Claude Grahame-White's Aircraft and Projects

hesham

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There are very interesting explanations for the twin-boom one at:
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1919/1919%20-%200272.html
(very peculiar engine layout, 1919)
« Mr. Grahame-White then gave a description of a passenger aeroplance for the London-Paris air service. This machine is shown in Fig. 1. It is to carry, the lecturer said, 24 passengers housed in comfortable compartments, and a crew of five, comprising a pilot, a navigator and directional wireless operator, a motor mechanic, and an attendant in each of the passenger cars. In addition, there will be'room for 500 lbs. of express parcels. The engines are to be installed in the central nacelle, where it will be possible to attend them carefully during the journey and to effect minor adjustments en route. The two engines placed transversely, will drive, through hollow steel shafting and gearing the tractors on the middle wing, while the third engine will drive a pusher screw placed at the rear of the engine nacelle. Each of the engines is to be of 600 h.p. »
Thanks for this discovery!
 
more information on the 24-seater in Gunston's 'Giants of the Sky' ,pp.67-8.

cheers,
Robin.
 

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I suggest that;


4- GWE.5 fast mail-carrier aircraft.
9- GWE.10 five-seat touring biplane.
10- GWE.11 four-seat touring biplane with different main landing gear.


That's only my opinion.
 

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What you call "G.W.E.10" looks suspiciously like the G.W. E.7 Aero-Limousine, which already has a topic of its own:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,14909.0

Please hesham, I appreciate that you have "opinions" on possible designations, but labelling your pictures as such without any confirmation makes it a potential source of mistakes. Once somebody saves your pictures on their computer, they can be reposted elsewhere and everyone will take these designations as fact.

Therefore I'm taking the liberty to remove your images and reposts them with simply the number they carry in the main image.

EDIT: After re-reading your first post, I found that you rightly designated image #9 as being the E.7... So what could possibly make you change your mind?
 
I'm adding two aircraft by Grahame-White which were built but not produced in quantity:
  • a 1914 two-seater pusher
  • a 1914 military tractor scout
 

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And of course the G.W. E.4 (or E.IV) Ganymede long-range bomber which appeared just before the Armistice of 1918 and was therefore not produced in quantity.

Note that the Air Pictorial item calls it the "F.IV", which is a typo (other documents label it right).
 

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Hi Stargazer,


I change my mind because the artist drawing "9" was five seat touring aircraft,and
the GWE.7 was only a four seat,and I know that designer began his second series
from GWE.1,and I heard he stopped at GWE.11,for the first thee designs,they
were probably during WW1,and the types 4,6,7,8 & 9 were known,so the missing
are types 5,10 & 11.
 
A 1960 book by Graham Wallace mentions a number of designs, unfortunately most by their in-house (or popular) names instead of their designations (where designations are mentioned, they are sometimes in Roman numerals, other times as numbers!). There are illustrations of many of the types mentioned below in the sources noted below.

Grahame-White Baby - 1911 - CG-W first design, a pusher biplane with canard in the Wright flyer style.

Grahame-White New Baby - 1911 - Developed from the Baby and exhibeted at the 1911 Olympia Aero Show.

Grahame-White Lizzie - 1913 - Sesqiplane tractor aircraft built on a Morane-Saulnier fuselage. Aso known as the Tea-tray

Grahame-White Type VI - 1913 - Military biplane to be used as a fighter rather than a scout. Pusher with an Austro-Daimler mounted at rear of nacelle. Carried three crew and one quick-firing Colt gun. Displayed at the International Aeroplane Exhibition at Olympia 1914. Designed by JD North.

Grahame-White Type VII Popular - 1913 - Pusher sesquiplane with 35 hp Anzani with a four hour endurance. Available as single or two seat models.

Grahame-White Type VIII - 1913 - Hydro-biplane with Anzani or Gnome.

Grahame-White Type IX - 1912 - Single seat tractor monoplane designed by W Rowland Ding. Gnome engine.

Grahame-White Type X Charabanc - 1912 -In 1912-13 CG-W used this large pusher biplane designed by J D North for joy-riding. Also known in the popular press as the Aerobus.

