Short Brothers: No.1 Biplane
Note: This is a sub-section of Short Brothers
The Short No.1 was built for Francis McClean, who had seen Wilbur Wright's flight demonstrations at Le Mans in France. McClean, a keen astronomer, had to leave on an expedition to observe a solar eclipse in China, but wrote to Horace Short, whom he had only met once, asking him to build him an aeroplane.
Horace Short began design work in November 1908, and construction of the aircraft was started at Short Brothers' Battersea workshop in early 1909. The uncovered airframe was exhibited in March at the 1909 London Aero Show at Olympia.
The aircraft was a three-bay biplane with a biplane elevator and central fin mounted on two pairs of converging booms in front. The chord of the outer bay of each wing was extended aft to form flexible extensions to effect lateral control: between the tips of these extensions four balanced rudders were pivoted. The undercarriage consisted of a pair of ash skids extending forward almost as far as the elevators. No wheels were fitted, as it was intended to use a launching rail for take-off.
See Also
Sources of Information