History of AirplanesAn airplane with two main wings.
The Wright brothers’ Wright Flyer, used a biplane design, as did most airplanes in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage, it produces more drag than a similar monoplane wing. Improved structural techniques and materials, and the need for greater speed, made the biplane configuration obsolete for most purposes by the late 1930s.
Biplanes include sesquiplanes, which feature a small lower wing.
One of the most notable developments at the end of 1913 was the appearance of the Sopwith ‘Tabloid’ tractor biplane. This single-seater, fitted with an 80 horsepower Gnome rotary engine, had the remarkable speed (for those days) of 92 miles an hour. A still more notable feature was that it could remain in level flight [...]
This was the last of the B.E. (Bleriot Experimental, and then British Experimental) series built by the Royal Aircraft Factory. Compared to the B.E.2, it had a more powerful rotary engine, but otherwise was quite similar. It could only carry a 100 lb. (45 kg.) bombload, even less with a two-man crew. A few [...]
An unusual-looking biplane with a reverse stagger of the wings, the upper being set back just aft of the cockpit, to allow better visibility for the pilot. The idea was to combine the superior performance of a tractor biplane with the unobstructured pilot’s forward view of a pusher type.
In May, 1917, No. 24 and No. [...]
The Sopwith ‘Pup’ was fast, agile, and easy-to-fly, perhaps reflecting the fact that it was developed from the personal aircraft of Harry Hawker, Sopwith Aviation’s test pilot.
Entering service in late summer of 1916, the Sopwith “Scout” (as it was officially termed) was one of the first British tractor biplanes with a synchonized machine gun. [...]
Fielded in 1916, the Hansa-Brandenburg D.I was a transitional aircraft of German design but Austrian manufacture. Its stability and visibility were so bad that the pilots called it ‘The Coffin.’ Altogether, about 200 were produced by Phönix and UFAG.
From its unusual appearance, Allied pilots called it the “Star Strutter.”
Top Speed: 116 m.p.h.
Manufacturer: [...]
While it resembled, both in appearance and in specifications, the D.H.2, J. Kenworth’s F.E.8 was considerably less successful. But problems with the aircraft’s stability and engine development delayed its deployment at the front until August, 1916, and by then the new German Albatros D.I and D.II wholly outclassed the British pusher biplanes like the F.E.8.. [...]
Arriving at the front in February 1916, the Airco D.H.2 was fairly late in the British series of fighter pusher biplanes. A single-seater, it was considerably faster and more agile than the Vickers Gun-bus, and enjoyed some successes against the Fokkers in early 1916. But improved German models soon surpassed it. About 450 were built.
The [...]
Visitors to Britain’s Olympia Air Show in March, 1913 had the chance to see the world’s first fighter plane; called a “Destroyer,” the Vickers Experimental Fighting Biplane (E.F.B.) was the first aircraft specifically designed to shoot down other airplanes.
As their engineers had not yet figured out how to fire a machine gun though the [...]
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An effective response and a worthy adversary to the Fokker Eindekkers, the F.E.2b appeared in September, 1915. It was a two-seater, pusher biplane, that was quite speedy and allowed for two machine guns, one firing forward, and one (albeit awkwardly) firing rearward over the upper wing. The ‘pusher’ concept would soon be [...]
THE 1912 B. E. (BRITISH EXPERIMENTAL)
In 1912 the British Government, realizing the importance of the airplane as a war-machine for scouting purposes, established the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farmborough, with Geoffrey de Havilland, one of the early British experimenters, as designer. Machines of his invention have been called D. H.’s. His 1912 airplane, the [...]