Grahame-White Type XI Warplane - 1914 - Two-seat pusher biplane designed by JD North. Gnome engine, prototype only.

Grahame-White Type XIII - 1914 Twin float tractor two-seat seaplane with 100 hp Monosoupape built for Circuit of Britain race. Later converted to a landplane. Originally known as the Circuit Seaplane.

Grahame-White Type XV - 1915 - 135 examples based on the Bristol Boxkite built for RFC and RNAS as trainers. Known as the Bi-Rudder Bus.

Grahame-White Type XVIII - 1915 - Single engine biplane bomber, not completed. Sunbeam Maori engine (285 hp).

Grahame-White Type XIX - 1916 - License built Breguet V, 10 used by RNAS to supplement 25 sent directly from Breguet.

Grahame-White Experimental - 1917 - Two seat biplane with a 75 hp RR Hawk.

Grahame-White Giant Aeroplane - 1917 - Multi-engine floated biplane with outer-deck! Eighty passenger project to travel London-New York in 15 hours (seen artists impression only).

Grahame-White Instructional - 1919 - Twin cockpit, biplane trainer with dual controls with Le Rhone engine. this was completed (and flew?)

Grahame-White Bantam - 1919 - Very small biplane single-seat aircraft. At least two built registered K.150 and K.153. Developed into the Express Air Mail aircraft.

Grahame-White Passenger Machine - 1919 - Forty seat passenger project. A triplane with two fuselages, a central nacelle for three engines and the crew.

Grahame-White Dominions - 1919 - Flying boat with two 350hp RR Eagle engines. Two crew and ten passengers, range 500 miles. Lack of money for development halted this project in the post-war economic slump.

Grahame-White GWE.7 Aero-Limousine - 1919 - Folding wing twin engine biplane designed by Boudet and finally completed post-war. Four passengers in an enclosed and glazed cabin in the nose. Registered G-EALR. DBF 1920. Similar to photo 9 in the first post in this thread.


Source:
Claude Grahame-White (Graham Wallace) Putnam 1960

British Aircraft 1809-1914 (Peter Lewis) Putnam 1962
 

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Much of CGW's archive is held by the Royal Aero Club and stored in the RAF Museum library at Hendon. In the photgraph albums the aircraft are only labeled with their names, never a numerical designation so it is possible that type numbers were only allocated at a later date. This appears to have been fairly common practice for many manufacturers, Nieuport, Morane-Saulnier, Pemberton Billing for example, and the numbering may not always be complete or even particularly logical. Guaranteed to make research a problem
 
Amazing list, Cy-27... as usual! Thanks so much for sharing. Surprising though that the Ganymede is not part of that list, since it's one of the few that got built.

Schneiderman said:
Much of CGW's archive is held by the Royal Aero Club and stored in the RAF Museum library at Hendon. In the photgraph albums the aircraft are only labeled with their names, never a numerical designation so it is possible that type numbers were only allocated at a later date. This appears to have been fairly common practice for many manufacturers, Nieuport, Morane-Saulnier, Pemberton Billing for example, and the numbering may not always be complete or even particularly logical. Guaranteed to make research a problem

Yes, but in the case of Pemberton-Billing (as for Grahame-White actually) there were two conflicting numbering systems that nearly coexisted. They were not the afterthought of some company archivist but used at the time the aircraft were drafted.

In the case of Pemberton-Billing, I think I have sorted out most of the mess in this topic:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,12689.0

For Grahame-White I think it will be much tougher...
 
The Wallace book mentioned earlier also had a photograph (see below) with a caption explaining that it was the Type XIII floatplane racer after fitting with wheels for landplane use. It looks very similar to the 1914 military tractor scout in Stargazer2006's earlier post. Could be a development of the XIII ?
 

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Hi,


for the Grahame white first series;


School Bus was two seat trainer boxkite aircraft of 1910.


Biplane of 1912,looks like Farman type.


Type XIV was licence built Morane-Saulnier Type G military aircraft.


Type XVI was a seaplane,but I am not sure.


Type XX Scout was a single seat scout biplane aircraft.


Type XXI Scout was also single seat scout biplane aircraft.
 

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Very interesting. The Types 20 and 21 are not mentioned in the other source books. Do you have a reference?

