The Grahame-White Baby was an early
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English ...
aircraft designed by pioneer aviator
Claude Grahame-White
Claude Grahame-White (21 August 1879 – 19 August 1959) was an English pioneer of aviation, and the first to make a night flight, during the ''Daily Mail''-sponsored 1910 London to Manchester air race.
Early life
Claude Grahame-White was born ...
in 1910.
Design
The Grahame White Baby was a single-seat
biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...
pusher, of the then orthodox "
Farman
Farman Aviation Works (french: Avions Farman) was a French aircraft company founded and run by the brothers Richard, Henri, and Maurice Farman. They designed and constructed aircraft and engines from 1908 until 1936; during the French nationa ...
" layout, with a frontal elevator and a rear-mounted
empennage
The empennage ( or ), also known as the tail or tail assembly, is a structure at the rear of an aircraft that provides stability during flight, in a way similar to the feathers on an arrow.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third ed ...
consisting of a biplane horizontal stabilisers with single elevator mounted on the top surface and a single central rudder. As the name suggests, it was considerably smaller than most contemporary aircraft of a similar layout, having a wingspan of only . In comparison, the wingspan of a standard
Bristol Boxkite
The Boxkite (officially the Bristol Biplane) was the first aircraft produced by the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company (later known as the Bristol Aeroplane Company). A pusher biplane based on the successful Farman III, it was one of the fi ...
was 34 ft 6 in (10.5 m). An unusual feature of the aircraft was the mounting for the 50 hp (37 kW)
Gnome rotary engine, which was mounted on a pair of angled beams so that the engine was midway between the upper and lower wings.
The
Burgess Company
The Burgess Company was a U.S. airplane manufacturer between 1910 and 1918.
History
The business was incorporated in 1910 as the "Burgess Company and Curtis, Inc." (after W. Starling Burgess and Greely S. Curtis, its co-founders with Frank Henr ...
in the United States purchased a licence to build it as the Model E.
Specifications
See also
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*Lewis, P. ''British Aircraft 1809-1914'' London, Putnam 1962
*Taylor M.J. H. ''Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation''.London: Studio Editions, 1989
* ''Flugsport 1911''
aerofiles
{{Grahame-White aircraft
1910s British sport aircraft
Biplanes
Single-engined pusher aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1911
Rotary-engined aircraft