History of Airplanes
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 [...]
In 1915, when the British Empire forces (mostly Indians and Australians) attacked the Turks in Mesopotamia, they needed aircraft. Or wanted them; perhaps it was a matter of national pride, that every modern army ought to have air support. At any rate, the Rajah of Gwalior underwrote the expense of the air contingent - a [...]
On the morning of October, 5, 1914, French Sergeant pilot Joseph Frantz and mechanic Corporal Quenault in their Voisin biplane spotted a German Aviatik flying at about 3500 ft. He closed on until Quenault found the range and opened fire with a light machine gun. The Aviatik dove away, but Frantz followed, Quenault firing intermittently. [...]
The Continental pusher biplane is one of the comparatively few machines of the pusher type turned out in this country. A pusher aeroplane is one in which the propeller is back of the planes and thrusts the machine forward instead of pulling it as in the tractor type. It will be recalled that [...]
Probably the most interesting aeroplane that came out during 1910 was the small Wright “roadster,” with its miniature biplane cell, and its huge propellers spanning almost the entire machine. This speed and reliability product of the Dayton inventors has excited a lot of interest, and suggested many of the improvements that the [...]
In 1903, after exhaustive experiments in gliding, Wilbur and Orville Wright finally flew a motor-driven airplane. Over the next five years they built other airplanes, which differed little from the one that first took wing at Kitty Hawk. Their first public flights, in September, 1908 (Orville Wright at Fort Meyer, and Wilbur Wright at Le [...]
In 1911, MM. Voisin Freres experimented with a biplane characterized by the absence of a tail and the grouping of the elevation and direction rudders at the front, carried by a long central fuselage. This fuselage was attached at the rear to the main biplane cell. But airplane design moved quite the [...]
The original Voisin type was soon replaced by the type “Bordeaux,” quite different from the original in controls and structure. There were several innovations on this machine, notably the Gnome rotary engine of 11 cylinders set like the spokes of a wheel.
The under-carriage and tail-booms and much of the understructure was made of steel [...]
In June, 1909, Roger Summer purchased a biplane constructed by Henri Farman, and on July 3d he made his first flight. Scarcely a month later he held the world’s record for duration of flight, having flown continuously for two and a halt hours. His sudden jump into the ranks of the [...]