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red750

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Everything posted by red750

  1. Claude Auguste Joseph Givaudan's iconic and weird aircraft The French engineer Claude Givaudan (1872-1945) designed his first aeroplane with circular wings in tandem. A unique design which later became famous in aviation history. His design was granted a patent. Givaudan designed his tandem circular wing around 1909. To get the machine to fly higher or lower the front wing could be pivoted up and down. The wing at the back could move left and right for directional orientation. The Givaudian design was built by the automobile factory Usines Vermorel, where Givaudan was employed. Power was delivered by a Vermoral engine rated at 50 hp. Although this design of Givaudan was not succesfull he had a long career in cars and aviation. He finally became at the end of his life the president of the Aéro Club de Rhône.
  2. The SNCAC NC.2001 Abeille (English: Bee) was a single engine, twin intermeshing rotor helicopter designed and built in France in the late 1940s. Three were completed but only one flew, development ending when SNCAC was closed. The design of the Abeille was directed by René Dorand at the helicopter division of SNCAC. An intermeshing rotor layout was chosen instead of a tail rotor design, following the examples of the 1939 Flettner Fl 265 and the Kellet XR-8 of 1944. Its twin, two blade rotors were driven by shafts which leaned out of the fuselage side-by-side. The rotor blades, which began some way from the hub, tapered strongly. Pitch and roll were adjusted from the control column by altering cyclic pitch via a pair of swashplates and yaw by changing the relative collective pitch of the two rotors with the pedals. Forward tilt of the rotor shafts was automatically linked to forward speed. A single lever controlled both the collective pitch and the throttle through an electrical link. The Abeille was powered by a 429 kW (575 hp) Renault 12S, an inverted, air-cooled V-12 engine. The Abeille had a pod and boom, all-metal fuselage. The nose was fully glazed with two side by side crew seats ahead of a cabin with a bench seat for three passengers. The engine and gearboxes were behind them. Aft, a high mounted boom carried the empennage, which on the first prototype consisted of a tall T-tail with a narrow fin. On the second machine the tailplane was lowered to the top of the fuselage and had a pair of fins at its extremities, each roughly elliptical and mounted from its top. The tails was wooden, with fabric covered. The Abeille's fixed main landing gear had two wheels on a single axle positioned a little behind the rotor shafts and mounted on broad, single struts to the mid-upper fuselage, together with a smaller nose wheel. Three examples of the Abeille were built. The first was destroyed by fire before it had flown. The second made its first flight on 28 June 1949, piloted by Claude Dellys. SNCAC was closed in that month, its assets distributed between three remaining state owned firms and as a result the Abeille programme was abandoned; the second machine did not fly again and the third never flew.
  3. Up is the American standard.
  4. The Focke-Wulf Ta 154 Moskito was a fast twin-engined German night fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank and produced by Focke-Wulf during late World War II. Only a few were produced, proving to have less impressive performance than the prototypes. Kurt Tank's team at Focke-Wulf had been working for some time on a fast attack-bomber aircraft named Ta 211, so named because it planned to use an uprated Jumo 211R engine. The intended "Ta 211" design was a high-wing twin-engined design, built primarily of plywood, bonded with a special phenolic resin adhesive called Tego film. The only large-scale use of metal was in the pressurized cockpit. The project's designation was changed to Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM—Ministry of Aviation) airframe number 8-154 (hence Ta 154) when it became apparent that the most suitable engine for the aircraft was the more powerful Jumo 213, and that Junkers could not deliver the Jumo 211R in time due to technical and production problems. The 154 was also allocated the name "Moskito" as a form of recognition of the Royal Air Force's (RAF) de Havilland Mosquito. It was at about this time that the light and very fast de Havilland Mosquito, also made of wood, arrived over Germany. It quickly racked up an impressive record; in its first 600 bombing missions, only one was shot down, compared to an average of 5% for RAF medium and heavy bombers. Erhard Milch personally requested a purpose-built German answer, and selected the 154. Infighting within German circles started almost immediately, because the RLM and night fighter units — as well as Ernst Heinkel himself — still wanted the Heinkel He 219. Milch took this personally, and spent the better part of the next two years trying to have the 219 program terminated, partly against Ernst Heinkel's wishes.
