A modification of the underpowered 1910 MacKensie-Hughes triplane, which featured heavily back-staggered wings that have been seen as predecessors of the Handley-Page flaps. Even with a stronger 60 hp ENV engine it failed to fly, and was apparently abandoned after a take-off mishap at Brooklands in March 1911.
The 1911 Moisant monoplane was designed and built by John Moisant.
John Bevins Moisant designed and built two aircraft between August 1909 and 1910, before he became an officially licensed pilot. His first was the Moisant Biplane.
Moisant designed and built the Le Corbeau / Crow in 1910.
John Bevins Moisant designed and built two aircraft between August 1909 and 1910, before he became an officially licensed pilot. His first was the Moisant Biplane. This experimental aircraft became the first all-metal aircraft in the world, being constructed entirely from aluminium and steel. Also known as the “aluminio-plane”, an all-metal sesquiplane built at Issy-les-Moulineaux by American aviator John Benjamin Moisant entirely of steel and aluminium; constructed by workmen hired from the Clément-Bayard airship hangar and completed in February 1910.
Revolutionary in the construction of its wing – patented by John Moisant (a US citizen) in France as 414,748 – described as aiming to make the machine automatically stable laterally without any form of ailerons or wing warping.
The Moisant biplane’s inaugural flight, and Moisant first flight, ultimately resulted in a crash after ascending only 90 feet.
Engine: Gnôme, 50 hp
Wingspan: 5.5 m
Length: 9 m
Wing area: 22 sq.m
Weight 250 kg
Mohawk Aircraft Corporation formed at Minneapolis in 1927, developing their Spurwing two-seat monoplane with a Warner Scarab engine and similar three-seater Redskin.
The aircraft designer Selahattin Resit Alan worked after studying in France at the Aircraft-Repair-Center, Eskisehir. Apart from his official activities at the center, he constructed, with the help of the carpenter master Mehmet and a small team, the two-seat training and reconnaissance aircraft MMV-1. The aircraft was ready for flight in October 1932. Except the fact that the aircraft was flown on 29 October 1935 for the ceremonies for the establishment of the Turkish Republic, there is no further indication it was ever flown again. Since the Ministry of Defence did not have any interest in the aircraft, Alan quit his position and began to work with Nuri Demirag in 1935.
For the Maintenance Command Development Centre, Air- Vice Marshal Harjinder Singh of the Indian Air Force designed Kanpur I four-seat light aircraft, prototype built at MCDC in 132 days.
Kanpur II with 250 hp Lycoming engine, first flown October 1961.
In 1955 ML Aviation at White Waltham designed and produced a portable flying machine called the ML Utility ML.1. Given the serial number XK776, the aircraft featured an inflatable rubberised fabric wing and quick release fittings enabling the aircraft to be rigged and de-rigged fairly quickly.
Over the period of a year, the prototype fuselage was redesigned from the box like structure, to a slimmer, longer structure with tandem seating fir a pilot in the front, and passenger. The tricycle undercarriage, with swivelling nosewheel, changed from wheels on a horizontal axle to rear wheels mounted on legs.
The 65 hp McCulloch pylon mounted pusher of the prototype was changed in the Mk.1 to a Walter Mikron in a cowling faired into the rear of the fuselage. Fuel was a mix of methanol, benzole, and petrol. Cruising speed increased from 45 mph to 58 mph.
The inflatable rubberised-fabric wing, of delta planform, was cleaned up. The basic structural method was retained with the upper and lower surfaces being connected by a number of porous fabric diaphtrams running spanwise and maintaining a symmetrical aerofoil profile developed from NACA 0024. After initial inflation on the ground, the wing is maintained at its correct internal pressure, under 1 lb/sq.in, by an electric pump and relief valve. The prototype had a windmill operated pump.
Control was by inflated elevons over almost the full span of the trailing edge, operated by cable from an inverted control column mounted on the fuselage superstructure. Vertical stabilising surfaces fitted near the wingtips replaced the central fin of the prototype.
The whole wing can be deflated and packed in a bag. The wing is attached to the superstructure by a series of toggles, and flying wires lead from patches on the wing undersurface to points on the fuselage and undercarriage members.
Despite evaluation by the British Army Air Corps at Middle Wallop further production was not taken up. The flight characteristics were unusually slow and the machine was then stored until saved by the Army Air Corps museum.
This was an experimental 2-seat observation aircraft built in 1957 for the Army. Fuselage consisted of a canvas bathtub type fuselage reminiscent of some later microlight aircraft.
XK776 was the first of three inflatable wing aircraft flight tested between 1954 & 1960. It went to Cardington on 27/11/69, and is now preserved at the Museum of Army Flying at Middle Wallop.
Utility Mk.1 Prototype
Engine: 65 hp McCulloch
Utility Mk.1
Engine: Walter Mikron III
Span: 35 ft 0 in
Overall length: 23 ft 3 in
Overall height: 10 ft 6 in
Wing area: 400 sq.ft
Dry weight: 450 lb
Fuel: 85 lb
Pilot weight; 180 lb
Passenger weight: 180 lb
Baggage weight: 40 lb
Total weight: 935 lb
Max speed: 68 mph
Cruise: 58 mph
Stall: 30 mph
Rate of climb: 740 fpm
Takeoff distance: 210 ft
Endurance: 2 hr 30 min
Ceiling: 5000 ft
Root chord: 17 ft 6 in
Tip chord: 5 ft 9 in
Wheelbase: 7 ft 1 in
Track: 5 ft 4 in
The Mitsubishi J4M1 was discovered in a captured document, receiving the allied code name ‘Luke’. Although featuring in a December 1944 recognition manual, the prototype was never completed.
Widely described early in the war, and included in the first allied code list, the Darai medium bomber, or anything like it, was never produced or imported by Japan. It does look like the American Bennet BTC-1 described in a 1940 Japanese magazine.
