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Страна: Великобритания

Год: 1912

A.Jackson Avro Aircraft since 1908 (Putnam)

The Duigan Biplane

  John R. Duigan was an Australian who designed and built a Farman-type biplane at Mia Mia, Victoria, in 1910 and flew it before a very large crowd at Bendigo Racecourse, Melbourne, on May 3, 1911. A series of accidents convinced Duigan that he needed proper flying instruction and some weeks later he sailed for England, arriving in August 1911. Two months elapsed before he joined the Avro School at Brooklands, having by then already placed an order for a private Avro aeroplane. In November he went to Manchester to see it built.
  The machine was a two-seat, dual control biplane, similar to Type D but fitted with a square rudder, steel framed tailplane and square instead of triangular section fuselage. The seats were arranged so that the occupants’ heads were raised just above the padded rim of an elliptical opening and celluloid windows were provided in the floor to give downward view. Following current Continental practice, Roe tried a newer wing section having ‘Phillips entry’ whereby the chord line of the wing was horizontal in level flight. Wing warping was employed for lateral control and wing spars were of English ash with poplar ribs, rounded wingtips being formed from rattan cane. As usual, the whole machine was built in sections, easily dismantled for transport, the fuselage consisting of two halves bolted together behind the rear cockpit. The engine was a 40 hp horizontally opposed Alvaston driving an Avro airscrew of kauri pine and cooled by large spiral tube radiators on each side of the front cockpit.
  The undercarriage was a complete departure from normal Avro practice, incorporating a Nieuport-type leaf-spring axle and centre skid with bracing wires to flatten long grass and prevent nosing over. This type of undercarriage proved so successful that in modified form it was used on Avro aeroplanes for a generation. First straight hops were made by Duigan at Huntingdon Racecourse flying ground early in December 1911 but in spite of experiments with different airscrews the machine was very loath to leave terra firma. Considering it advisable to return to the Avro fold, Duigan took the machine to Brooklands where a 35 hp E.N.V. engine was fitted and he met with more success. On March 10 several long straight flights were made but the aircraft was sadly underpowered and only flyable in good weather. Duigan then made and fitted an airscrew of his own design and working as his own mechanic, tuned the E.N.V. engine to such good effect that on April 13 he succeeded in flying several times round Brooklands track. On April 19 he flew figure eights at 300 ft and on April 20 successfully completed tests for his Aviator’s Certificate (No.211), the aircraft having completed four hours in the air up to that date entirely without damage. Passenger flights, not so successful on low power, were confined to straights within Brooklands track. Duigan’s best solo flight in his machine, consisting of an hour’s circuits over Addlestone at an altitude of 400-600 ft, was made on April 30. His final recorded flight was on May 15.
  Having achieved his objectives, Duigan returned home. There he built a very similar machine to the Avro which crashed on its first flight on February 17, 1913. His British aeroplane was put up for sale with engine for £380 but was almost immediately reduced to £180, no doubt because the engine had been sold separately. The airframe was purchased by the Lakes Flying Company and it was delivered to Windermere on June 4, 1912. Here it was rebuilt as the centre float seaplane Sea Bird which H. Stanley Adams flew off the lake for the first time on August 28, 1912. The company entirely redesigned the front end of the fuselage to accept a 50 hp Gnome rotary, the upper half of which was cowled and gave a cocked-up appearance to the nose. New three-bay, warping mainplanes of Eiffel 12 section and 8-5 aspect ratio were also fitted. The machine proved much faster than the old Avro-built Water Bird and after it has been fitted with an improved twin float undercarriage, carried large numbers of holiday makers during 1912-13.
  At the end of 1912 the machine was tested with an amphibious undercarriage but trials came to an end on December 18, 1912, when Sea Bird piloted by Lt J.F.A. Trotter was caught by a gust of wind and the lower port wing struck the water. In January 1915 the Lakes Flying Company was taken over by the Northern Aircraft Company Ltd and thereafter the machine was generally referred to as the Avro Biplane Tractor. It was equipped with dual control soon after and at the beginning of June was fitted with new floats. Unfortunately, pupil R. Buck took off in the Avro for his Vol-plane test on June 5 unaware that the latter had altered the centre of gravity. On switching off the engine to begin his glide approach, Buck failed to lower the nose sufficiently and the machine stalled at 300 ft, crashing into the lake tail first. Miraculously Buck was unhurt but the Sea Bird was destroyed.


SPECIFICATION AND DATA
   Manufacturers: A. V. Roe and Company, Brownsfield Mills, Great Ancoats Street, Manchester; and Brooklands Aerodrome, Byfleet, Surrey.
   Rebuilt by The Lakes Flying Company, Cockshott, Lake Windermere, Westmorland
   Power Plants:
   (Duigan)
   One 40 h.p. Alvaston
   One 35 h.p. E.N.V. Type D
   Dimensions:
   (Duigan) Span 34 ft. 0 in. Chord 4 ft. 6 in.
   Height 10 ft. 6 in. Wing area 350 sq. ft.
   Performance:
   (Duigan) Speed 40 m.p.h.

