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Bonisteel Monoplane

Страна: Канада

Год: 1915

Bell, Graham - Cygnet III - 1912 - Канада<– –>Canadian Aerodrome - Baddeck No.1 / No.2 - 1909 - Канада


K.Molson, H.Taylor Canadian Aircraft since 1909 (Putnam)


Bonisteel Monoplane

   In 1915 Ernest Dickens Bonisteel, of Toronto, designed an aircraft and built it at his home at 15 Close Avenue, with some assistance from two friends, Stanley H. Anderson and Leonard Fenwick. Bonisteel was an architect and stated that he had studied aeronautics for three years and that he could fly although he had no pilot’s licence. At the time he was a Lieutenant in the Canadian Field Artillery and had planned to go overseas but was encouraged to try out his ideas first.
   His aircraft was a wire-braced shoulder-wing monoplane of typical wooden construction. The fuselage was covered in a sheet material, apparently aluminium, as it was described as 'a huge aluminium beetle.' It seated two in tandem in a communal cockpit and Deperdussin flight controls were provided. There was no fin and only a very small rudder. Although intended for use both as a landplane and seaplane, it was finished as a seaplane with two flat-bottomed main floats, a tail float and very small cylindrical wingtip floats. Its engine was a five-cylinder air-cooled Viale developing 55 hp.
   On completion the components were taken on 19 October, 1915, to Lake Ontario at the foot of Jamieson Avenue and transported by small boats to a large tent set up under the viaduct at Sunnyside Beach. There the machine was assembled for its intended tests. Whether it was ever flown is doubtful; most accounts indicate that it was not and that high winds and rough water made trials difficult. In January 1916 it was taken back to 15 Close Avenue and stored. Portions of the aircraft still survived in 1920 and were in the possession of the Aero Club of Canada in Toronto.

K.Molson, H.Taylor - Canadian Aircraft since 1909 /Putnam/
The Bonisteel Monoplane in front of its tent hangar at Sunnyside Beach.
K.Molson, H.Taylor - Canadian Aircraft since 1909 /Putnam/
Another view of the Bonisteel Monoplane at Sunnyside Beach.