Besson H-5

The Besson H-5 was a French flying boat design in the 1920s.

Development

The design was the answer of the designer Marcel Besson to a call by the French Government in 1919 for a four-engine flying boat, which should be able to bring passengers non-stop from France to Algeria. In 1921 he presented a model little later the construction of the first copy in Boulogne -sur -Seine began. 1922, the flying boat was finished, was again dismantled and shipped by rail to Saint- Raphael on the Mediterranean, to be removed from the CEPA ( Commission d' Etudes Pratiques d'Aviation ).

Since there is no civilian test pilot could be found, was Lieutenant Maurice Hurel, an experienced pilot of the French Navy, reassigned to the testing. The first flight took place on September 8, 1922. The pilot managed with great difficulty to splash down the unstable flying boat; while it has been damaged. All other repairs but the construction had only a growing curb weight result. The last flight took place on 16 Jui 1923; splashdown in the crack on the cabin floor and Hurel just managed to put the machine to the beach. A severe storm in December of the same year, in which the tail was torn off, marked the end of the project.

The CEPA presented a damning indictment of the aircraft (" ... for any kind of use out of the water unsuitable ... ").

Construction

The flying boat was designed more conventional ( for its time ) - a sperrholzbeplankter wooden frame with four braced and braced wings. The four -deck design was in the 1920s, not so unusual (so that the span should be reduced). The tail unit consisted of two surfaces and three oars. Something unusual was the hull, the ( relatively slender) was on a wide, single-step hull. Four 250 -horsepower engines were mounted on either side of the fuselage in a tandem arrangement. With a payload of 3.5 tonnes, the take-off mass should not exceed 8000 kg. Already with the first flights but the curb weight was 7150 kg; the tags and the necessary ballast overdone it at the end of 8830 kg. Besson has not only calculates the weight completely wrong, but also the weight distribution; even 850 kg ballast in the bow were not enough to ensure acceptable control characteristics.

Specifications

( liquid-cooled, nine-cylinder radial engines )

• Civilian aircraft type
• Flying boat
• Four engine plane