This 1935 five seat training aircraft featured hydraulically operated retractable landing gear. The main wheels retracted into a small stub wing which formed part of the wing bracing struts. The aircraft had a particularly quiet cabin which was also bigger than normal for its type. It was not, however, commercially successful. The Heston Type 1 Phoenix was a five-seat cabin monoplane, the first on a British high-wing aircraft.
Engine: One 200 hp / 149kW D.H. Gipsy VI Length: 30.1 ft (9.15 m) Wing span: 40.3 ft (12.3 m.) Weight empty: 2,000 lb (900 kg) Passengers/Cargo: 1 pilot; 4 passengers. Max. cruise: 135 mph (217 kph) Ceiling: 20,000 ft (6,000 m) fully loaded Range: 500 miles (800 km)
In March 1933 Comper Aircraft moved to Hooton to continue building Swifts and to produce the Mouse, Streak and Kite one offs. When the company folded in March 1934, Heston Aircraft Company Ltd was formed from its assets. Heston Aircraft Co, Hounslow, Great Britain.
The second pusher biplane design built by the Herzog brothers of Harvard, Nebraska, USA, in 1909. It had a span of 48 ft, with a characteristic wavy W-shaped top wing and small horizontal stabilizing surfaces at the tips of the lower wings. The apparently tail-less plane had biplane elevators and rudders at the front, a three-wheel undercarriage and an aircooled engine of 21 hp of unknown make.
Financed by the Royal Aeronautical Society: a two-man machine Hertfordshire Pedal Aeronauts’ Toucan (Toucan fly better than one). The Toucan was the first two man craft to fly; in December 1972 it made a flight of 613 m (670 yards).
Alfred Herrmann, pioneer of the Belgian aviation, built the first Belgian two-seater in the Twenties. An all-metal biplane aircraft for hunting and reconnaissance. The plane was constructed under the aegis of Commander Fernand Jacquet, a hero of the First World War, with the help of a handful of mechanics from Ostend and some fishermen in a small workshop in the Zeebrugge harbor.
The Vagabund is a 3-axis two-seat ultralight biplane, in classic timber construction. The design of the Vagabund goes back to 1989. The open cockpit biplane is constructed using the usual materials and working procedures for wooden aircraft. The fuselage is conserved with epoxy resin and covered with polyester fabric. A high-quality lacquer finish gives it a maximum weather protection. The open cockpit biplane has a welded tubular steel chassis with one-guidable roll spur. The wooden-propeller is driven by a 80 hp, lightweight four-stroke, horizontally-opposed aircooled Jabiru 2200 engine. As power plant also the 50 hp Nissan Micra 1200 or the 80 hp Rotax 912 UL version engine can be used. The choice of the engine has its influence on the performance of the aircraft: with the Micra 1200 the cruise speed is 125km/h, with the Rotax 912 125 km/h.
A pusher biplane with a central skid and skids under each wingtip, powered by a Curtiss 25 hp 4-cyl water-cooled engine with a four bladed propeller. Six vertical fins were arranged on the upper wing for lateral stability.
The machine was displayed at the Boston Aerial Exposition on 20-26 February, 1910.
It was first flown on 28 February 1910 by Augustus Herring on the ice at Chebacco Lake, Hamilton, MA.
It was ordered by the carousel and amusement park manufacturer Charles W. Parker of Abilene and Leavenworth Kansas. It was the first of many Burgess aeroplanes, it made the first flight in New England and was the first commercial aeroplane built and sold in New England.
With M. Arnot as sponsor, Augustus M. Herring built in 1898 this Chanute-Herring-like motorised glider. It was built and flown (twice) at St Joseph, Michigan in 1898.
In 1897 Chanute inaugurated experiments with models for the purpose of testing still a third method of obtaining automatic equilibrium, but that these had not proceeded very far. Augustus Herring, having been requested by an amateur to supply him with a gliding machine, had built a new one with his regulating mechanism, and it being tested at Dune Park in September, 1897.
After arriving at the starting point the glider was held with the chord of the surfaces pointed downward at a considerable negative angle in order that the machine should sustain only its own weight, and at the same time the apparatus was directed squarely into the momentary wind so that both sides lifted equally, and, while the machine was thus poised, the operator (in front of the apparatus), released his hold and slipped quickly underneath, passing his arms over the longitudinal bars (called arm bars), beneath the lower surface, at the same time grasping the front pair of diagonal struts which joined these bars to the framing. This done, the whole machine was lowered until the small cross-piece in the rear of the operator rested on his hips or the small of his back. In this position a considerable leverage could be exerted, and with practice even a novice could soon hold the machine under perfect control until the actual start was made down the hill.
Mr. Herring and Mr. Avery, who were the experts who operated this machine at Dune Park, seldom or never struck the ground with greater force than would have been produced by jumping down one or two feet, and even when racing no sprained ankles occurred.
Glide were generally 200 or 300 feet long, and occupied 8 to 14 seconds. The operators generally alternate in taking such flights.
With a wing area of 131 square feet, they had been able to experiment in winds of 31 1/2 miles an hour.
The speed varied all the way from 10 to 40 miles an hour in reference to the ground or from 18 to 57 miles per hour in reference to the air, at the will of the aviator. The running start in a calm consisted of about half a dozen steps; in moderate winds, from two to three; and in high winds (those above 25 miles an hour), it was only necessary to give a slight positive inclination to the surfaces, when the machine and operator were raised high in the air, and then commenced their forward journey against the wind. After reaching a certain point over the hillside (approximately one-third the way down the hill), a sudden decrease in support was generally experienced, due, in all probability, to a mass of slower moving air between the base and top of the hill, as measurement with the anemometer showed very much higher wind at the starting point and at the foot of the hill (or over the level stretch below) than between the two.
The length of flight being on an average 268 feet horizontally in a descent of 42 feet in windy weather, or 254 feet in a calm from the same point.