Meanwhile, I did some searching on the original paintings from the first post.

The conference that Claude Grahame-White gave in 1919 was a presentation of the book he co-penned with Harry Harper that same year: Our First Airways — Their Organization, Equipment, and Finance (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1919). The book was illustrated by 11 plates by Mr. Geoffrey Watson, 10 of which ended up in Flight Magazine. The eleventh image shows a beautiful flying boat design which hasn't been shown here before.

Here they are, enhanced from the book scans, in much better size and quality that what we previously had (I'm only posting the ones that have a proper view of an aircraft in them):
  • An express mail machine. This aircraft, which hesham hastily described as the G.W. E.6, was in fact developed FROM that model (the E.6 Bantam was a single-seat sporting biplane). We have no guarantee that it still carried that designation (think of how the G.W. E.4 bomber became the G.W. E.9 after conversion to passenger aircraft).
  • A twin-motored flying boat. This is probably the projected Dominions flying-boat of 1919 described in Cy-27's post.
  • A London-Paris passenger machine (3 images). It is described in Cy-27's post as the "Passenger machine" forty seat passenger project of 1919. A triplane with two fuselages, a central nacelle for three engines and the crew.
  • A five-seater aero-limousine. Without a doubt this is the G.W. E.7. Same name, same number of seats. From Flight: "A five-seater machine of the twin-engine type (...) the machine carries four passengers."
  • A four-seater aero-limousine. This is likely the G.W. E.9 (the former G.W. E.4 bomber rebuilt as a passenger transport). From Flight: "This machine is intended for the man who flies his own machine, and desires to be able to take three friends up with him."
 

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hesham said:
Type XII was a look like Bristol Boxkite led to develop the Type XV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grahame-White_Type_XV

hesham, that's not at all what is said in that page! Not only you did NOT answer my question as to where you'd picked the Types 20 and 21 designations, now you give wrong information!

Wikipedia pretends that the Type XV was developed from the Type XII (for which the description "box-kite" would have been more appropriate).
Other sources say that the Type XV was based on the Bristol Boxkite.

Nowhere does it say that the Type XII looked like the Bristol Boxkite! It says that the name "box-kite" would have suited it better than the Type XV.

See how you constantly jump to conclusions! Moderating you can be a full-time job, and to me it feels more like being a fireman who keeps putting out the fires that you light up in many of your posts (the "fires" being inadequate/inappropriate/wrong information). Occasionally you come up with interesting info and pics, but too often you prove that you do not have a critical approach to information. Too often you come off as a teenager who is so excited by what he finds that he doesn't take the time to wonder if he's doing the right thing... but you're three times that age, hesham, you've posted here for over seven years, every moderator and administrator keeps telling you the same things over again, both in private and in public... it's time to grow!
 
Stargazer,


what I said wrong about Type XII,no wrong info here,in Wikipedia they told
us that;the Type XII was called Box-kite (I call it Boxkite) and it also had the
same shape as Bristol Boxkite generally,and Type XV was derivative from it;


The Grahame White Type XV was a military trainer biplane produced in the United Kingdom before and during World War I. It is often referred to as the Box-kite, although this name more properly describes the Grahame-White Type XII, an earlier aircraft made by the company, from which the Type XV was derived


For Type 20;
http://flyingmachines.ru/Site2/Crafts/Craft29038.htm


For Type 21;
http://crimso.msk.ru/Site/Crafts/Craft32050.htm
 
Regarding the Type XII, we know from sources mentioned previously that the Type XV was derived from it.

I am inclined to think that the Type XII was just the first of the "box-kite" types described in British Aircraft before the Great War (Schiffer), if only because of the dates given:

In 1912-1913, a Boxkite with twin rudders, the bi-rudder 'bus, still with front elevator and exposed crew was used extensively at Hendon. On 27 November 1913, flown by Marcus D. Manton, it was used to demonstrate the use of a Lewis machine gun for firing at ground targets at Bisley.

The same book describes the aircraft commonly known as the Type XV as follows, saying that it was similar to it (box-kite arrangement) and the prototype of the production model:

A similar machine to this, RNAS No. 1600, was supplied to the Admiralty early in 1915. This became the prototype for further batches, supplied in wartime to the RNAS and later to the RFC, to a total of 135 aircraft.