  5. The Asso X Jewel is an all - wood, low wing, single engine, two tandem seats ultralight aircraft, designed by Italian designer Giuseppe Vidor. This aircraft is one of his many wooden designs, marketed by Vidor's Asso Aerei company, like the Asso V Champion, Asso IV Whisky and Asso VI Junior. The aircraft kit/plans are specified for the Rotax 912, but it is also one of the very few aircraft reported to be using the Sauer S 2100 ULT engine. Variants Millennium Master A composite airplane, evolved from the Asso X Jewel. Pelegrin Tarragon A composite airplane, evolved from the Millennium Master. Blackshape Prime A composite airplane, evolved from the Millennium Master.
  6. There are areas where such features are as scarce as hens teeth. One silo looks pretty much like the next.
  7. No electronics in those days. WAC charts and E6B.
  8. No Idea, that technology wasn't around 56 years ago, at least in GA. I lodged a maintenance report immediately on landing. Went on to fly for 18 years before failing the medical. (And financial). 38 years since I last flew.
  9. I had a similar experience on my final (solo) navex before getting my unrestricted PPL. The course was Moorabbin - Lilydale - Mangalore (touch and go) - Kerang - Horsham - Moorabbin. I was flying a Beech B-19 Sport (2 seat Musketeer). Things were fine until Mangalore. About half an hour after takeoff, the weather was quite bumpy, and the ball-in-liquid compass was dancing around like a cork in a washing machine, so I was navigating by the DG. Landmarks were few and far between, but the most obvious one was Pyramid Hill, which according to my track on the chart should have been off my left wing. At the time I should have been abeam, it was nowhere to be seen. A thorough scan located it well off my right wingtip. My DG had been precessing, resulting in my track curving to the left. I established my position over the Lodden Valley Highway, about 40 km off track. The Lodden Valley Highway leads directly into Kerang, where I landed and ate my cut lunch. (The airport was unattended.) I contemplated how I was going to proceed back to Moorabbin and decided to climb higher to find calmer air to let the compass settle and constantly reset the DG along the way. No further incidents were encountered, and I landed back at Moorabbin. I passed the navex and got my unrestricted licence. This was back in 1968.
  10. A bit of thread drift from home deliveries, but a mate sent me 3 drone videos today. I have seen two of them before. The first one is Forestry. Drone 1 Technology - Forestation_0.mp4 Drone 3 Technology - Firefighting (1).mp4 Drone 2 Technology - Weaponry (1).mp4
  11. The Curtiss XF15C-1 is a mixed-propulsion fighter prototype of the 1940s. It was among a number of similar designs ordered by the US Navy before pure-jet aircraft had demonstrated their ability to operate from carriers and the mixed-propulsion designs were abandoned. Only three prototypes were constructed, the first one having crashed in testing while the second was scrapped and the last survives to this day. By the late 1940s, the United States Navy was interested in the mixed-power concept for its shipborne fighters. Jet engines of that era had very slow throttle response, which presented a safety concern in the case of a missed approach on an aircraft carrier as the aircraft might not be able to throttle up quickly enough to keep flying after leaving the end of the deck. This led to orders for a number of mixed-propulsion fighters, including the FR Fireball. As such, an order was placed with Curtiss on 7 April 1944 for delivery of three mixed-power aircraft, designated the F15C. Powered by both a 2,100 hp (1,566 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp propeller engine, and an Allis-Chalmers J36 turbojet, the aircraft was in theory the fastest fighter in the US Navy at that time. The first flight of the first prototype was on 27 February 1945, without the turbojet installed. When this was completed in April of the same year, the aircraft flew several mixed-power trials, however on 8 May, it crashed on a landing approach. The second prototype flew for the first time on 9 July 1945, and was soon followed by a third prototype. Both aircraft showed promise. However, by October 1946, the Navy had lost interest in the mixed-power concept and cancelled further development.
  12. The Loire-Nieuport 10 was a 1930s French prototype long-range maritime reconnaissance and combat floatplane produced by Loire-Nieuport, a joint venture between Loire Aviation and Nieuport-Delage. It was an attempt to answer the requirements for the Navy's programme Hydravion éclaireur de combat ("Combat reconnaissance seaplane") for a large floatplane capable of acting as a torpedo bomber or reconnaissance aircraft. Design of the Loire-Nieuport 10 started in 1937, with the resultant aircraft being a twin-engined monoplane of all-metal stressed-skin construction with inverted gull (or W-shaped) wings. It was powered by two Gnome-Rhône 14N radial engines mounted above the wings, with the twin large floats on pylons under the wing, directly beneath the engines. The deep fuselage accommodated a crew of six, with pilot and co-pilot seated in tandem, while a glazed nose was provided for the bomb-aimer/navigator. Defensive armament was a machine gun in the nose, with another firing through a ventral hatch, and a 20 mm cannon in a dorsal turret, while it could carry two torpedoes or 1,200 kg (2,700 lb) of bombs in an internal bomb-bay.
