Russia - 1913 Grigorovich M-1

From Humble Beginnings

Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich was a Russian pioneer in flying boat design. His designs were used sucessfully during World War One and both sides during the Russian Civil War. His designs served into the 1920's.

Grigorovich M-1 - 1913

The Grigorovich M-1 was a single-engine flying boat, designed by Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich and manufactured in Russia in 1913.

After repairing a crashed Donnet-Lévêque flying boat, D.P.Grigorovich built his first original flying boat . It differed from the prototype by shorter fuselage of modified shape and wing airfoil similar to one used on Farman-16.

The Grigorovich M-1 is a copy of the French Donnet-Lévêque. The two-seater aircraft was configured so the pilots sat side by side. The M-1 was powered by a Gnome engine and a wooden pusher propeller. There were pontoons mounted at the end of the lower wing to stabilize the aircraft in the water. The M-1 could take off and land in the water. There were lashing points on the fuselage for a dolly allowing land based take-offs..

General performance was satisfactory, but it was obvious that the design needed improvement.

References

1. From Wikipedia Grigorovich M-1, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigorovich_M-1"
2. Gunston, Bill. "The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875-1995". London:Osprey, 1995. ISBN 1 85532 405 9.
3. Shavrov, V.B. "History of aircraft construction in the USSR (Istoriya Konstruktsij Samoletov v SSSR.)" Vol 1-2. Moskva, Mashinostroenie, 1994. ISBN 5-217-02528-X

USA - 1914 Curtiss Model F-4

Good morning, I hope you are having a great weekend. For Americans this weekend marks a solemn observance of Memorial Day, honoring all those who fell in war defending what they held precious. Common men who through their sacrifices became heroes we should never forget. May their memory always burn bright, and may we make a better world in their honor.

Glenn Curtiss Changes the Aviation World

Glenn Curtiss was one of the most influential of all American aircraft designers. He designed many of the aircraft used by the US Air Force. His research into amphibious aircraft was a game changer. It extended air power well beyond coastal regions and created flexibility of operational roles. Flying boats would be used as fighters, reconnaissance aircraft and cargo carriers during the Great War..

The Curtiss Model F-4 flying boat came about because The Daily Mail offered a large monetary prize for an aircraft with transoceanic range in 1914 prompting a collaboration between British and American air pioneers, resulting in the highly successful Curtiss Model H.

America Develops the Curtiss Model F-4

American Curtiss Model F-4 - 1913

The Curtiss Models F made up a family of early flying boats developed in the United States in the years leading up to World War I. Widely produced, Model Fs saw service with the United States Navy under the designations C-2 through C-5, later reclassified to AB-2 through AB-5. Several examples were exported to Russia, and the type was built under license in Italy

In configuration, these were biplane flying boats powered by a single engine mounted amongst the interplane struts and driving a pusher propeller. The pilot and a single passenger sat side-by-side in an open cockpit. The wing cellule was derived from the Model E land plane and was of two-bay, unstaggered, equal-span construction with large ailerons mounted on the interplane struts and extending past the span of the wings themselves. The earliest examples of this design were built and sold by Curtiss in 1912 without any designation applied to them; the Model F name only coming into use the following year. Confusingly, Curtiss also used the designation Model E to refer to some early machines in this family, although these were quite distinct from Curtiss land planes that bore this same designation and all but identical to the Model Fs.

Model Fs built from 1918 featured a revised, unequal-span wing that incorporated the ailerons into the upper wing and sponsons on the sides of the hull to improve the aircraft's handling in water. These were known as the Model MF (for Modernized-F), and years later as the Seagull in the post-war civil market.

The US Navy initially purchased four of these aircraft in addition to the Freak Boat (C-1/AB-1) that it had already obtained and which was retrofitted to approximately the same design as the others. One of these, the C-2 became the first aircraft to fly under automatic control on 30 August 1913 when fitted with a gyroscopic stabilizer designed by Elmer Sperry. The same aircraft (by now redesignated AB-2) then became the first aircraft to be launched by catapult from a warship while underway when it took off from USS North Carolina on 5 November 1915. Her sister, AB-3, became the first US heavier-than-air aircraft to see military action when launched from USS Birmingham on 25 April 1914 on a scouting mission over Veracruz during the United States Occupation of Veracruz.

