The 1912 B. E. (British Experimental)
In 1912 the British Government, realizing the importance of the aeroplane as a war-machine for scouting purposes, established the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, with Geoffrey de Havilland, one of the early British experimenters, as designer. Machines of his invention have been called D. H.’s. His 1912 aeroplane contains some of the ideas embodied in the Avro, Breguet, and the Nieuport. The machine had the lightness of a Nieuport, the stream-line of a Breguet, and the stability of an Avro. It was very light for its size and capacity, and with a 70 horse-power Renault engine it attained a speed of about 70 miles an hour, and it responded in the air and on the ground in a manner never before attained. It was the prototype of a long line of Royal Aircraft Factory designs, through all the range of B. E.’s on to the R. E. series and the S. E. series.
The initials B. E. originally stood for Bleriot Experimental, as M. Bleriot was officially credited with having originated the tractor-type aeroplane. Later B. E. was understood to indicate British Experimental. The subsequent development into R. E. indicated Reconnaissance Experimental, these being large biplanes with water-cooled engines and more tank capacity, intended for long-distance flights. S. E. indicates Scouting Experimental, the idea being that fast single-seaters would be used for scouting. They were, however, only used for fighting.
Another R. A. F. series is the F. E. or large pusher biplane, descended from the Henry Farman. The initials stood originally for Farman Experimental, but now stand for Fighting Experimental, the type being variants of the Vickers Gun Bus.
The 1914 B. E. 2c
Just before the war broke out the British R. A. F. produced an uncapsizable biplane nicknamed “Stability Jane.” Officially she was known as the B. E. 2c and was another type of Mr. De Havilland’s original B. E. Once it was in the air the machine flew itself and the pilot had only to keep it on its course. It was so slow in speed and manœuvring that it was called the “suicide bus,” yet the type was useful for certain purposes.
The 1912 Deperdussin
A very small monoplane, designed by MM. Bechereau and Koolhoven for the Deperdussin firm to compete in the James Gordon Bennett race at Rheims, proved to be the fastest machine built to the close of 1912. It was a tiny plane with a fourteen-cylinder, 100 horse-power Gnome engine. It covered 126½ miles in an hour—the first time a man had ever travelled faster than two miles a minute for a whole hour—and won the race. Allowing for corners, it must have flown well over 130 miles an hour on the straight course.
The little machine was stream-lined, even to the extent of placing a stream-lined support behind the pilot’s head. Two wheels, an axle, and four carefully stream-lined struts made up the under-carriage. The plane was remarkable for having its fuselage built wholly of three-ply wood, built on a mould without any bracing inside. It was the prototype of all the very high-speed machines of to-day. In 1916-17 the three-ply fuselage was adopted in all German fighting-machines and this country is gradually appreciating the improvement and has made many fuselages of three-ply wood.
The 1912 Curtiss Flying-Boat