PIONEER AIR TRAVELS

In the first decade of the nineteenth century, the airplane had only just learned to fly. And the brave pilots of those years sought to master it so that you can explore the air travel. Among the many different aircraft types stood out one that is the best flying and best of all was controlled in flight. It was a plane-monoplane “blériot XI”. Few people know that the birth of this remarkable aviation history, the aircraft shall flying models.

 

At the end of the last century on the banks of the Potomac river in the US Professor S. Langley was experimenting with flying models equipped with a steam engine. These models were a characteristic feature: two pairs of wings located in the same plane, the rear pair had a slightly smaller wingspan than the front. The first experiments conducted with the Langley rezinomotornaya models, and then making sure they fly good, and in 1895 began manufacturing models with a steam engine. At the end of 1896 his model “Aerodrome No. 6” with a wingspan of 4.27 m, equipped with a steam engine 1 HP, flew for five minutes. It was launched with catapults standing on a floating pier over the water.

 

Information about the good flight qualities of the scheme with two pairs of wings, placed in the same plane, got to Europe. In 1905 conducted the first competition flying models, organized by the French Aero club, and in 1907 — the second. Both prize-winning places was occupied by a model of L. Polan, who had a scheme developed by Langley. At these competitions attended by a young French inventor Louis Bleriot, has long worked on the creation of the aircraft. His first, alas, pleasie devices have either flapping wings or the wings are amazing shapes in the form of a biplane with a semicircular surfaces connecting the upper and lower pairs of wings. Having been in the competition flying models, Bleriot in 1907 designs and builds a crash the fifth plane is designed similarly to the model of Polana. It was the first machine Bleriot, which he managed successfully to fly.

 

In subsequent aircraft Bleriot uses the same scheme of the wings of the monoplane — tandem, but the rear wing gradually reduces in size. So by 1903 was created by the famous plane-monoplane “blériot XI”. In the same year, the designer was driven to this expanse of water has flown from France to England across the English channel. On the same plane in France, he studied first Russian pilots: Efimov, Popov, Kostin, Rossinsky and others. It was, in fact, the first monoplane that flew well, and it sought to use as a study, and sports, and later as the military. After a noisy flight success “blériot XI” was manufactured in small batches in artisanal workshops of the author. For the flight from Petersburg to Moscow, which was held in 1911, the winner of this flight, known pilot A. Vasiliev, chose “blériot XI”. He was acquired by the Russian aeroclub near the surface, and then modified in the workshops of the club.

 

It was an all-wood monoplane with braces. Wing — two-spar, thin profile, had no ailerons; lateral control was carried out by distortion of the plane of the wing. Fuselage — rascalboy a square cross-section. In the place where sat the pilot, the fuselage was covered with canvas, in the tail of the stitched not. Stabilizer — supporting profile, the tip / tilt and are elevators, mounting to the fuselage on struts. The vertical tail is fully rotatable. In the forward part of the fuselage placed the chassis with the spring-loaded shock absorption and wheel Bicycle type. In the rear housed a either a crutch or caudal third wheel. Engine “Anzani” — star, three-cylinder, air-cooled power of 25 HP, on the shaft it housed a wooden two-bladed propeller. The color of the plane light yellow, propeller — brown, wheels, landing gear and engine are black.

 

BASIC DATA OF THE AIRCRAFT:

 

 

KOSTENKO, candidate of technical Sciences