   Production: One aircraft only, first flown 2.12; converted into the Lakes Sea Bird 10.12, crashed at Windermere 6.15



Avro 500 (Type E)

  The first War Office military aircraft specification, issued in 1911, called for a two seater to carry a 350 lb load in addition to essential equipment and have an endurance of 4 1/2 hours, initial rate of climb of 200 ft/min, maximum speed 55 mph, ability to maintain 4,500 ft for one hour, and be capable of delivery to Salisbury Plain in a crate. Competing firms had only nine months in which to design, build and test.
  A. V. Roe and Company met this specification by building a new two seat biplane, very similar in design and construction to the previous year’s Duigan machine. The built-up box-girder fuselage was again of square section, fabric covered in the rear and metal clad forward. It was more streamlined than the Duigan with pilot and passenger seated at the widest part with their heads protruding through padded openings in the top. Small celluloid panels were again provided in the floor to give downward vision. The mainplanes used ash spars and an improved, double-surfaced section covered with Pegamoid fabric. They were detachable in three sections for ground transport. The undercarriage was of the Duigan type with centre skid and leaf-spring axle, the tail being carried on a rubber-sprung skid.
  A 60 hp E.N.V. watercooled engine was mounted on the top longerons and drove a 10 ft Avro airscrew. The main fuel tank was in front of the passenger and twin gravity tanks were fixed to the centre section struts. Known originally as the ‘Military Biplane’, but in later years as the Type E prototype, the machine was first flown at Brooklands by Wilfred Parke on March 3, 1912. It was obvious from the outset that this was no ordinary aircraft but one with that rare quality, a reserve of power. This encouraged its entry for the Mortimer Singer prize. Test flying took but a few days, during which it was promptly dubbed Elinor Glyn (after a well-known novelist of the period) and on March 23 Parke climbed to 1,000 ft in under six minutes and 2,000 ft in 13 minutes with a heavy passenger (R. L. Charteris).
  Cooling was by spiral tube radiators on each side of the front fuselage, augmented by two smaller units on the centre section struts on each side of the passenger’s head. On April 20 Parke suffered partial engine failure when taking off for Hendon to compete for the prize. The hurried landing ripped off undercarriage and mainplanes and when the aircraft rolled on its side the auxiliary radiators folded over the front cockpit and engineer W. H. Sayers had to be extricated through a hole cut in the side. In the interest of future passengers the machine was rebuilt with only the lower radiators fitted. Parke successfully piloted the machine through Farnborough trials in June 1912 after which it returned to Brooklands to become a flying testbed for the new 60 hp A.B.C. engine. First straight hops with this power unit were made by F. P. Raynham on August 31 but it was not until October 18, when several engine and airframe adjustments had been made, that it flew strongly in the hands of the A.B.C. representative R. L. Charteris. In 1913 the E.N.V. engine was reinstalled and the aircraft sent to Shoreham and there flown by experienced pilots of the Avro School, such as H. R. Simms and H. S. Powell. On June 29, 1913, pupils were allowed to fly it for the first time but in the afternoon it stalled on a turn, crashed and was destroyed by fire. Pilot R. N. Wight received fatal injuries, the first ever in an Avro aircraft.
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SPECIFICATION AND DATA
   Manufacturers: A. V. Roe and Company (reconstituted as A. V. Roe and Co. Ltd., 11.1.13), Brownsfield Mills, Great Ancoats Street, Manchester (moved to Clifton Street, Miles Platting, Manchester, 4.13); and at Shoreham Aerodrome, Sussex
   Power Plants:
   (Type E prototype) One 60 h.p. E.N.V. Type F
   One 60 h.p. A.B.C.
   Dimensions:
   Span 36 ft. 0 in. Height 9 ft. 9 in.
   Length
   (Type E prototype) 30 ft. 6 in.
   Wing area 330 sq. ft.
   Weights:
   (Type E prototype) Tare weight 1,100 lb. All-up weight 1,650 lb.
   Performance:
   (Type E prototype)
   Maximum speed 50 m.p.h.
   Initial climb 170 ft./min. Endurance 6 hours

   Production:
   Type E
   Prototype only, first flown at Brooklands 3.3.12, destroyed by fire at Shoreham 29.6.13

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Описание:

  • A.Jackson Avro Aircraft since 1908 (Putnam)
  • M.Goodall, A.Tagg British Aircraft before the Great War (Schiffer)
  • P.Lewis British Aircraft 1809-1914 (Putnam)
  • Журнал Flight
  • Журнал - Flight за 1912 г.

    Mr. Copland Perry's mishap on the Tagus, when the engine petered out on the Avro biplane, and he came gently to rest on the water. Making the towing hawser fast; and, on the right, towing in the machine.