FIRST FLIGHT of DH.R.A, Airco 1919

FIRST FLIGHT of DH.R.A, Airco 1919

In the immediate aftermath of"Vorld War I, the Allied powers conducted lengthy negotiations with Germany towards the eventual peace settlement embodied in the Treaty of Versailles of June 1919. At the express request of Bonar Law, therefore, a number ofDH.4 bombers powered by RollsRoyce Eagle VII I engines wefe converted to accommodate a minister and his secretary for high speed travel between London and Paris.

To this end de Havilland produced the DH.4A.

The two passengers were scated face-to-face in the rear fuselage in a cabin with sliding windows on each side. To ensure sufficient headroom, the cabin was provided with a fabric-covered wooden roof unit, which hinged with the right-hand side to allow the passengers in and out; this was faired into the tail by a new upper fuselage decking. AS considerable extra weight was thus placed in the rear fuselage, the wings were re-rigged to restore the aircraft's centre of gravity, the upper wing being moved back 0.305 m (1 ft) in relation to the lower wing.

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The FIRST FLIGHT CL-4S, Boeing 1918

The FIRST FLIGHT CL-4S, Boeing 1918

The Boeing CL-4S holds a unique place in the history of civil aviation as the aircraft used for the world's first International Contract Air Mail Service, in this instance between Seattle in the state of Washington, USA, and Victoria in the province of British Columbia, Canada, on March 3, 1919.

Air mail was not new: since February 18, 1911 there had been at least 14 separate air services in eight countries; but the service flown on March 3, 1919 was the first formally constituted international service.

The CL-4S used by Edward Hubbard, with William Boeing as a passenger, was the sole CL45, which Boeing had built as a personal aircraft under the designation C-700 as the aircraft followed on from a batch of 50 Model C (or Model 5) floatplane primary trainers built for the US Navy with the serials C-650 to C-699.

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The FIRST fLIGHT Bolshoi, Sikorsky 1913

The FIRST fLIGHT Bolshoi, Sikorsky 1913

LTHOUGH the name Sikorsky is generally aassociatcd with the development of the helicopter as a practical flying machine, Sikorsky is also notable as a great designer of Aying boats, and also as the father of the world's first four-engincd aircraft.

The origins of this last title lay in Sikorsky's appointment as head of the Russo-Baltic Vagon Works' design department after he had produced a number of relatively successful biplanes for the Imperial Russian air service.

In the early summer of 1912 Sikorsky was helped by G I Lavrov with the design of the Bolshoi Baltiskii or 'Great Baltic One'. This was a large twin-engines airliner fcaLUring accommodation for seven passengers and crew in a fully enclosed cabin.

The aircraft, which had been nicknamed the 'Tramcar with ''''ings' by the builders, first fly in Marsh 19 I3 on the power of a pair of IOO-hp Argus inline piston engines, though trials immediately showed that the aircraft was hopelessly underpowered.

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The FIRST FLIGHT of Benoist Type XIV 1913

The FIRST FLIGHT of Benoist Type XIV 1913

THE world's first airline to operate a scheduled service with heavier-than-air aircraft was the 5t Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, which had been formed on December 4, 1913 by Paul E Fansler. It was promised an operating subsidy by St Petersburg in Florida on December 13, and signed a contract with Thomas Benoist for the operation afthe airline on December 17,1913, years to the day after the Wright brothers made the world's first flight in a powered fully controllable heavier-than-air craft.

The whole operation was the brainchild of Fansler and Benoist. Benoist had made himself an extremely rich man in the automobile business, and was now somewhat obsessive in his belief that aircraft could become valuable instruments of civil transport. To this end he had set himself up as a manufacturer of aircraft in St Louis, Missouri; and in the St Petersburg to Tampa route he found an ideal opportunity for an airline. St Petersburg, a growing town, was separated from the nearest shopping centre by a 2-hour boat trip, 12-hour rail journey, or day-long car trip over very poor roads.

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FIRST FLIGHT of Humber-Sommer 1910

FIRST FLIGHT of Humber-Sommer 1910

The place in aviation history of the otherwise unimportant Humber-Sommer .biplane is assured by the fact that it was an aircraft of this type which undertook the world's first carriage of mail by an aircraft. This event was part of the Universal Postal Exhibition held in Allahabad in India during February 1911. During the exposition, the French pilot Henri Pccquct, on February 18, across the Jumna river from Allahabad to Naini Junction, in all some Skm (5 miles) with 6500 lelters.

This bizarre and isolated journey is generally accepted by philatelists as the world's first aerial post and some actual examples of the postmark still exist. Four days later, a 'regular' sen'icc for the duration of the exhibition was opened by Pcequet and Captain Walter G Windham, the aircraft that they used again being the Humber-Sommer biplane.

Though a number of aircraft types were produced by Humber before World War I, none of them was designed by the company, whose principal interests lay in the motor industry.

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