Gilbert E. Canard
L.Opdyke French Aeroplanes Before the Great War (Schiffer)
Deleted by request of (c)Schiffer Publishing
Gilbert, E
Eugene Gilbert was one of the most popular French pioneers, famous for his flying the fast Deperdussin in the 1913 Gordon-Bennett race, and afterwards. His name is otherwise connected with a curious tricycle-geared tailless monoplane early in 1908. A high-set wing with S-curved leading edges had a kite-shaped fin above it; the pilot sat below it on a bicycle seat above and aft of the wheel; a bird-neck and bird-beak arrangement over the 2 front wheels supported the forward control surfaces operated by a steering bar. It was tested, presumably unsuccessfully, on a road near Paris in January 1908.
(Span: 4 m; length: 4 m; 4 hp motor)
In 1908 Gilbert joined with Louis Besseyre, an automobile racer, to build at Clermont-Ferrand a large monoplane with a wide triangular-sectioned fuselage, and a rough steel-tube framed undercarriage with 2 small wheels forward. The gull wing lay on the fuselage deck. Power was to have been a 100 hp 2-cycle V8 mounted in front, driving a 2-bladed tractor propeller; Besseyre was killed in an automobile accident in 1909, and the unfinished monoplane was probably abandoned.
Early in 1912 Gilbert had a canard monoplane built and then housed in Anzani's hangar at Issy. The long rectangular uncovered fuselage had a forward elevator at the very nose, with a pair of vertical rudders set one on either side of the nose behind it. The whole front end was supported by a Bleriot-style crossed-cane skid. The wings at the rear were highly arched, with thick leading edges and general Bleriot outline, with a large rectangular cutout for the pusher propeller; 2 vertical fins formed the undercarriage struts for the 2 wheels.
By this time Gilbert had flown the Sommer, and was regularly a Morane pilot. In 1913 he had a seaplane built by Morane and Saulnier; probably Gilbert helped with the design, which resembled a Henry Farman and was different from other Morane-Saulnier designs.