L.Opdyke French Aeroplanes Before the Great War (Schiffer)

Журнал Flight

Flight, November 16, 1912.

THE PARIS AERO SALON.

Sanchez Besa.

   THE biplane they are exhibiting shows, in its methods of construction and the design of its details, an extraordinary amount of Voisin influence. But we can scarcely think that the general design is of the same origin. Primarily it seems that the machine has been designed as a hydro-biplane of the Donnet-Leveque type, for it has a fuselage somewhat of the same type as the coque of that machine, and its main planes are arranged wholly above it. A 75-h.p. Renault is used, which is stowed away in the fuselage and which drives by chain transmission a propeller set practically level with the top plane. The landing gear with which it is fitted is purely Voisin. If the machine were a hydro-aeroplane we could probably understand why this disposition had been adopted, but as the machine shown is purely one for use over land, it would be rather interesting to know why the designer has departed so radically from what is recognised as the best possible arrangement of such factors as centres of gravity, of head resistance, and of thrust.