The Type XV appeared in 1915, so the 1912 test aircraft described in the first quote can only be the earlier Type XII from which it derived.
 
More on the G.W.E.6 Bantam :-
Two built. G.W.E.6A, K-153, later G-EAFL, had upper wing attached directly to the fuselage, G.W.E.6, K-150, later G-EAFK, had upper wing attached to short centre section struts. Both aircraft were powered by 80hp Le Rhone rotaries.
Both aircraft were flying by April 1919, but K-150 was written off later that year, after crashing into a hangar, the pilot surviving.
K-153 survived until 1926, when it was bought by F.G.Miles, who damaged the tail in a forced landing. Despite plans to repair it, K-153 was burned on November 5th, 1928.

Source, 'Aeroplane Monthly', July 1979, pp.382-5.

cheers,
Robin.
 

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More on the Type 20 :-

"GRAHAME-WHITE TYPE 20

Before the (great)war the Grahame-White Aviation Co. Ltd. had acquired the British licence for the manufacture of the Morane-Saulnier
monoplane, several examples of which were built in 1914 and l9l5 for the Royal Flying Corps.
After the outbreak of war the company became contractors for the B.E.2c, but maintained a design ofiice and built a series of
prototypes of their own design. In 1916 the Grahame-White Type 20 appeared.
This was a small single-seat biplane powered by an 80 h.p. Clerget rotary engine. The basic structure of its fuselage was virtually that of a
Morane-Sauinier Type G or Type H, but formers and stringers were added, fairing it out to a circular cross section throughout its length.
A conventional tailplane and elevator were fitted. and there was a fixed fin; the balanced rudder was somewhat similar to that of the Grahame White monoplane of 1912.
The Grahame-White Type 20 had single-bay wings of unusually thick aerofoil section. The great gap. which may have been chosen because the pilot sat under the centre section, gave the aircraft an ungainly appearance.
Ailerons were fitted to upper and lower mainpianes, and the duplicated flying wires were faired together to reduce drag.
As an alternative power unit the Type 20 could have the 80 h.p. Le Rhone, and there is an indication that a 100 h.p. engine could be installed. A speed of “approximately 100 rniles an hour” with an 80 h.p. engine was claimed, but the aircraft never underwent official trials so no authorised performance figures are available.

Type: Single-seat Scout.
Power: One 80 hp Clerget 9C nine cylinder rotary engine.
One 80 hp Le Rhone 9C nine cylinder rotary engine.
Armament: No details available.
Performance: max. speed 100 mph at ground level.
Weights: No details available
Dimensions: No details available"

Source :- 'Warplanes of the First World War : Fighters Volume 1'

apologies for the poor quality, I only have a photocopy of this book...

cheers,
Robin.
 

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And the Type 21 :-

"GRAHAME WHITE TYPE 21

The Grahame-White Type 21 appeared in April 1917 and was a more serious attempt to produce a single-seat scout. it was rather better proportioned than the Type 20, and considerable care had been taken to keep drag to a minimum.
As on the Type 20, the basic box-girder of the fuselage appeared to be that of a Morane- Saulnier rnonoplane, but was not fully faired.
A rounded top-decking was fitted. and there was a head-rest behind the cockpit. A more conventional tail unit incorporated a fixed tailplane, the high-aspect-ratio rudder was not balanced and the vertical tail assembly had pleasing lines. Only the lower wings had dihedral, but again ailerons were fitted to upper and lower wings. The most remarkable feature of the aircraft was its single l-type interplane and centre-section struts, which were basically similar to those of the S.E.4. As on the Type 20, the duplicated flying wires were faired together.
The cockpit was under the centre section, which was covered with transparent material to improve the pilot’s upward view.
The undercarriage was of wide track, and the V-struts were broader than those of the Type 20.
Power was provided by an 80 h.p. Le Rhone engine, and the aircraft was tested with four- blade and two-blade airscrews.
A speed of 107 m.p.h. was claimed, but this was not good enough for mid-l917 and the Type 21 was not developed.

