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Showing results for tags 'Early aviation'.
Found 5 results
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I don’t build a lot of airplanes, but I came across this unusual bird several years ago and thought I’d give it a go. According to Wikipedia, the Martin-Handasyde was an early monoplane with a slender wood-covered triangular section fuselage and tapered wings braced by mid-span vertical kingposts. Lateral control was by wing-warping rather than ailerons, and the undercarriage consisted of wheels on a cross-axle supplemented by a forward-projecting curved “spoon” skid. It was first flown in November 1910; pilot Graham Gilmour was eventually killed in the aircraft when it suffered a mid-air structural failure on 17 February 1912. The kit I have is the Lindberg reissue from 2014, but the model was originally released in 1966 by the British company Inpact as part of a series to tie in with the 1965 movie, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.
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This is the Lindberg reissue of the 1966 Inpact kit.
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An old scratched model from 2007, 12 years ago (as you can tell I had forgotten to add the control cables, and my wood propeller carving abilities have improved since): The Tupolev Ant-2, the first all-metal passenger plane made in Russia, shares its looks and technology with some cousins from other nations. Considering that this was 1924, you can tell how advanced the design was by simply comparing it with its wood and linen biplane (and even triplane) contemporaries. The “limousine” configuration was also used -as recently posted here- by other manufacturers and confers attractive lines that blend beautifully. A relatively simple project of a nice little plane that has its not unimportant place in aviation history.- 7 replies
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These are all old builds, and in retrospect should have been posted at the beginning of these series. They often represent the first, hesitant steps on scratchbuilding. Here is another from 2007, 12 years ago (original text as posted then): The 1917 Bruyere C-1 is one of those French planes that you can’t resist. Not for its fighting qualities, precisely, but for its futuristic lines and configuration. The fuselage was covered in metal and the optimistically denominated “flying surfaces” were traditional canvas-covered structures. The engine was located aft of the pilot and via a shaft moved a pusher propeller. A truly modern front wheel three-point landing gear was installed and the canopy could have well been in one of the Burt Rutan designs. The position of the engine dictated that a series of holes were made on the fuselage for ventilation which, added to the front lower windows, made for a mid-way model construction name change. Instead of “Bruyere”, I realized that “Gruyere” would be more appropriate. As a futuristic sculpture or even as a highly polished, over-sized espresso machine the Gruyere would probably have been more fortunate than as a plane, since it crashed as soon as it left the safe protection of the earth and gave itself to the merciless laws of physics. When art and aviation merge, the results can’t be wrong, can they?
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These are all old builds, and in retrospect should have been posted at the beginning of these series. They often represent the first, hesitant steps on scratchbuilding. Here is another from 2006, 13 years ago (original text as posted then):. Look! it's a spaceship from Saturn!...a flying doughnut!...the last area 51 project!...well, actually not. It is a pioneering plane devised by two gentlemen from Britain a few years ago (more than a hundred, actually) to take advantage of an interesting aerodynamic concept. And yes, it flew...eventually. It was powered by an enclosed 80 hp Gnome engine, could carry two people and had elevons. After a research session in my library and the Net, I found notes and images that helped a lot, but I also found the seemingly unavoidable contradictions among references that I like so much. Anyway, choices were made, a new # 11 blade was inserted in the handle and very much in Monty Python's Holy Grail fashion we went, to travel across the meandering paths of scratchbuilding, clapping our coconuts. As you can see in the images, the usual pre-kit is cut from styrene, a 7 cylinder engine made of the same material and some spare parts adapted for the occasion. Finally, the strange but beautiful shape of the Lee-Richards annular wing will cruise again on the sky of imagination.
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