The Roe III Triplane was an early

aircraft An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...

Avro Avro (an initialism of the founder's name) was a British aircraft manufacturer. Its designs include the Avro 504, used as a trainer in the First World War, the Avro Lancaster, one of the pre-eminent bombers of the Second World War, and the d ...

. In configuration, it was similar to the Roe II Triplane, with a

triplane A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard (aeronautics), canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are. Design principles The trip ...

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabilizer, is a small lift (force), lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters ...

and an open-top fuselage of triangular cross-section, but the Roe III was a two-seater, and featured

ailerons An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...

for the first time in a Roe design. The five (some sources give three) production machines differed from the prototype in having the ailerons fitted to the middle wing (the prototype's were on the upper wing) and in being powered by a

Green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

engine in place of the prototype's

JAP ''Jap'' is an English abbreviation of the word " Japanese". In the United States, some Japanese Americans have come to find the term offensive because of the internment they suffered during World War II. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, ''Jap ...

. One example was sold to the Harvard Aeronautical Society, one was exported to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

,''Roots In The Sky - A History of British Aerospace Aircraft'', Oliver Tapper (1980), ; p. 15 and two others suffered a curious fate while ''en route'' to the 1910 Blackpool Meeting - sparks from the

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

taking them to Blackpool set fire to the aircraft. Roe was able to quickly replace them with new aircraft built from spare parts.

Specifications

References

* * * {{Avro aircraft 1910s British experimental aircraft Roe III Triplane Triplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1910

Specifications

See also

References