Type: Single-seat Scout.
Power: One 80 hp Le Rhone 9C nine cylinder rotary engine.
Armament: No details available.
Performance: max. speed 107 mph at ground level.
Weights: No details available
Dimensions: No details available"

Source and quality as for the previous post.

cheers,
Robin.
 

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Re. the link to the Type 21 in #16 above; That is the the Type 21, see the image in the previous post and also the text...

"...the aircraft was tested with four- blade and two-blade airscrews."

cheers,
Robin.
 
And so now we can differentiate Types 20 and 21 properly: the easiest feature is NOT the propeller as thought previously, since both two- and four-blade propellers were tested on the 21. Main differences are:
  • The Type 21 has the "rounded top decking" behind the pilot's seat.
  • Also the gap between the top wing and the fuselage is not as tall on the 21 as on the 20.
  • All girders of the main gear on the 20 is oriented forward, not so on the 21
  • Top wing of 20 has dihedral, not that of the 21.
  • Tail fin has very different shape.
Definitely great to have these three-views!
 
More obvious differences have prompted me to work on a comparative plan:
  • Rounded fuselage on G.W. 20, flat sides on G.W. 21.
  • Struts linking top wing and fuselage are vertical on G.W. 20, slanted on G.W. 21.
  • Wings are wider on G.W. 20, narrower on G.W. 21.
  • Wing tips are more slanted and pointy on G.W. 21.
All in all, these two apparently very similar aircraft, based loosely on a Morane design, were in fact two very different birds!

Now some may say: why so much effort for two obscure types of 1917 that were never operational and which most people don't care about?
Ah well... if it helps even one person in the future to no longer make a confusion between the Types 20 and 21, it will not be in vain! :)
At least I think that's what this kind of forum should be about: providing accurate and stabilized information whenever possible.

And also, I love doing that sorta stuff, flippin' heck! ;D
 

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Hi,


here is the G.W.E.4 Ganymede bomber.
 

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Hi,


here is a drawing to a strange seaplane aircraft,but maybe it was just a hypothetical design;


https://archive.org/stream/Aeroplane15#page/1171/mode/1up
 

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Probably those are ventilators like those to be found on ship decks, but the whole thing
looks quite surreal and the floats probably are way too small. ;D
 
Probably, but it ruins the joke.
Forward facing ventilators on an aircraft, that's going to be quite a wind blowing in there
 
Quite right !
A little bit strange, that this apparatus was shown on an official company's ad. Had the
idea, that it may have been a journalist's idea of a mentioned project. Wasn't that unusual,
that imagination ran free in such cases. Today such pipedreams are more often provided by
the designers or inventors directly.
 
There were quite a few speculative designs in company adverts in late 1918 and 1919 but this one is surely fantasy, designed by Heath-Robinson by the look of it :D. A strange way the advertise your company
 
Schneiderman said:
There were quite a few speculative designs in company adverts in late 1918 and 1919 but this one is surely fantasy, designed by Heath-Robinson by the look of it :D . A strange way the advertise your company

Don't forget that Grahame-White, one of the leading early aviators in Britain, was also one of the foremost authors on aviation, having put out about one book a year for the past decade. Although he most certainly had a notion of what could and could not fly, I believe he also had a notion of how aviation was the stuff that dreams are made of, and if he could enthuse the reader by displaying unlikely aircraft in the process, it was okay with him.

I'm attaching an illustration entitled "The Air Liner of the Future", taken from his book Romance of Reality - The Aeroplane (T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1914), showing a possible 1934 transport aircraft. Not very credible, but it surely must have captured the imagination of many a young reader at the time!
 

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G-W was a businessman first and foremost. If he could make a profit out of peddling dreams then that is what he would do. However when it came to having a clue about the future of the aircraft construction business he was not exactly in the forefront.
 
I change my mind because the artist drawing "9" was five seat touring aircraft,and
the GWE.7 was only a four seat,and I know that designer began his second series
from GWE.1,and I heard he stopped at GWE.11,for the first thee designs,they
were probably during WW1,and the types 4,6,7,8 & 9 were known,so the missing
are types 5,10 & 11.

The answer for the missing numbers maybe in Reply # 9 ?.
 
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