L.Opdyke French Aeroplanes Before the Great War (Schiffer)
Deleted by request of (c)Schiffer Publishing
De Puiseux
In 1909 the Comte Gustave de Puiseux struggled to fly his Cycloplane, built by Vinet, at Ouistreham, on the Channel coast. It resembled a 2-cell box-kite with short wing extensions, all mounted high above a bicycle, whose rear wheel served as a giant pulley for a belt (or bicycle chain) driving a tiny tractor propeller out ahead of the front cell. It may have been tried later with a 1.5 hp motor, and may also have been the mock-up for a bigger machine called La Mouche (fly), with 2 counter-rotating propellers. The wing panels, broad and short, were to fold down on each side so La Mouche could be driven on the highway; it seems also to have been designed to be converted from a glider to a powered aeroplane. It had a box-girder fuselage, slightly tapering aft, which rested high above a 4-wheeled rectangular frame on which sat the motor, forward radiator, and the pilot. It was tested, unsuccessfully, in 1910.
(Span: 7 m; length: 6.4 m; wing area: 10.9 sqm; weight (probably the kite cells only): 44 kg)