Fabre Hydravion
Built by Henri Fabre Fabre Hydravion was the first successful seaplane aviation history.
History
Henri Fabre was born in 1882 in Marseille, the son of a successful shipowner. He dreamed as a teenager of building an aircraft that could start on the water and land. His father promised him 100,000 gold francs for the construction of such aircraft when he would complete an engineering degree. Superieure d' Electricité at the Ecole he met such famous aviation pioneers such as Breguet, Bleriot, Farman, Latham and Voisin, but with the exception of Gabriel Voisin nobody was seriously interested in the ideas of the student.
In 1906, Fabre returned home and devoted himself to the construction of the long-planned Hydravion. He first designed the float, which consisted of the assembled with copper rivets ash wood, and to whom he gave a long, slim shape. The water experiments he performed on the Etang de Berre, a bay in Provence with the borrowed from the father ship l' Essor. The l' Essor had a 147 kW (200 hp) engine, thus reaching at least nine knots. To simulate the startup Fabre designed an electric 10 hp winch and installed this on the ship's stern. He used simple piano wire of 300 m length and 1.6 mm thickness for the towing tests.
So it was possible for him to test the behavior of the swimmers in the water up to a speed of 25 knots. Indirectly, he got over the speed at which the wire was wound, also includes information on the size of the hydrodynamic resistance of the float. As a result of the experiments he cut the floats and provided them with a greater angle of attack relative to the water surface.
Since the available engines were too weak for the lifting of the machine, Fabre designed its own engine, the payable of three coupled, each 9 kW ( 12 hp ), three-cylinder Anzani engine was. About a belt the intended tractor propeller should be driven. However, the engine weight of 150 kg was to be installed in the aircraft nose is not, so that this had to be mounted more or less above the plane and above the support surface. Fabre himself had to sit behind the engine.
Worth mentioning is the unique propeller design that wanted to use color. He constructed a slight " biplane " propellers, with two leaves were behind each other and were connected by narrow bridges. He tested this design with a self-built test rig on a truck. However, he used a conventional wooden propeller with 3 m diameter for the initial flight tests.
As Fabre himself had no flying experience, he used his first attempts the engine without propeller and dragged it with its proven ship on a 400 m long rope that ran over a pylon system and an anchored buoy in the lake. Thus, the aircraft reached at least 36 knots; However, lifting could not be achieved. He then installed the propeller on a long shaft of the coupled 26 kW (36 hp) while motor was powered.
In July 1909 he took the first flight tests, with the l' Essor transported the machine in the middle of the lake and left it there to water. However, a flight did not succeed. The main reason Fabre saw in the dim engine; therefore he began to hope again when he learned of a new constructed of Laurent Seguin engine capable of performing 37 kW (50 hp). He then designed a new aircraft in canard design, which made it possible to move the motor to the extreme end of the fuselage.
First flight
After a first rolling test on the Etang de Berre, could be resolved when you still occurring engine vibration, then succeeded on the morning of March 28, 1910 the first flight, and thus also the first flight of Henri Fabre himself in an interview Fabre described in 1980 his former sensations. In the afternoon of the same day, two other flights were then performed in front of witnesses.
Unfortunately, the Hydravion was some time later lost during a demonstration in front of the audience as they grazed a rock at the landing.
Construction
The open fuselage consisted essentially of two superposed beams. The design of the canard wings corresponded to the one he already used for the wings of the first machine - an open grid spar at the wing leading edge, was curious behind the fabric to ribs, similar to today's hang gliders. The wings were braced against the hull. The canard wings were biplane surfaces, while the main wing was only carried out easily. The machine had three swimmers, one was mounted in front and two behind. The Gnôme rotary engine with a pusher propeller was installed at the far end; not least to allow the annealing, while the aircraft was on the slipway already with the front end in the water.
Effects
Shortly thereafter, the brothers Voisin also built a private seaplane, which was Voisin Canard 1 Hydro basis for this already existing Voisin Canard model that they purchased with fitting out of Fabre floats. In October 1910, the Canard Voisin was the first seaplane that flew over the Seine.