The Aeroplane in War

by Claude Grahame-White; Harry Harper

In the forthcoming trials of military aeroplanes, to be conducted by the War Office, it is certain that powerful, two-seated monoplanes, propelled by seventy and hundred horse-power engines, will play an important part.

II. Latest developments in biplane construction—The engine-in-front, weight-carrying machine.

The varied experience of the year 1911, so far as the use of military biplanes was concerned, revealed very definite results at the Paris aeroplane exhibition in December.

The influence of monoplane construction, upon the design of many of the biplanes shown, was marked. Clearly revealed, for example, was the comparatively new school—initiated by the Breguet—in which the engine is fixed in the bow of the biplane, as in monoplane practice, and a form of body almost identical with that of a monoplane is adopted.

Such machines, seeing that they employ rear elevating planes, as do monoplanes, are biplanes only in the sense that they are fitted with two main-planes, set one above another. As a matter of fact, in regard to the Breguet—a notable representative of this type—the description "biplane" is occasionally dropped, and the machine called a "double-monoplane."

One of the practical advantages of the engine-in-front system is in regard to the possibility of a bad descent. In the event of an abrupt dive to the ground, with a machine of this construction, the engine, and strengthened forepart of the body, take the brunt of the shock. In machines where the power-plant is fixed behind the main-planes, a danger has revealed itself of the motor being wrenched from its wooden bed, and falling forward upon the pilot—with disastrous results.

Two notable exceptions to this new method of construction are those of Henry and Maurice Farman. They still maintain the system of placing engines behind the main-planes, and of setting pilots in front of them.

But the Henry Farman military biplane, as seen at the end of 1911, was a very different machine from that, for example, upon which Louis Paulhan made his flight from London to Manchester in April, 1910.

Probably the most obvious of the new features introduced was that of placing both pilot and observer in seats set upon a wooden framework, which projected in front of the main-planes. The object of this innovation was to provide a pilot, or reconnoitring officer, with the most unobstructed view possible of the ground below him. The objection to the scheme was that the exposed position made it highly probable that the occupants of the machine would bear the full brunt of the impact, in the case of a bad descent.

Another feature of the Henry Farman military biplane, which is under review, was the "staggering" of the planes. Farman adopted the plan of setting his upper main-plane appreciably in advance of the lower one. The "staggering" of planes is seriously criticised, by technical experts, on many grounds. But, in this case, Farman seems to have decided upon the system, in regard to his military machine, in order to facilitate a descent on rough ground, and also to assist the heavily-laden aircraft in getting away from the ground, and in "climbing." The biplane certainly performed meritoriously in the French military trials.