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Blackburn White Falcon

Страна: Великобритания

Год: 1915

Blackburn - TB - 1915 - Великобритания<– –>Blackburn - GP - 1916 - Великобритания


A.Jackson Blackburn Aircraft since 1909 (Putnam)


Blackburn White Falcon

   Very few technical and historical details of the Blackburn White Falcon monoplane have survived and little is known of it apart from the fact that it was built for the personal use of the firm's test pilot W. Rowland Ding.
   A photograph taken inside the Olympia works showing it under construction at the same time as the two A.D. Scout biplanes fixes the date as mid-1915, and comparison with an adjoining Blackburn-built B.E.2c shows that the machine used the B.E.2c undercarriage and tail skid. Otherwise it bore a striking resemblance to the float-equipped Type I derivative which preceded it and which Ding flew at Windermere. Like this machine, it was powered by a 100 hp Anzani radial driving a 9-ft diameter four-bladed airscrew and carried the pilot's monogram on the rudder. It used the same type of mainplane, one foot greater in span, and rigged and warped from the same type of pylon. It also had the same curved decking over a 30-gallon fuel tank and the same deep, roomy cockpits, but there the similarity ended because the fuselage, like those of most Blackburn aircraft subsequent to the Type I, was of square instead of triangular section.
   Unlike the wire-braced structure of the B.E.2c, the fuselage of the White Falcon was typically Blackburn and took the form of a precision-built Warren girder with wooden diagonal members secured by plywood 'biscuits'. The top of the rudder continued upwards as a rearward projection of the line of the fin, and all struts were this time of wide-chord streamlined section. The engine exhaust collector ring was removed during the early part of the aircraft's career. It is doubtful if it ever flew with the B.E.2c main undercarriage; this was replaced by a neat, wire-braced structure without skids, but the bungee-sprung tail skid and its supporting pyramid of steel tubes was plainly a standard B.E.2c assembly. During the early stages of construction, the flying controls were grouped in the front cockpit but seem to have been repositioned in the rear before the machine flew.
   There is no definite information as to why a one-off type of this kind should have been constructed during a major war but it is significant that in the few photographs of the machine which exist it is invariably shown outside the little wooden hangar at Soldiers' Field, Roundhay Park, or by the park's distinctive iron railings. With so many B.E.2c aircraft to be test flown at Soldiers' Field, it is probable that the White Falcon was intended as a communications aircraft in which Ding could liaise with RNAS stations to which Blackburn-built B.E.2cs had been delivered and as a means of returning the firm's ferry pilots to base. Later in its career the machine had the exhaust collector ring replaced and was painted up in Service roundels with the name White Falcon on the engine cowlings, but it did not receive a military serial number.

SPECIFICATION AND DATA
   Manufacturers: The Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Co Ltd, Olympia Works, Roundhay Road, Leeds, Yorks.
   Power Plant: One 100 hp Anzani
   Dimensions:
   Span 39 ft 6 in Length 26 ft 11 1/4 in
   Wing area 209 sq ft
   Production: One aircraft only, built 1915.


J.Bruce British Aeroplanes 1914-1918 (Putnam)


Blackburn White Falcon

  THIS somewhat grandiosely-named monoplane had every appearance of being a development of the Land/Sea Monoplane of 1915, and was probably built in 1916. It was a neat aeroplane of simple outline, powered by an Anzani radial engine of 100 h.p. which drove a four-bladed airscrew.
  The fuselage was of rectangular cross-section with a rounded decking, whereas all previous Blackburn monoplanes, including the Land/Sea trainer, had had fuselages of triangular section. The wings were attached to the upper longerons, and lateral control was by means of wing-warping. The undercarriage legs were of an unusual form: they were a compromise between the old type with horizontal skids and the later vee type. No doubt this was to some extent dictated by the necessity to provide points of anchorage for the flying wires and points of attachment for the pulleys over which the warping cables ran. The tailskid was probably a standard B.E.2c component.
  The White Falcon’s designed purpose and history are alike obscure. It has been described as a military monoplane, but it is hard to see what military function it could discharge. It was normally flown from the rear seat, and the observer in the front seat could observe little; nor could he use a gun satisfactorily, surrounded by bracing and warp-balance cables running up to the cabane struts. It may have been designed as a trainer.
  The machine bore the monogram of W. Rowland Ding on the rudder, and was probably used by him either for pleasure or as a means of personal transport.


SPECIFICATION
  Manufacturers: The Blackburn Aeroplane & Motor Co., Ltd., Olympia, Leeds.
  Power: 100 h.p. Anzani.
  Dimensions: Span: 39 ft 6 in. Length: 26 ft 11 1/4 in. Chord: 7 ft. Dihedral: 2. Incidence: 4. Airscrew diameter: 9 ft.
  Areas: Wings: 209 sq ft.
  Tankage: Petrol: 30 gallons.

Форум - Breguet's Aircraft Challenge /WWW/
A.Jackson - Blackburn Aircraft since 1909 /Putnam/
Blackburn test pilot W. Rowland Ding in the cockpit of the White Falcon monoplane at Roundhay Park, Leeds.
A.Jackson - Blackburn Aircraft since 1909 /Putnam/
Close-up of the White Falcon from the starboard side showing cockpit and simplified undercarriage.
J.Bruce - British Aeroplanes 1914-1918 /Putnam/
The White Falcon in military marks during the winter of 1916-17.
A.Jackson - Blackburn Aircraft since 1909 /Putnam/
The Olympia Works, Leeds, in mid-1915 with the A.D. Scout airframes at the far end, B.E.2cs on the right and the incomplete Land Sea monoplane (on wheels), facing left.
A.Jackson - Blackburn Aircraft since 1909 /Putnam/
Blackburn White Falcon