Webb-Peet tandem

[steelpillow]

I just came across an obscure reference to a failed tandem-wing aircraft from 1910:

(Editorial) "The Tandem Monoplane: Does it Still Have a Future? Some Past Experiences Recalled", Flight, 12 August 1943, pp.167-8. (Page 1, Page 2)

Firstly, does anybody know who the editor would have been in 1943? Someone who was apprenticed to a Gloucester engineering company in 1910. So, secondly, which engineering company?

The plane had some remarkable wing features reminiscent of the more or less contemporary Dunne monoplane. Where the Dunne had sweepback and curling downturned (anhedral) tips, every aerodynamicist knows that "sweepback equals dihedral", and this had dihedral main sections with curling anhedral tips. But sadly the homebrewed rotary engine produced insufficient power and it never flew. Instead, it bankrupted the company.

Thirdly, does anybody know of any other information on this wondrous contraption?

 

[steelpillow]

Come 27 April 1944 and George Miles, writing in Flight on "The Tandem Monoplane", identifies it as the Webb-Peet tandem of 1911.

P. Lewis; British Aircraft 1809-1914, pub. Putnam, apparently (ripped from an unnamed web site) clarifies:

The Webb-Peet Tandem Monoplane was designed by the brothers Scott and built during 1910 by Webb-Peet and Co., of Gloucester. It was a two-seat canard tractor with a pair of propellers on the leading-edge of the wings. The mainplane was 40 ft. in span and the front elevating plane 25 ft., both being curved to a gull shape with flexible trailing edges. There were two small rudders at the tail. The engine was a Webb-Peet rotary. The machine did not succeed in flying. Total wing area. 410 sq.

 

[steelpillow]

Firstly, does anybody know who the editor would have been in 1943?

D'oh! The article is signed at the end C. M. P. which was of course C. M. Poulsen. I never knew he started his career as an apprentice in Gloucester!