WHILE the biplane borrows the general principles of flight from the birds, the monoplane carries us a step further and almost exactly reproduces their form and movement. Seen high aloft, with wings outspread, the monoplanes look like great eagles as, gracefully, but very noisily, they rise and fall in long, sweeping curves. The monoplane being a much lighter machine and less complicated is therefore cheaper to build than any multiplane model. Several of the successful models ride the air very steadily and have proven themselves capable of making long and difficult air journeys.
PLATE XXVII.
An Aëroplane with Paper Wings.
Some aviators believe that the monoplane type, highly developed, to be sure, will some day be adopted for great commercial airships. Even in its present form, these mechanical birds look very shipshape. The pilot can find a more comfortable seat among these wings than in the biplane forms, and it takes little imagination to picture these airships, greatly enlarged, carrying comfortable cabins filled with air voyagers. The most successful model aëroplanes, by the way, are of the monoplane form.
The first monoplane to make an extended flight was the Bleriot. Its inventor had worked with Voisin in the experiments above the River Seine at Paris in 1906, and beginning with short flights of only a few yards worked his way step by step. The machine in which he crossed the English Channel in 1909, and made several remarkable cross country flights, was his eleventh model.
Bleriot’s most successful model consists of only two wings curved upward, mounted on a long motor base which measures twenty-six and one half feet in length. The body of the monoplane, which is made of ash and poplar, tapers to a point in the rear and is partially covered with “Continental fabric,” similar to balloons. The front or main wing is twenty-five and a half feet in width with a surface of 159 square feet. The rear plane measures only six feet in width, and three feet in depth and is equipped with moveable tips or horizontal rudders two feet square at either side. The vertical rudder for steering to right or left, is carried behind the frame. The planes are braced by a series of stay wires running in all directions.
Unlike the biplane, the motor of the monoplane is placed in front of the wings. The blades of the propeller, which are unusually broad, measure less than seven feet from tip to tip. The pilot’s seat is inside the motor frame near the rear edge of the main wing, and with its high back and sides appears to be a comfortable place to sit. It has the disadvantage, however, of being directly behind the motor, so that a draft of air strikes the driver in the face.
The pilot keeps his machine on an even keel by flexing the tips of the planes, much the same as in the Wright model. The tips of the main plane and of the two horizontal rudders are connected with a single lever, which gives the pilot perfect control of them. The horizontal rudders may be turned to steer the aëroplane up or down in the same way. The vertical rudder for turning the aëroplane from right to left, is operated by a foot lever.
The Bleriot monoplane weighs about 500 pounds, so that it carries about four pounds for every square foot of wing surface, or thirteen pounds per square foot, which is from two to four times greater than is the case of any biplane. The machine is mounted on three wheels, two at the front and one near the rear, just forward of the rudders. It has a speed of nearly forty miles an hour.