The US Navy bought another eight aircraft before the end of 1916, but orders in quantity only came following the type's selection as the Navy's standard flying-boat trainer in April 1917. An initial batch of 144 of the basic F model were ordered, followed by 22 MFs in 1918. Another 80 MFs were produced under license by the Naval Aircraft Factory. A small number of Model Es and Fs were also purchased by the US Army.

Russia Imports the Curtiss Model F-4

Russian Curtiss Model F-4 - 1913

The Russian Navy purchased two batches of Model Fs in 1913-14 and operated them as part of the Black Sea and Baltic Sea fleets until they were replaced by the Model K shortly thereafter.

Italy Begins Producing the Curtiss Model F-4

Italian Curtiss Model F-4 - 1913

In Italy, the Curtiss representative Enea Bossi secured rights for local license-production of the Type F by the Zari brothers, who built eight examples at their workshop in Bovisia, near Milan. The first of these was demonstrated to the Italian Navy on Lake Como on 22 September 1914.

References

1. Curtiss Model F. (2010, October 12). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12:59, November 1, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Curtiss_Model_F&oldid=390334667
2. The Great War Society Aircraft of the A E F Curtiss F Boat Retrieved 12:59, November 1, 2010, from http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/curtissf.htm
3. Virtual Aircraft Museum Curtiss Model F 1913 Retrieved 12:59, November 1, 2010, from http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/curtiss_model-f.php
4. Aerofiles Those Curtiss Boats Retrieved 12:59, November 1, 2010, from http://aerofiles.com/curtiss-boats.html
5. Bowers, Peter M. (1979). Curtiss Aircraft 1907-1947. London: Putnam. ISBN 0 370 10029 8.
6. Taylor, Michael J. H. (1989). Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions. pp. 193, 278.
7. The Curtiss Flyleaf. Hammondsport, New York: Glenn H. Curtiss Museum of Local History. 1987.
8. World Aircraft Information Files. London: Bright Star Publishing. pp. File 891 Sheet 43.

Britain - 1917 Beardmore W.B.IV

Another Strange Design

Beardmore W.B.IV-1917

There have been numerous times when design specifications set by the Admiralty led to the construction of very odd aircraft. The Beardmore W.B.IV is a good example of this statement. It is a hybrid land or carrier based fighter and flying boat which looks like it was designed by committee. It did have interesting lines and a distinctive appearance making it a good subject for drawing. I was in luck, there are line drawings and photographs available for reference.

The Beardmore W.B.IV was a British single-engine biplane ship-based fighter of World War I developed by William Beardmore and Company. Only one was built.

The W.B.IV was designed to meet Admiralty Specification N.1A for a naval land or ship based fighter aircraft. The design was dominated by the demands of safely ditching and remaining afloat, with a large permanent flotation chamber built into the fuselage under the nose. The pilot was in a watertight cockpit over the propeller shaft, with the Hispano-Suiza V-8 engine behind him over the center of gravity of the aircraft. The entire undercarriage could be released from the plane for water landings. The wing tips were fitted with additional floats, while the aircraft's two-bay wings could fold for storage on board ship.

Assorted Flying Boats

Wings Over the Water

Naval aviation required unique solutions to the problem of launching and landing. Carrier launched aircraft were in their infancy. Most of the ships used to deploy aircraft were tenders which winched float planes and flying boats into and out of the water. Flying boats allowed aircraft to operate away from the tender and move on the water as if it was a boat.

Flying boats were some of the largest aircraft of the first half of the 20th century, dwarfed in size only by bombers developed during World War II. Their advantage lay in using water for take-offs and landings instead of expensive land-based runways. Several examples of flying boats could be transported and launched by the usage of specially designed separate wheeled carriages.

American Flying Boat - 1918

Curtiss NC - 1918

The Curtiss NC (Navy Curtiss, nicknamed "Nancy boat" or "Nancy") was a flying boat built by Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company and used by the United States Navy from 1918 through the early 1920s. Ten of these aircraft were built, the most famous of which is the NC-4, the first airplane to make a transatlantic flight. The NC-4 is preserved in the National Museum of Naval Aviation, at NAS Pensacola, Florida.

Austrian Flying Boat - 1918

Hansa-Brandenburg CC - 1915

The first Brandenburg flying-boat was the 3-seat flying boat developed by Ernst Heinkel from a Lohner design and built in small numbers for the German and Austro-Hungarian Navies in 1915. In 1916 Heinkel produced an original design for a single-seat wooden-hulled fighter flying-boat, which he named CC after Camillo Castiglioni, financial controller of the Brandenburg company. The CC was characterized by 'starstrut' interplane bracing like that used for the D.II.

