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Peyret and Maneyrol
In 1907 Louis Peyret, a French engineer, made a model with nearly identical wings.
August
1922, a glider competition in France at Combegrasse
(close to Clermont-Ferrand):
The French pilot
Alexis Maneyrol was also in the competition, but he made no
chance because of his bad glider. Peyret came in too late with his
tandemwing to be a part of the competition. It was the only tandemwing
in the competition.
Maneyrol and Peyret met. At the end of the month Maneyrol made several
flights in the glider. He thought it was a stable airplane. Together
with Peyret and his assistants they made a glider especially for a
international glider competition, organized by the Daily Mail.
You
can see the patent at http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm
, just fill in his patent number: 1,492,262 .
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Drawing of the glider, which was especially designed for the Daily Mail competition.
One thing is remarkable about
this gliders construction. It had on each wing full span control surfaces.
You can see it better on the pictures of the "small" model lower
on the page. If you pulled the steering stick, the front wing surfaces went
down and the rear wing surfaces went up. If you pushed the stick, the
opposite happened. If you pushed the stick to the right, the surfaces of the
right wing went up, the ones on the left wing went down.
The advantage of this system is that you don't need trim.
Surprise. Surprise. It won the competition. It even broke the record of longest glide. It became now 3 hours and 22 minutes. Peyret and Maneyrol became immediately French heroes. And they received the price money of 1000 Livres Sterling. Maneyrol was warmly congratulated in London by Monsieur Laurent-Eynac, a French important person (sorry, I don't know the English correct name). At arrival back to Paris, they were greeted by a mass of enthusiasts. Maneyrol was carried about like a big winner. Both got medals by the Federation. A story about victory.
Not so long later, Maneyrol broke the record again in the same Alérion Peyret. This time is became 8h 4' 50'' 2/5. Victory again. Not much later Maneyrol broke the distance record. Victory again.
But tragedy stuck and stuck hard. It was during a attempt to break the record of height that Maneyrol got killed. It was not in the Alérion Peyret. The wings broke in mid air after having reached to a incredible height. But the barograph got damaged in the accident and the record never got official.
A bit later he made the “Taupin”, a motorized tandemwing. It flew perfect! A drawing of it can be seen on the French site http://pou.guide.free.fr/comprendre/langlois/langlois.htm .
It is a pity that the aviationindustry didn't follow the tandemdesign. Their reasons were:
No laws concerning this type of airplane
Questions about aerodynamics between both wings
The fact that a second large wing had to be made, which would increase the cost and which ... didn't look good.
Euh... the French have a saying: "Les gouts et les couleurs on ne discutte pas" (translation: one does not discuss taste and colors).
About 80 years after the record, a group of modelbuilders honour Peyret and Maneyrol by making a large, flyable model of the glider. The "small" model has a span of 3,30 m (10 ft 9 in).
The
finished model of the Peyret-Maneyrol glider,
made by "groupe
du model air club de Cherbourg Hague" (my contactperson is Eric
Cousin (France))
In a article I found there was written that the first generation of tandemwings all had the same problem: interference between the two wings when changing the angle of attack. It was mentioned that the flight-behavior got from good to VERY bad. The prototypes would have been very dangerous to fly.It got me thinking: "if this is true, than Eric Cousin would have had the same problems with his large model". So, I asked Eric. I got a reply from Eric Cousin with the results of the first flights of the model. He writes:
"We
don't have a problem with the pitch control. Not on the prototype, not on
the large model. The only trouble we had was the placing of the CG (center
of gravity). The prototype was having the will to dive or was tail-heavy. If
the Cg was was too backwards, it got a very fast nose-up effect. Now I come
to think about it, I recall a flight with a not-CG-adjusted prototype where
the model nosed-up rapidly and made a funny but not-promising movement. It
flew at the opposite of its flight and the rear became the front! The
model got adjusted and we tried several settings of the wings in relation to
the fuselage. It ended with 2° for the front wing and 0° for the rear
wing. The right CG was only found after a lot of testing. Too much forward,
the model dove slightly. Too much backwards the model made a nose-up or a
parachutal desent (see Henri Mignet).
Once the CG was correct, the glider had a good glide-ratio and we were
looking forward for the first ridge-glides.
After a week to wait for ideal wind and some needed repairs we made it have
its first true ridge-glide. I was piloting. The first flight were done with
only the controls of the rear wing (mix of ailerons and elevators + rudder).
Later flights had also front wings controls.
The large model flew like the smaller prototype. Only difference was that
the large model was more wingloaded and reacted faster in pitch (up-down).
The CG was a bit more backwards. Weird thing happened. The prototype was
flown and I thought that a part of the CG-centering weights got loose
because the flight-behavior got less ideal. But, that day, all the
conventional models flying stayed down the ridge and had a bad day flying
while we stayed up. We were the best! All were surprised that day."
