Search the Community

Hi there, this time it's a bit off base, (no nuclear bombs, jet engines or camouflage) but hopefully suitably wacky. This is my scratch built Ader Eole, (also known as avion), a steam powered flying contraption designed and flown by French aviation pioneer Clement Ader in Paris, 1890. It's generally recognized as being the first true aeroplane in that it was able to fly under it's own power and carry a person from point A to point B..... OK it only flew 50 metres at a height of 8 inches, but hey it was a start, (I think the hoped for service ceiling was 2 feet and the range 100 metres in any case so it was well on it's way to satisfying operational requirements !) In September of 1891 it supposedly flew a second time over a distance of 100 metres, at 10 inches, (he was hoping to get to London in time for Guy Fawkes night, not sure which year !!) but this is unsubstantiated sadly.. The wing shape being based very obviously on the Egyptian fruit bat, Ader decided that rather than than risk highly complex multiple flapping wings and the inherent rapid disintegration of said wings into their component parts he would go for the really wild and far fetched idea of using a monoplane layout with fixed wing and forward airspeed to generate lift........who'da thought !!... It was powered by a small 20 hp twin stroke steam engine (alcohol burning, I dare say the fuel served a dual purpose !!), driving a flexible four blade prop..... however it had one little problem that caused no little concern to Ader and all those anywhere near him when he attempted to fly it....there was no directional control, the only thing it could do was dip wings left and right when Ader yanked back or forward on either of the two control sticks, much like a tank, but no rudder, so with this in mind and the fact that steam powered aircraft weren't really going to ever be in vogue the project was quietly dropped. A replica was built in 1990 with high hopes to prove the concept but it promptly crashed on 'take off' nearly killing the pilot in the process...hmm, maybe not then !). A larger twin 30 hp engined version was mooted for service with the French Air Force, (I can just see the pilot holding the control sticks between his knees, politely opening the door, toasting the gallant enemy before lobbing the bombs out)........but much to everyone's relief the idea was scrapped along with the part built airframe.... The model began life as a 1/30th printed paper project but after starting it as such I decided that the only way to go was via plastic as the frame work and rigging needed to be constructed separately not just printed on 2D flat card and then to scale it down to 1/72nd. Firstly I built the frame skeleton from archive photos of the real thing using various diameter plastic rod and stretched sprue then added a thin plasticard skin to the frame onto which sections of textured, printed paper were carefully glued, (this allowed everything to be easily pushed into rounded shapes rather than just be dead flat). The prop was made up from micro rod and lead wire and the blades painted using wood effect techniques as was the huge radiator stack.It wasn't heavily weathered as the real thing only had a very short service life and spent most of its time in a barn..(probably safest place for it !). The main wheels came from a Roman Chariot kit I had and the smaller from a spare PE bicycle set.Inside I included Ader himself...the interior is fully detailed but I really don't know why as none of it can be seen !....oh well. I've always had a soft spot for these early machines, this one in particular as I thought it looked very advanced for its time,(plenty of Steampunk whiffs material with this one !) and I remember seeing a photo etch of it as a kid in the London Science museum and wanting to build a model of one there and then. The only model I know of is the now very rare 1/70th Brifaut kit which includes the skeleton with a lot of fabric and rigging wire to cover it...not an easy build apparently ! I also built a small dio base using WM Langley Victorian figures to lend a bit of atmosphere to the scene... Hope you like it, Cheers, Melchie......an unmagnificent man in his dodgy flying machine... (Oh, as an aside it should appear in Finescale Modeler at some point).. In its display case with a bottle of paint to give it a bit of scale.......it's a bit of a tiddler really...