method of warping the wings by means of a bevel-gear mechanism, which rotates the tubular steel main spars. The arrangement is both neat and compact, more, particularly, however, in that it is operated by the steering-wheel and is the sole control in flight. Depressing the horizontal steering - column rotates both spars in unison and warps both wings in the same sense. The warping of the wings by means of movable main spars depends on the provision of a fixed fulcrum to hold the inner extremities of the wings rigid. An accompanying sketch shows the arrangement diagrammatically.
A rudder is fitted for use when the machine is running at out on the ground, but it is not intended to be operated in flight.
While considerable care and attention has been given to the construction of the main wings and their warping mechanism, there is a noticeable absence of equally good workmanship elsewhere. The chassis, which combines ski and wheels, at first glance resembles that on the Hanriot, and a comparison of the two designs is instructive.
