L.Opdyke French Aeroplanes Before the Great War (Schiffer)
Deleted by request of (c)Schiffer Publishing
Ratmanoff
The designer and builder of the Normale propeller, Ratmanoff may have begun his aeronautical career with Avia at St Die, where he was reported testing a glider in May 1909. He built at least 2 of the de Beer monoplanes, and at least 2 2-seater monoplanes of his own design, one of which was exhibited beside one of the de Beers at the 1913 Paris Salon.
It was a neat side-by-side trainer, with rectangular wings of fixed incidence, unlike the de Beer. It had a covered fuselage tapering to a horizontal knife-edge at the tail, long triangular fixed tail surfaces, a 4-strut pylon and a half-cowled 10-cylinder radial Anzani. The wings warped through a sprocket and chain, operated by foot-pedals: the pilot could choose between large and small sprockets to adjust the sensitivity of the warp control. The arrangement for tightening the bracing wires in the fuselage was unusual: instead of turnbuckles, a small rod was passed through the base of each cross member parallel to the longeron, and the wires at each side were attached to the ends of the rod. 2 bolts ran through the longeron parallel to the cross-member; tightening them at the same time drew the rod closer to the longeron, tightening the wires. Meant to make rigging easier, this device only weakened the structure at every joint.
The other 2-seater sat the pilots in tandem.
Журнал Flight
Flight, January 17, 1914.
THE PARIS AERO SALON - 1913.
RATMANOFF AND DE BEER.
On the Ratmanoff stand were to be seen two monoplanes, one of which was a Ratmanoff school type monoplane. It is' fitted with a 45 h.p. Anzani engine, and the machine itself is built on quite orthodox lines. There is nothing remarkable about the machine, and it is simply a straightforward well-built machine for all-round work, and is sold at the reasonable price of L600.
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