The Gerner G.I or Gerner G I, was a small, low powered, two 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 ...
of steel tube construction, built in
Germany in 1928. Only one was produced but the design led to the more successful
Gerner G II R
The Gerner G II or Adler-Gerner G II was a German steel framed, low power biplane, intended both for sports and training in the early 1930. Over fifty were built for clubs and private owners.
Design and development
Max Gerner's G ...
.
Design and development
The G.I was Max Gerner's first attempt at a popular two seat light aircraft which would be both robust and cheap to buy and maintain. It therefore had a metal girder frame and
fabric covering; to keep the cost of purchase and repair down, he used standard sized steel tubing, welded together. It was a small
single bay biplane with equal span,
strongly staggered wings which were braced with slightly outward leaning N-form
interplane struts and centrally supported by a pair of similar form
cabane struts
In aeronautics, bracing comprises additional structural members which stiffen the functional airframe to give it rigidity and strength under load. Bracing may be applied both internally and externally, and may take the form of strut, which act in c ...
from wing
spars to the upper
fuselage longeron
In engineering, a longeron and stringer is the 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 ...
s. In plan the wings were rectangular, with externally connected
ailerons on both planes. Each single piece wing was built around two tubular spars with six cross members in the upper planes and four below. Edges and tips were defined by finer tubes, spot welded to the main structure; the
trailing edges were formed by wire.
[
To keep the cost low the G.I was powered by a three cylinder Anzani radial engine which produced about . It was air cooled, cowled with projecting cylinder heads, the upper one upright. Behind it the fuselage, also a tube steel structure, had a rectangular cross-section though with a lightly curved upper surface. The separate ]cockpit
A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft.
The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...
s were in tandem with the forward one between the wings and covered over in some test flights; the rear seat, from which the aircraft was flown solo, was over the lower wing trailing edge, from where the stagger and a semicircular trailing edge cut-out assisted the pilot's upward view. The forward cockpit could be equipped with a second set of controls. The rear surfaces were straight edged, with constant chord
Chord may refer to:
* Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously
** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning
* Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve
* Chord ( ...
and semicircular tips. The tailplane was mounted on top of the fuselage and the elevators had a large cut-out for rudder movement, as the latter extended downwards to the keel. The fin was wire braced to both fuselage and tailplane.[
The G.I had a ]conventional undercarriage
Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Term ...
with two mainwheels and a tailskid. Originally each wheel was mounted on a V-shaped pair of struts and a half axle attached to a central frame. This proved weak and the half axles were therefore replaced by a conventional solid axle. Both wheels and skid had rubber shock absorber
A shock absorber or damper is a mechanical or hydraulic device designed to absorb and damp shock impulses. It does this by converting the kinetic energy of the shock into another form of energy (typically heat) which is then dissipated. Most sh ...
s.[
]
Operational history
The G.I was built at Frankfurt airport, given the name ''Frankfurt'' and exhibited at the 1928 International Aviation Exhibition held in Berlin during October. The first flight was towards the end of 1928 but its low cost and ruggedness failed to attract much interest. Probably as a result Gerner's two partners, Behrens and Kuch, pulled out and Gerner set up his own company, Gerner Flugzeuge, at Frankfurt in the same year. The G.I was destroyed during an air race in September 1929.[
]
Specifications
See also
References
{{reflist, refs=
[{{cite book , last=Kens , first=Karlheinz , date=2011 , title= Historische Deutsche Flugzeug bis 1945 band 1, trans-title=Historic German Aircraft before 1945 , url=http://www.modellsport.de , language=German , location=Baden-Baden , publisher=Modellsport Verlag GMBH, pages=92–97, isbn=978-3-923142-39-2]
1920s German sport aircraft
Biplanes
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1928