P.Lewis British Aircraft 1809-1914 (Putnam)
Weiss Tractor Monoplane No. 1
Named Elsie after another of Jose Weiss's daughters, the first tractor monoplane was adapted from the tailless glider with which Weiss joined E. C. Gordon England and Noel Pemberton Billing for a while at Fambridge, Essex, during 1909. Originally a single straight skid with twin wheels formed part of the undercarriage, but this was changed later for a pair of curved skids. The engine was a three-cylinder 25 h.p. Warren-Simpson. During mid-1910 the machine was at Brooklands and was tested there by Gerald Leake, following unsatisfactory trials at Littlehampton, Sussex. Leake was a commercial artist, attracted also by the possibility of flight.
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M.Goodall, A.Tagg British Aircraft before the Great War (Schiffer)
Deleted by request of (c)Schiffer Publishing
WEISS tractor monoplane No.1 'Elsie'
This machine was constructed from the 1909 glider, and was being tested on the sands at Littlehampton in tailless form on 16 April 1910, when damage occurred. By August it was at Brooklands being tested by Gerald Leake, who accomplished a few straight flights. On 21 September 1910 it was rammed by a Howard Wright, damaging the engine and propeller, which finished operations.
In its initial form the machine was tailless, although an extension of the glider nacelle had been added, to carry a tail skid or tail wheel. The main undercarriage was an ungainly affair of struts, with two main wheels and a pair of smaller wheels on the central skid. Later the narrow track of the main wheels was increased in width, and the wing tip skids removed; a central beam with a smaller, more robust nose wheel, was tried, also a tail wheel at one stage. The final version at Brooklands featured widely spaced skids and nose wheels, and a further extension of the nacelle to move the tail skid further aft.
The engine installed was a 25hp Warren-Simpson and later a similar Anzani. The control system consisted of the pedal operated trailing edge flaps of the earlier monoplane, but instability caused the fitting of a cruciform tail, and the covering of the extension in September, just before the demise of the machine. After this it was converted back to 'Olive', fitted with a vertical tail and presented to the Polytechnic Gliding Club in 1912.
Power:
25hp Warren-Simpson three-cylinder air-cooled fan type semi-radial.
25hp Anzani three-cylinder air-cooled fan type semiradial.
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