Aircraft of the Shuttleworth Collection

I've been to Old Warden twice and have enjoyed it both times, even though I saw nothing fly. (Both visits were on weekdays, and not in summertime.) One can think of it as the "Old Rhinebeck of the U.K."

 

A "Flying Flea". I'll try my French, a " Pou de Ceil". An airplane that produced lift via a slot between the lower surface of the upper wing and the upper surface of the lower wing. If one changed the precise angular arrangement and flow, it was game over.

 

I missed saying, Thank you so much for posting this very nice video !

 

Great video, thanks. I have a hand-made model of the DH-88 made from a billet of aluminum.

Did not know anyone had a replica M-1C flying. Nice to see all the rotary engine powered aircraft, too. Peter Jackson's group is actually building new rotaries last time I checked.

 

With the original Flea the angle of attack of the upper wing was controlled by the pilot , an increase AOA of the upper wing increased the flow through the slot between the upper and lower wing thus maintaining lift. If the pilot allowed the upper wing to lower its angle, flow through the slot decreased. Simulating pitch control via elevator but most pilots lacked the strength to pull the trailing edge of the upper wing down to maintain the slot and lost lift and flight. Weird little airplane.

 

The literal translation of "Pou de Ciel" is "Sky Louse". Considering how many of them came to grief, I think that's a more appropriate translation than "Flying Flea"!

 

I think that attentive and careful fits better. The older small stuff has to be flown only as they want to be...with patience. The only dangerous one on the field was the Flea ....and they aren't even a bird.

 

First thing you learn with the early birds, especially WW-I rotary birds, is to avoid crosswind take-offs and landings. One reason why WW-I airfields were usually roughly rectangular, oval, circular or square in shape to allow for take-offs and landings in any direction.

 

Old Warden is a fantastic "living" museum with some wonderful old aircraft and recreations. Most of them are airworthy and are regularly displayed. It does not always go to plan though. This is a replica that is now back in the air:

 

Saw him add power late (Clergets and LeRhones did have throttles, unlike early Gnome rotaries), but she did not pick up enough to get her over the fence. Landing a rotary can be tricky using both throttle (with minimum result at low settings) and coupe/blip switch which shuts off the ignition even though the cylinders/engine are still turning. If the cylinders flooded because he left the fuel flow on with ignition off, pick-up could be very, very slow.

Luckily landing speeds are very low.

 

I mentioned it once before in a post about the Abbotsford show where the pilot of his Sopwith Pup was directed to land along the show line and he obeyed but got up on one wheel because of the x-wind. They changed the routine the next day for him to operate with the wind and not by the air show plans.

 

And when they started to pave airfields, the common thing was to have 3 runways at 60 degrees to each other, to minimize the need for crosswind operations. That was quite common up until the jet age; airports like ATL, IDL (now JFK) and LHR had runways like that which were eventually removed, since the modern jets are more amenable to crosswind operations. ATL now has five runways, and they are all parallel to each other!