Just a quick one to say that I’m a huge fan of Airminded, so was most pleased when you mentioned my Tumblr site!

Basically, it’s just a way of sorting my bookmarks visually, but with the added capability of other post types, tagging, finding other stuff within the Tumblr community etc.

THIS is a good way of browsing all the images..a couple of them are even – *gasp* – my own..

All the best,

AB

Heath:

The first step is admitting you have a problem!

The ‘Giants’ of the 1910s were a chimera, really, but the one issue that really mattered for all aviation was engine power and reliability. Most of the issues you’ve mentioned had been addressed by people who had come up with ideas – have a look at the brakes on the FE2a and Sopwith 1&1/2 Strutter for instance; but they weren’t of much actual use, and as weight was always the issue, they were taken out.

Big aircraft were viable – if the engines were there, but for other reasons they weren’t a good idea. The Dornier DoX showed what could be done, soon after, while the Sikorsky Illya Momorets in the early 1910s – and in flight engine access was vital as the engines weren’t reliable enough to be left alone – they weren’t powerful enough to achieve real altitude. (Later, the Short Sunderland had in-flight engine accessory access, which did save some aircraft over the Bay of Biscay.)

But, as you say, building something that could be lifted by the engines of the day resulted in designs that were either draggy and (just) strong enough or structurally weak – where I do agree with you! However field numbers and sizes is a red herring. Most of them had ground runs that in today’s terms would be regarded as STOL; they needed slightly bigger fields than the average farm’s. They were big, ergo had a lot of mass, but they didn’t go fast, so not much of a speed/distance factor/vector. Flaps (brakes etc.) weren’t required for aircraft that landed ‘three point’ tail down until aircraft speeds increased significantly. (I’m curious as to what was the alternatives to cable operated controls in the 1920s.)

The Americans (DC-2, Boeing 247) and Germans (Junkers F-13 and Ju 52/3m) realised what a practical size aircraft would be and what to make it out of; metal. The British continued towards W.W.II with fabric covering or wooden aircraft – good in niches, but not the future of high load-factor aircraft.

The point here is that the Giants of 1918 were about as technically plausible as the “online shopping malls” of 1999, a moment of irrational exuberance in the technical Zeitgeist.
Absolutely.

But otherwise I’m wary of the contempt of hindsight – many designers were working well and with innovation throughout the history of flight; and today’s ease and efficiencies were built on the shoulders of these giants.

The emphasis on wheel brakes misses the point. Aircraft of this era had a brake – it was the tailskid at the back. For take off, getting the tail up was crucial, which ‘released the brake’ if you like. For landing, the aircraft would arrive for a three point landing, just above the stall, at max (still flying) drag. Airfields were grass, and round, and aircraft landed into wind. Wheel brakes when they came in on 1930s taildraggers were a mixed blessing, aiding steering on the ground at low speeds, but otherwise ineffectual at higher speeds (it’s not a wheel-driven – or retarded – vehicle remember) and usually a good way to tip the aircraft on its nose at lower speeds. Good airmanship involved NOT needing to use brakes, using flight control and drag for manoeuvring and slowing respectively. The change to Bristol Blenheims from Hawker Harts was where the cultural and technical change in skill caught a lot of pilots in the RAF out – prior to that, brakes weren’t crucial except on the few surfaced runways. (What happens if you have to abort? Put the tail down close the throttles and the skid and drag will slow it faster than cramming on wheel brakes would.)

It’s a variation on the myth about the aircraft on a conveyor belt never being able to get flying speed – it’s the wings, not the wheels that matter.

In today’s airliners reverse thrust is more important than wheel brakes for stopping on the runway (but nosewheel toothpick machines are a whole different, lesser form of flying, of course.).

PS: Besler Steam plane or Clement Adler Eole III for real, successful and semi-successful steampunk points.

Barling is well covered in Gilbert’s “The World’s Worst Aircraft” – a great book of disasters.

Never mind the Tabor, have a look for the first ‘Amerika Bomber’ circa 1918, of which only one wheel survives in the hands of the IWM. That would be the Poll Giant Triplane. No photos or even drawing survive, so no one knows what it looked like…