  13. Searched high and low for weights, stall speed, RoC, couldn't find anything.
  14. Their advertising blurb is that at 100 kph, your pizza and coffee arrives hot.
  15. The Campbell Model F, a pusher configuration, two seat sport aircraft built in the 1930s, was unconventional in its day with its empennage on twin, slim booms, a cockpit under stepless, rounded, multi-panel glazing and a tricycle undercarriage. The Model F first flew in 1935, though the exact date is unknown. By 1937, if not earlier, it was making demonstration flights including one from Bolling Air Force Base. It was damaged in another demonstration and was not repaired. For details of development and design, click here.
  16. red750

    Kawasaki Ki-56

    The Kawasaki Ki-56 (Japanese: 一式貨物輸送機, Type 1 Freight Transport) was a Japanese two-engine light transport aircraft used during World War II. It was known to the Allies by the reporting name "Thalia". 121 were built between 1940 and 1943. The Kawasaki Ki-56 was derived from the Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra aircraft that the Kawasaki Kokuki Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (The Kawasaki Aircraft Engineering Company Limited) had built under licence. In September 1939 Kawasaki was asked by the Koku Hombu to design an improved version as Ki-56. A number was also built by Tachikawa Hikoki K.K. The Japanese invasion of Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies campaign began with a paratroop drop from Ki-56 transports on Airfield P1 and the oil refineries near Palembang. Royal Air Force Hawker Hurricane fighters flying from P1 to locate the Japanese invasion fleet passed the incoming Ki-56s, but thought them to be friendly Lockheed Hudsons (also developed from the Lockheed Model 14) returning from a raid. The defending anti-aircraft gunners at P1 were equally fooled, until the parachutes began to open. Once the AA guns opened fire one transport was shot down, another force-landed, and others veered off course, but the paratroop drop was effective and the airfield and oil installations were overrun.
  17. The Emigh A-2 Trojan was an American single-engined cabin cantilever monoplane designed and built by the Emigh Trojan Aircraft Company of Douglas, Arizona. The A-2 had side-by-side seating in an enclosed cabin for a pilot and passenger. Of all metal construction it had a fixed tricycle landing gear and was powered by a Continental A90 flat-four piston engine. Many major components of the aircraft were designed to be interchangeable to simplify and lower manufacturing costs. The vertical and horizontal stabilizers where interchange able as well as the rudder and elevators. A symmetrical section of the wing was interchangeable and the upper and lower fuselage skins were also identical. A total of 58 Trojans had been completed when production ceased in 1950.
  18. The Boeing Model 360 is an American experimental medium-lift tandem rotor cargo helicopter developed privately by Boeing to demonstrate advanced helicopter technology. The aircraft was intended as a technology demonstrator, with no plans to put the type into production, and many of its design features were carried onto other programs including the RAH-66 Comanche and V-22 Osprey. The sole prototype has been preserved and is a static exhibit at the American Helicopter Museum in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
  19. The Helio Twin Courier is a twin-engined version of the Helio Courier, with only seven examples being produced. Known by Helio as the model H-500 this STOL aircraft mounted twin Lycoming engines on top of the high-set wing, close to the fuselage. With the engines mounted in this manner, lateral and over-the-nose visibility were much improved while the propellers were kept clear of cabin doors and away from possible debris damage during rough field operations. This was a tail-wheel design, so the vertical component of propeller thrust assisted STOL take-off performance from rough fields. In 1967 or 68, work was started on a redesign of the Twin Courier in a tricycle-gear configuration for the commercial market, since many firms which desired STOL capability had regulations which required multi-engine aircraft. The company ran out of money and the project was terminated. The aircraft structure of the Helio Stallion, a single-engine turboprop version of the more successful Helio Courier, was based on the design of the Twin Courier. The Twin Courier could seat six and first flew in April 1960, being awarded FAA certification on June 11, 1963. (The Twin Courier met FAA requirements marginally and was certificated to meet immediate needs for service in Vietnam, on the understanding that the design would not be marketed commercially. Thus, the redesign mentioned above.) Only seven examples were built, these receiving the United States Armed Forces designation U-5A. One was reported to have been evaluated by US Army Special Forces. Furthermore, fully automatic full-span, leading-edge slats were fitted along with high-lift flaps.
