Royal Aero Club light aeroplane competitions

[cluttonfred]

If, like me, you are a fan of unusual light aircraft, the British lightplane competitions held at Lympne in 1920s are a wealth of prototypes and one-off designs that spawned only a few limited production models, notably the de Havilland Hummingbird and the Westland Widgeon. A few of them are preserved today, including both a Hummingbird and a Hawker Cygnet in the Shuttleworth Collection. I stumbled across a contemporary report presented to the Royal Aeronautical Society and distributed as NACA Technical Memorandum No. 297 while looking for something else in the NASA Technical Reports Server.

Royal Aero Club light aeroplane competition
Author: Buchanan, J S
Publication Year: 1925
Document ID: 19930086647
Accession Number: 93R15937
Report/Patent Number: NACA-TM-297
Updated/Added to NTRS: May 28, 2009

The NTRS scan is quite poor and a ridiculously large .pdf file at 46 MB. I have cleaned it up and pared it down to 9 MB which you can download here. I'd have uploaded it to the forum but it's too big. I have attached as separate .jpg images below the two, two-page printed inserts accompanied the typed report for easier viewing.

Here are links to several more related NACA publications on the NASA Technical Reports Server (1-3 MB each):

TM261 Light airplanes which participated in contest at Lympne, England, October, 1923
TM289 Two-seat light airplanes which participated in contest held at Lympne, England, week of September 29 to October 4, 1924
TM301 Light airplanes of France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania
TM309 Light aeroplane engine development

These reports makes a nice companion to one of my favorite books, Richard Riding's Ultralights: The Early British Classics (Patrick Stevens Ltd., 1987) which includes photos and three-views of the Lympne competition aircraft as well as many other pre-WWII British light aircraft.

Cheers,

Matthew

[Edited to add additional NACA links!]

 

[Stargazer]

The JMN in me wonders why there is a "table i" and a "table iii" but no "table ii"... Did you forget to upload a file?

 

[cluttonfred]

Nope, that's the way it was in the original. Apparently these two large tables were reprinted from another sources and inserted among the typed pages in the original document. The tables in the typed pages are ii, iv and v, IIRC.

 

[hesham]

If, like me, you are a fan of unusual light aircraft, the British lightplane competitions held at Lympne in 1920s are a wealth of prototypes and one-off designs that spawned only a few limited production models, notably the de Havilland Hummingbird and the Westland Widgeon. A few of them are preserved today, including both a Hummingbird and a Hawker Cygnet in the Shuttleworth Collection. I stumbled across a contemporary report presented to the Royal Aeronautical Society and distributed as NACA Technical Memorandum No. 297 while looking for something else in the NASA Technical Reports Server.

Royal Aero Club light aeroplane competition
Author: Buchanan, J S
Publication Year: 1925
Document ID: 19930086647
Accession Number: 93R15937
Report/Patent Number: NACA-TM-297
Updated/Added to NTRS: May 28, 2009

The NTRS scan is quite poor and a ridiculously large .pdf file at 46 MB. I have cleaned it up and pared it down to 9 MB which you can download here. I'd have uploaded it to the forum but it's too big. I have attached as separate .jpg images below the two, two-page printed inserts accompanied the typed report for easier viewing.

Here are links to several more related NACA publications on the NASA Technical Reports Server (1-3 MB each):

TM261 Light airplanes which participated in contest at Lympne, England, October, 1923
TM289 Two-seat light airplanes which participated in contest held at Lympne, England, week of September 29 to October 4, 1924
TM301 Light airplanes of France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania
TM309 Light aeroplane engine development

These reports makes a nice companion to one of my favorite books, Richard Riding's Ultralights: The Early British Classics (Patrick Stevens Ltd., 1987) which includes photos and three-views of the Lympne competition aircraft as well as many other pre-WWII British light aircraft.

Cheers,

Matthew

[Edited to add additional NACA links!]

I did that before Mole;here is the topic;

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,8301.msg92932/highlight,9930086647.html#msg92932

 

[cluttonfred]

Wow, you guys are tough. Yes, Hesham, I now see that you did link to that document once before in the context of a thread on "RAF missing specifications" so quite a different topic.

I am trying to draw attention to the competitions themselves which produced and attracted literally dozens of prototypes, some of them quite unusual. I was pleasantly surprised to find so much original material, some of it from magazines of the day, in the NTRS.

 

[Stargazer]

Thanks Mole. The links are fantastic, and the large 46 Mb file reduced to 9 Mb is a great initiative (I initially had trouble downloading the big file and it really wasn't worth that much weight!). I had come across the very articles from Flight not so long ago, but these have excerpts from The Aeroplane as well, which makes it even more interesting.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Wikipedia entry on the Lympne light aircraft trials.

 

[hesham]

If, like me, you are a fan of unusual light aircraft, the British lightplane competitions held at Lympne in 1920s are a wealth of prototypes and one-off designs that spawned only a few limited production models, notably the de Havilland Hummingbird and the Westland Widgeon. A few of them are preserved today, including both a Hummingbird and a Hawker Cygnet in the Shuttleworth Collection. I stumbled across a contemporary report presented to the Royal Aeronautical Society and distributed as NACA Technical Memorandum No. 297 while looking for something else in the NASA Technical Reports Server.

Royal Aero Club light aeroplane competition
Author: Buchanan, J S
Publication Year: 1925
Document ID: 19930086647
Accession Number: 93R15937
Report/Patent Number: NACA-TM-297
Updated/Added to NTRS: May 28, 2009

The NTRS scan is quite poor and a ridiculously large .pdf file at 46 MB. I have cleaned it up and pared it down to 9 MB which you can download here. I'd have uploaded it to the forum but it's too big. I have attached as separate .jpg images below the two, two-page printed inserts accompanied the typed report for easier viewing.

Here are links to several more related NACA publications on the NASA Technical Reports Server (1-3 MB each):

TM261 Light airplanes which participated in contest at Lympne, England, October, 1923
TM289 Two-seat light airplanes which participated in contest held at Lympne, England, week of September 29 to October 4, 1924
TM301 Light airplanes of France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania
TM309 Light aeroplane engine development

These reports makes a nice companion to one of my favorite books, Richard Riding's Ultralights: The Early British Classics (Patrick Stevens Ltd., 1987) which includes photos and three-views of the Lympne competition aircraft as well as many other pre-WWII British light aircraft.

Cheers,

Matthew

[Edited to add additional NACA links!]

I spoke about this competition and NASA report before,why we don't
use the search in that site !.


http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,8301.45.html

 

[lark]

No reason to be upset Hesham...