Unfortunately, the internal structure of later machines of this type was weak, so that there were many fatal results from breaking in the air. The control was also very hard to learn. One wheel worked the warping of the wings, another worked the elevator, and there was a rudder-bar for the feet. In spite of this the plane was very beautiful to look at.
The 1910 Breguet
The first successful machine of this type was designed by M. Breguet, a French engineer, who had begun experimenting in 1908, and it appeared the latter part of 1910. The first of the year he produced a machine which was nicknamed the “coffee-pot,” because it was enclosed entirely in aluminum. This was developed later into a bombing-machine which had many interesting features. It was almost entirely constructed of steel tubes covered with aluminum plates, which led some to call it an armored aeroplane, which it was not. The tail, which was one piece with the rudder, was carried on a huge universal joint at the tip of the body, so that it swivelled up or down or sideways in response to the controls. The wings had one huge steel tubular spar, and as a result only one row of interplane struts.
The under-carriage had a shock-absorber of a pneumatic-spring construction, which was highly satisfactory, and was the prototype of the elastic-rubber devices.
The machine was heavy, but it was fast and a great weight-carrier. Because of minor defects in detail the machine never was generally used, but it was the first step toward the big tractor biplane of to-day. The Breguet 1913 seaplane, equipped with a Salmson engine, 200 horse-power, was one of the first to utilize large horse-power and was thus the forerunner of the huge flying-boat of to-day.
The Nieuport
In 1911 the brothers Charles and Edouard de Nieuport produced the monoplane more commonly known as the Nieuport. The fuselage was a very thick body, tapering well to rear. The pilot and passenger sat close together, with only their heads and shoulders visible above the fuselage. All unnecessary obstruction was removed to reduce head resistance. The under-carriage consisted only of three V’s of steel tube, of stream-line section, connected to a single longitudinal skid, thus diminishing it to a noteworthy degree.
This made a very fast machine. With only a seven-cylinder, 50 horse-power Gnome engine it travelled 70 miles an hour, and with a fourteen-cylinder, double-row, 50 horse-power Gnome, rated at 100 horse-power but actually developing 70 horse-power, it reached between 80 and 90 miles an hour. M. Weyman, in the James Gordon Bennett race in the Isle of Sheppey, made an average speed of 79.5 miles an hour, so that allowing for the corners, he must have done around 90 miles an hour on straights.
The fast modern tractor biplanes show the influence of the flat stream-lined, all-inclusive body of the Nieuport.
The most remarkable of the small machines of 1916 was the Nieuport biplane, with the 90 horse-power engine and later the 110 horse-power Le Rhone engine. This was similar to the German Fokker, an excellent fighting-machine, and a direct successor of the Sopwith Tabloid. It was noteworthy for the odd V formed by the struts between the wings.