  20. The Stits SA-11A Playmate is a homebuilt aircraft design that features a rapid wing-folding mechanism for trailering or storage. The SA-11A is a single engine, side-by-side configuration seating, tricycle gear, strut-braced, low wing monoplane. The fuselage is welded steel tubing with aircraft fabric covering. The wings have a quick release mechanism that allows them to fold and lock alongside the fuselage in 15–30 seconds. Safety mechanisms were put in place so pilots could visually inspect that the wings were locked in place. A small sideways seat in the rear can accommodate 150 lb (68 kg) of luggage or a light passenger. The prototype was donated by Ray Stits in 1969 to the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Its engine went into the Stits SA-9A "Skycoupe" prototype for testing and development.
  21. The Hovey Whing Ding is an extremely minimalist American ultralight aircraft that was designed by Bob Hovey of Saugus, California, first flying in 1971. The aircraft is supplied in the form of plans for amateur construction by the Vintage Ultralight and Lightplane Association of Marietta, Georgia. Hovey set out to create the lightest aircraft to carry a person ever to fly, with the resulting design being a biplane, with a plywood box filled with Polyurethane foam serving as the fuselage, supporting the pilot's seat. The aircraft features a conventional fabric-covered empennage carried at the end of a short tailboom made of aluminum tube. The horizontal stabilizer is made from reinforced cardboard. Early versions used wing warping for roll control, while later models used full-span ailerons. The specified pusher configuration powerplant is a McCulloch chainsaw engine turning a hand-carved wooden propeller via a chain drive. The first prototype had a monowheel undercarriage, with skids under the wingtips, but this was soon changed to twin mainwheels carried on a spring-type strut. With no brakes to stop the aircraft after landing, pilots were supposed to press their heels against the mainwheels. The Whing Ding was designed long before the US FAR 103 Ultralight Vehicles regulations were introduced, but it fully conforms to the rules. The Whing Ding helped generate interest in ultralight aircraft and lead to the ultralight boom of the late 1970s and 1980s. Hovey conceived of the aircraft as an experimental project and not as a form of transportation. Due to its unreliable powerplant he intended it to only be flown over open areas where a safe landing could be carried out at any time. The plans were complex to follow and were not intended to make construction easy. Construction time typically is about 400 hours. The Whing Ding was marketed as plans, and sold extremely well - by 1979, over 6,000 sets had been purchased. In 2011 the plans were still available, and at no cost. Depending on the density altitude and the weight of the pilot, some builders discovered that the aircraft was under powered and suffered from too small a wing area to climb out of ground effect. Variants Whing Ding Initial version Whing Ding II Improved version, incorporating a higher seat to prevent pilots dragging their feet on the ground to stop the aircraft, which resulting in broken bones in some cases.
  22. red750

    Sud-Ouest Bretagne

    S.O.30 Nene test bed with Rolls Royce Nenes. Two prototypes modified.
  23. The Ayres LM200 Loadmaster was a small cargo aircraft developed in the 1990s by Ayres Corporation largely for the needs of small-package carriers. In 1996, urged on by Federal Express, development was begun, designed to carry four demi containers. The aircraft was to be powered by a LHTEC CTP800-4T turboprop, which was composed of two CTP800s driving a single five-bladed Hamilton-Standard propeller through a combining gearbox. To support this development effort, Ayres acquired the LET aircraft manufacturing company in the Czech Republic in September 1998. In 2001, the company was forced into bankruptcy when creditors foreclosed on it, and the Loadmaster program was terminated.
  24. On 10 July, an American Airlines Boeing 737 burst a tyre during the takeoff run from Tampa Airport, Florida with 174 passengers and six crew, causing a fire on the wheel. The takeoff was successfully aborted. Two days earlier, a United Airlines Boeing 757 departing Los Angeles lost a wheel which bounced across the airport. The plane managed to land safely.
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