The Addyman Zephyr was a one-off, single-seat

sailplane A glider or sailplane is a type of glider aircraft used in the leisure activity and sport of gliding (also called soaring). This unpowered aircraft can use naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to gain altitude. Sailplan ...

designed and built by Erik Addyman in the UK for his own use in the 1930s.

Design

Erik Addyman designed and built the single-seat Zephyr, his first design, in 1933. It was intended as a light wind sailplane, combining a wing of modest aspect ratio with a nacelle cockpit and an open truss girder fuselage of the kind more common on

primary glider Primary glider aircraft, gliders are a category of aircraft that enjoyed worldwide popularity during the 1920s and 1930s as people strove for simple and inexpensive ways to learn to fly.Schweizer, Paul A: ''Wings Like Eagles, The Story of Soaring ...

s. It was a wooden-structured, largely

fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, and different types of fabric. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is no ...

-covered aircraft. The two- spar wing had a straight

leading edge The leading edge is the part of the wing that first contacts the air;Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 305. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. alternatively it is the foremost edge of an airfoil sectio ...

and constant chord out to a little over half span, where the trailing edges of the

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 ...

, hinged at a slight angle to the spar, curved inwards to the wingtips. It was braced from above with pairs of wires from the spars to a central, inverted V-strut pylon and below by wires to the lower nacelle

longerons In engineering, a longeron or stringer is a load-bearing component of a framework. The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural frame ...

. There were no flaps or air brakes. The central wing rib was continued rearward with the upper member of the open, flat, converging

Warren girder A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements, typically straight, may be stressed from tension, compression, or ...

fuselage, whose lower member joined the keel of the

plywood Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...

- and fabric-covered nacelle just aft of the wing trailing edge. This placed the open single cockpit just forward of the wing leading edge. A central keel skid formed the main

undercarriage Undercarriage is the part of a moving vehicle that is underneath the main body of the vehicle. The term originally applied to this part of a horse-drawn carriage, and usage has since broadened to include: *The landing gear of an aircraft. *The ch ...

, with assistance from a tail bumper. A narrow-span, triangular

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 ...

, wire braced above and below, carried longer-span

elevators An elevator (American English) or lift (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) is a machine that vertically transports people or freight between levels. They are typically powered by electric motors that drive tracti ...

with rounded tips and a cut-out for the deep, rounded

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, airship, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (usually air or water). On an airplane, the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw ...

hinged to small, triangular fin. The Zephyr flew for the first time in 1933.

Operational history

Only one Zephyr was built. Based at

Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and civil parish in the North Yorkshire District, district and North Yorkshire, county of North Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist de ...

, where Addyman was honorary secretary of the Aircraft Club, it was often launched with a tow from a horse. He flew it from many fields in central and north-western

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

up to the early part of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

; from 1940 there was a government ban on recreational glider flying. The Zephyr seems not to have flown again, though substantial parts of it still (2010) exist in store.

Specifications

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite book , title= British Gliders and Sailplanes, last=Ellison, first=Norman, year=1971, publisher=A & C Black Ltd, location=London , isbn=978-0-7136-1189-2, page=79 {{cite book , title= Wrecks & Relics, last=Ellis, first=Ken, year=2010, edition=22, publisher=Crecy , location=Manchester , isbn=978-0-85979-150-2, page=265 {{cite journal, date=March 1934 , title=Horse-towed flight , journal=Sailing and Gliding , volume=5 , issue=3 , pages=34 , url=http://www.lakesgc.co.uk/mainwebpages/Sailplane%20&%20Glider%201930%20-%201955/volume%205%20No.%203%20Mar%201934.pdf , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930180132/http://www.lakesgc.co.uk/mainwebpages/Sailplane%20%26%20Glider%201930%20-%201955/volume%205%20No.%203%20Mar%201934.pdf , archive-date=2011-09-30 {{cite journal, date=March 1933 , title=News from the Clubs - a light wind sailplane , journal=Sailing and Gliding , volume=4 , issue=8 , pages=93 , url=http://www.lakesgc.co.uk/mainwebpages/Sailplane%20&%20Glider%201930%20-%201955/volume%204%20No.%208%20Apr%2028%201933.pdf , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930180017/http://www.lakesgc.co.uk/mainwebpages/Sailplane%20%26%20Glider%201930%20-%201955/volume%204%20No.%208%20Apr%2028%201933.pdf , archive-date=2011-09-30 1930s British sailplanes Aircraft first flown in 1933