If you want to learn aerodynamics, you only need to look at the earliest aircraft designs, such as the Bleriot XI. There are no high-range turbofans, neither upper deck halls, nor global positioning systems. Instead, the aircraft is a clear expression of the design decisions necessary to overcome the four flight forces: lifting, weight, thrust and resistance. One of these “studies” can be done at the airport of the old Reinbek Cole Palen in Reinbek, New York.
Cooking ten previous configurations built by Louis Blaurot, who reinvested 60,000 French francs, assembled during the production of automotive lamps to develop a technologically successful aircraft in a race with names like The Wright Brothers, Henri Farman, Santos Dumont and Glenn Curtiss, Bleriot XI himself became the first practical monoplane of the world.
Bleriot VII, providing its original foundation, appeared with a partially closed fuselage to accommodate its solitary pilot; the wings are attached to the tubular frame of the cabin above the cabin; four-bladed, 50-horsepower Antoinette engine; large horizontal tail with double lift; small steering wheel; and swivel, independent wheels. Although it crashed on December 18, 1907, it nevertheless provided the basis for a later, final design.
Bleroot VIII, quickly following him, retained a low configuration, but had rotary ailerons of the wing and a knitted undercarriage, each of which consisted of single wheels.
Although the Bleriot IX was a larger version of the VIII, and the Bleriot X introduced a system with a pusher propeller with a triple rudder duck, these intermediate stages were a little closer to the final design and therefore were quickly discarded. This final draft took the form of Bleriot XI.
Its long, gradually tapering fuselage, formed by ash spars, spruce racks and cross beams held together by wire trusses, was light but strong and provided a common anchorage point for its aerodynamic surfaces and engine. Only half covered with cloth, it seemed primitive and incomplete, but functional.
Fabric wings with ribs with rounded tips differed 28.2-foot span and an area of 151 square feet and were attached to the fuselage at an angle at an angle, suggesting significant dihedron. Their upper surface camber and the sharply lowered leading edge were themselves an expression of aerodynamics. Carefully control their upper surfaces, the air flow down and behind their rear edges, reducing the pressure on the surface, increasing the speed of the air flow and forcing the aerodynamic profile to "react" in principle to lift. Neither the high-lift device, the bars or the flaps, nor even the ailerons were included. Instead, lateral adjustment was provided by the Wright Brothers wing-pivot method — an inverted pylon attached under the fuselage, which attaches the wire to the box-shaped drives. Twisting the entire wing in various ways, they turned it into a huge aileron, increasing its angle of incidence and causing a stream of light.
The 16 square foot rectangular stabilizer, mounted below the conical structure, provided a deflection for controlling the pitch axis, while a 4.5 square foot moving steering wheel, which seemed insignificant to the aircraft, provided yaw control at the extreme end of the fuselage.
Three-cylinder, with an inverter, Y-35-horsepower Anzani engine with air cooling, replacing the original REP power unit with a power of 30 hp. and attached to the front, ash frame, a propeller with a diameter of 1350 rev / min. Due to the lack of power in existing engines, the Bleriot XI, like all early designs, struggled with power-to-weight ratios, their designers were forced to resist the use of strong but light wood for structures and fabrics for aerodynamic surfaces.
The sleek, finely ground, intricate propeller itself was a combination of rugged carving and aerodynamic expression. In fact, a tiny wing rotating perpendicular to the flight path, it developed in the same way as the wing created by the lift, the relative wind struck it in its plane of rotation. Since it was set at an angle of attack and because he had a collapse profile, he developed a lift in the direction, redefined here as “thrust”, “spinning” the propeller, allowing him to keep the same angle of attack along his radius with a high angle of its hub, but near its rim.
The front, ash frame equally provided the attachment point for two of the three three-wheeled spiral, swivel, rubber fatigue wheels of the aircraft, which periodically attached tape wraps between the tire and rim. The unique ability to turn the undercarriage, tracing its lineage to the Bleriot VII, more adequately allowed the aircraft to work during field conditions in the field, as the tiny steering wheel had insufficient area to counteract this to any significant extent, and the assembly had otherwise too brittle to structurally withstand lateral loads. As a result, he was able to track the land at an angle.
In the cockpit, formed by a wooden frame and rubber fabric from the sides, a control system developed by Bleriot was developed in which a small, round, non-rotating wheel was mounted on a vertical pole that was based on a round metal, semi-domed "wallet" or "bell" in French, to which two front and rear aileron and two side wings were attached. Surfaces were moved by pitching forward, backward, or on both sides. The “cockpit temptation” was completed with an engine throttle on the right side and two instruments: a compass and an indicator of the amount of fuel.
A small cylindrical fuel tank was installed horizontally between the engine and the cabin.
Bleriot XI, equipped with an Anzani engine with a power of 35 hp, showed a gross weight of 661-ppund and was able to reach a speed of 47 miles per hour.
The first flight was on March 15, 1909, with an earlier REP powerplant, it only covered a distance of 8,200 feet, but this inconvenient start seriously showed the efficiency and success of the design, since only four months later on July 25 he made a record 25-mile first cross flight from Calais, France, to Dover, England, winning £ 1000 for the British pound for this feat. The historical event that caused widespread attention caused an influx of orders for this type.
The design of the Bleriot XI, low power and minimally effective surfaces dictate its operation. For example, a stepless aircraft can only be controlled by its tiny steering wheel on the ground. The take-off due to the high angle of incidence of the wing is optimally achieved with full movement or advancement of the throttle valve, which raises the tail in a position parallel to the ground and places all aircraft. s on its main wheels, while wind-dependent tracking angles can partially or completely counteract rudder deflections, depending on their degree, and its turning chassis further increases this. Thus, a profiled plane is driven into a clamp for lifting. The collapse and area of the wing, combined with the grounding effect, temporarily helps this, but it still has sharp stalling characteristics.
The stepped climb profile, dictated not by restrictions on air traffic restrictions, but by speed requirements instead, creates a lift on each “plateau”.
Since installing a full throttle should retain maximum flow over the engine to meet its “air-cooled” requirements, a slow, fragile design is susceptible to increased wind, and banks should be small and delicate. There is not enough power to counteract turns at 30 degrees and above, which exponentially increase the load on the wing and inevitably lead to a stop. Side, wing-controlled control is minimal and sluggish.
All-wheel drive, nasal descents are perfectly intercepted with a decrease in throttle before the wheels touch the ground. Earlier power cuts due to inadequate engine power, unacceptable and pre-ground boost will force the glider to its tail.
The Old Rhinebeck Bleriot XI airfield, building number 56, is the oldest flying planetary engine in the United States, only eclipsed by the Shuttleworth Collection Bleriot, which has design number 14.
Damaged during the flight in 1910 in Saugus, Massachusetts, Reinbek's example was, admittedly, Professor H. H. Cabbern, who every day passed him while riding a bicycle and who kept him until transferred to Bill Champlin Laconia, New Hampshire. In 1952, he was donated to Kola Palen, he was deprived of his engines and aerodynamic surfaces, but his front and rear third were otherwise completed. The newly built wings, horizontal stabilizer and steering wheel were installed at Stormville airport two years later, in October.
Due to the fragility of the aircraft, it is limited to “short jumps” from climbing Old Reinbek during Saturday’s Flight History show, which reached a maximum height of 60 feet. However, this short jump of an elegantly simple expression of aerodynamics traces its origin, and then represents the then “long distance” throughout the English Channel, which the original Bleriot XI did a century ago as the first practical world monoplane and predecessor for every modern aircraft that now regularly links the globe.
