I have completed the build of this unusual but unique aeroplane, the Blackburn Heavy Monoplane. I have very little in the way of technical information on this aeroplane so most of the build was carried out by following a few black and white photos and some basic drawings. The comparison photos show how small this aeroplane was but it also shows the lengths designers went to in the attempt to achieve flight.
A full build log of this model can be found here
http://www.ww1aircraftmodels.com/page53.htmlDes.
As might have been expected, Robert Blackburn's first aeroplane, being the product of a trained engineering mind, was no stick and string freak. Highly original in concept, it was a wire-and-kingpost braced high wing monoplane built for strength rather than for economy in weight and in consequence was referred to in later years as the Heavy Type Monoplane to distinguish it from its successor. The parallel-chord square-cut mainplane was bolted across a wooden, wire-braced rectangular box structure which ran on three pneumatic-tyred, rubber-sprung wire wheels, the front being mounted on cantilevers whose trailing ends formed (as an additional safety feature) two long flat skids. A wicker chair from father's garden was pressed into service as a pilot's seat and was mounted on the floor of the box on runners as a means of C.G. adjustments. A 35 hp Green water cooled engine (one of Gustavus Green's four-cylinder masterpieces and owing nothing to the firm of Thomas Green) was mounted on the floor ahead of the pilot and cooled by two side radiators under the wing. It drove a slow running 8 ft 6 in propeller of Blackburn's own make through a strong 2 to 1 roller chain and sprocket reduction gear. The overhead airscrew shaft ran in bearings at the front end of a long Warren girder boom which carried a fixed tail plane and, at the extreme end, a cruciform, all-moving, non-lifting, Santos Dumont type empennage mounted on a universal joint.
Not content to copy other experimenters, Blackburn dispensed with the feet for controlling direction, and fitted his patent 'triple steering column' consisting of a single car-type steering wheel which turned to operate the all-moving tail and rudder, moved up and down when it functioned as an elevator and from side to side when warping the wings. He intended originally to fit his patented stability device in which a pendulum admitted air from an engine-driven compressor to one end or the other of a cylinder, according to which way the machine was banking, and an internal piston then operated the control surfaces so as to maintain straight and level flight. Although brilliantly anticipating the automatic pilot of the future, the device was not proceeded with and in any case would not have worked when the aeroplane was accelerating or decelerating.
The design having been completed in Paris in 1908, the aircraft was built quite rapidly in a small workshop at Benson Street, Leeds, with the assistance of
Harry Goodyear, and in April 1909, and in the face of much scepticism, Blackburn began his trials along the wide stretch of sand between Marske-by-the-Sea and Saltburn on the northeast Yorkshire coast. Painstaking taxying trials continued at intervals and the occasional absence of tyre marks proved that short hops were being made, but the 35 hp Green gave insufficient power for sustained flight and Blackburn dismissed these attempts as 'sand scratching'.
He had suspended such weighty items as engine, tanks and pilot, well below the mainplane in order to obtain a low C. of G. position, but the disadvantages of such a pendulous arrangement were not immediately obvious and it was not until 24 May 1910 that he attempted a turn and paid the price. The aircraft sideslipped, dug in the port wing, skidded into a hole and threw the pilot from his seat.
One wing was write-off, the airscrew broken and the undercarriage twisted and there was no alternative but to take the aeroplane back to Benson Street. There work began on an entirely new design and when the works moved to a larger premises in Balm Road, Leeds, the fuselage of the First Monoplane went too.
Construction: By Robert Blackburn and Harry Goodyear at Benson Street, Leeds, Yorks.
Power Plant: One 35 hp Green
Span: 24ft
Length: 23 ft
Wing Cord: 6 ft 5 in
Weight: All-up weight 800 lb
Performance: Estimated maximum speed 60 mph
Production: One aircraft only, completed September 1909, damaged beyond repair 24 May 1910, dismantled at Balm Road, Leeds, about December 1910.