British Flying Boat - 1918

Felixstowe F.5 - 1918

The Felixstowe F.5 was a British First World War flying boat designed by Lieutenant Commander John Cyril Porte RN of the Seaplane Experimental Station, Felixstowe.

The Felixstowe F5 was intended to combine the good qualities of the F2 and F3, with the prototype first flying in May 1918. The prototype showed superior qualities to its predecessors but the production version was modified to make extensive use of components from the F.3, in order to ease production, giving lower performance than either the F.2a or F.3.

German Flying Boat - 1918

Hansa-Brandenburg W.20 - 1918

The Hansa-Brandenburg W.20 was a German submarine-launched reconnaissance flying boat of the World War I era, Ernst Heinkel designed and Hansa-Brandenburg began construction sometime late 1917, early 1918.Only three W.20s were built.

Due to the need to be stored in a water tight container which could be mounted on the deck of a submarine the W.20 was a small single-seat biplane flying boat that was designed to be assembled and dismantled quickly. It had a slender hull on which was mounted a biplane wing and a conventional braced tailplane.

Italian Flying Boat - 1917

Macchi M.5 - 1917

The Macchi M.5 was an Italian single-seat fighter flying boat designed and built by Macchi-Nieuport at Varese. It was extremely manoeuvrable and agile and matched the land-based aircraft it had to fight.

The production aircraft was designated the M.5 and like the prototypes were powered by a single Isotta-Fraschini V.4B engine in pusher configuration. Deliveries soon commenced in the summer of 1917 to the Aviazone per la Regia Marina (Italian Navy Aviation). Late production aircraft had a more powerful Isotta-Fraschini V.6 engine and redesigned wingtip floats, they were designated M.5 mod. Macchi produced 200 aircraft and another 44 were built by Societa Aeronautica Italiana.

Russian Flying Boat - 1915

Grigorovich M-5 - 1915

Grigorovich M-5 (alternative designation Shch M-5, sometimes also Shchetinin M-5) was a successful Russian World War I-era two-bay unequal-span biplane flying boat with a single step hull, designed by Grigorovich. It was the first mass production flying boat built in Russia.

The aircraft designer Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich completed his first flying boat (the model M-1) in late 1913, and produced a series of prototypes, gradually improving the design, until the M-5 appeared in the spring of 1915, which was to be his first aircraft to enter series production, with at least 100 being produced, primarily to replace foreign built aircraft, including Curtiss Model K and FBA flying boats.

Russia - 1916 Grigorovich M-9

Flying Russian Amphibians

Grigorovich M-9 - 1916

I have a soft spot for flying boats. Even the when the design seemed a bit outlandish they still possess a fluid graceful shape that is pleasing. Russian boats are well documented and many photos, blueprints and colored drawings exist. It makes my life easier when here is such a wealth of source material to draw from.

The Grigorovich M-9 (alternative designation ShCh M-9, sometimes also Shchetinin M-9) was a Russian World War I-era biplane flying boat, developed from the M-5 by Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich.

M-9 was a very successful flying boat, similar to the M-5. It was reliable, was operational on waves over half a meter high, and had above average handling characteristics. The M-9 could be craned to and from the water and ship. The M-9 was also capable of landing on snow without special skis.

References

1. Russian Aviation:Grigorovich/ S.S.Schetinin M-9 "http://ram-home.com/ram-old/m-9.html"
2. Rusjet http://www.rusjet.ru
3. "http://airwar.ru/enc/other1/m9.html (Russian Text)"
4. Virtual Aircraft Museum "http://www.aviastar.org/air/russia/a_grigorovich.php"
5. War is Over: Russian aviation in WW1: Flying boats "http://www.wio.ru/ww1a/fboat.htm"
6. From Wikipedia Grigorovich M-9, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigorovich_M-9"
7. Heinonen, Timo:Thulinista Hornetiin - Keski-Suomen ilmailumuseon julkaisuja 3, Keski-Suomen ilmailumuseo, (Finnish) 1992, ISBN 951-95688-2-4
8. Tucker, Spencer (Editor) "World War I: encyclopedia". M - R, Volume 3 ABC-CLIO, 2005, ISBN 1851094202, 9781851094202
9. Shavrov, V.B. "History of aircraft construction in the USSR (Istoriya Konstruktsij Samoletov v SSSR.)" Vol 1-2. Moskva, Mashinostroenie, 1994. ISBN 5-217-02528-X