WEBB-PEET monoplane (Webb-Peet & Co., Westgate Ironworks, Gloucester)

   The aircraft was designed by two brothers, Bateman David Scott and Wilfred Edward Scott, who in 1907 had designed the Scott ornithopter. There is no evidence that the ornithopter was built, but the monoplane certainly was, under an arrangement with the Webb-Peet Co. The aircraft was not a success and did not fly, being eventually offered for sale as part of the company's effects at an auction on 20 May 1913, when the firm was liquidated.
   The machine was a tandem wing monoplane with a triangular-section braced wooden girder fuselage, in the center of which the engine was positioned. This drove twin wooden propellers by chain on outriggers ahead of the rear wing. One report stated that one chain was crossed, but an earlier report claimed that an endless chain was to be used and the rotary engine would run in reverse to the propellers, to counter the torque.
   The fuselage was mounted on a chassis with twin skids and with two wheels on a cross axle at the front, and with a larger third wheel behind. The pilot and passenger sat ahead of the engine in tandem, behind a raised decking, in the enclosed portion of the fuselage, which extended to the nose.
   The front wing was of shorter span than the rear and served as the elevator, the operation of which simultaneously lifted the front wheels, thus reducing drag at takeoff. The rear wing incorporated warping for lateral control, the cables for this, and the wing bracing wires, were taken to a pylon on the cutaway center section; the lift wires were taken to the lower member of the chassis. Both wings were of complicated 'gull-wing' shape with dihedral over the central portion, curving down to anhedral at the tips. In one report the rear wing was said to be hinged at the center of pressure, but it is difficult to imagine this as being workable in the air, bearing in mind the complication of bracing wires and warping control, plus the fact that the control was not irreversible. Twin rectangular shaped rudders were fitted at the rear on either side of the fuselage for directional control.
   The description in the technical press was at variance with patent No. 10 253/1910, applied for by W.E. Scott and W.W. Peet on 27 April 1910 and accepted in April 1911. In this both wings were pivoted, and the front wing also carried ailerons. There was no mention of warping.
   The Webb-Peet rotary engine was on the stand of the Weston-Hurlin Co. at the Aero Show at Olympia in March 1911. It was described as having no cooling fins, but relied on the effect of rotation and water injected into the cylinders for cooling purposes.

   Power: 25/30hp Webb-Peet five-cylinder air-cooled rotary with additional cooling by water injection. (Patent application No.6215/1911)
   Data
   Span rear 40ft
   Span front 25ft
   Chord rear 8ft
   Chord front 5ft
   Area 410 sq. ft