The Peyret Tandem or Peyret Alérion, was a French single seat glider of
tandem wing QAC Quickie Q2
A tandem wing is a wing configuration in which a flying craft or animal has two or more sets of wings set one behind another. All the wings contribute to lift.
The tandem wing is distinct from the biplane in which the wings are ...
configuration. It won first prize at the first British Glider Competition of 1922.
Design and development
Louis Peyret, who had unsuccessfully attempted to fly the
Blériot III
The Blériot III was an early French aeroplane built by pioneer aviators Louis Blériot and Gabriel Voisin. It was later modified and renamed the Blériot IV, but both versions failed to fly.
Design and development
The Blériot III was radically ...
floatplane and had designed the
Blériot VI
The Blériot VI "Libellule" ("Dragonfly"), was built in 1907 and was one of the series of experimental aircraft built by Louis Blériot which eventually led to the Blériot XI aircraft in which he made the first flight across the English Channel. ...
, a tandem wing aircraft, was a friend of
Louis Blériot.
[ His post-]World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
glider was a true tandem wing aircraft with two identical pairs of straight edged, constant chord high mounted wings, swept at 5°. Both also had 5° of dihedral but the front wing was mounted at a larger angle of incidence than the rear for longitudinal stability, as is the tailplane
A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small 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 gyroplane ...
in a conventional aircraft. The wings were built up around tubular Duraluminum
Duralumin (also called duraluminum, duraluminium, duralum, dural(l)ium, or dural) is a trade name for one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium alloys. The term is a combination of '' Dürener'' and ''aluminium''.
Its use as a tr ...
spars and braced with N shaped lift strut
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 ...
s, also Duraluminum but with wooden fairings, which ran from the lower fuselage
The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...
longerons to mid-span.[
The fuselage was built around ]spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...
longerons and struts with some plywood
Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...
frames and covered with stress bearing 3-ply mahogany
Mahogany is a straight-grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Unive ...
about 2.4 mm (0.094 in) thick. Unusually, there were five main longerons. In the central region of the fuselage four of them defined a deep rectangle but the upper two came towards each other together rearwards producing an isosceles trapezoidal section. A fifth longeron ran centrally above them, positioned so that the overall fuselage section was an isosceles triangle
In geometry, an isosceles triangle () is a triangle that has two sides of equal length. Sometimes it is specified as having ''exactly'' two sides of equal length, and sometimes as having ''at least'' two sides of equal length, the latter versio ...
at the rear. Further forward, as the upper longerons separated, the fuselage had five flat faces. The side faces came together at the nose to form a vertical knife-edge and the bottom face curved upwards. The open cockpit was formed by a break in the upper skinning, though the fifth, upper, longeron continued over the pilot's head. Near the cockpit the upper skins were dished inwards to improve the pilot's view.[
At the rear, above the second wing, was a small triangular ]fin
A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foils that produce lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while traveling in water, air, or other fluids. Fin ...
which carried a rudder
A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...
that extended to the bottom of the fuselage. The Peyret had a wider track and more refined undercarriage than many of the Itford gliders, with wheels on a single axle mounted below the fuselage on a combination of rubber shock absorbers and radius arms from the forward fuselage.[
The control system was unusual. Both front and rear wings carried full-span control surfaces operated by a control column. Sideways movement of the column made the surfaces on both front and rear wings act together as conventional ]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 Flight dynamics, roll (or ...
. Forward movement of the column lowered the control surfaces on the rear wing, as with conventional elevators, but also raised those on the front wing. Thus the tail was raised and the nose depressed. The rudder was operated by a conventional rudder bar.[
]
Operational history
In August 1922 the ''Daily Mail'' newspaper offered a £1,000 prize for the longest duration flight by an unpowered, heavier than air aircraft. The competition was to be organized by the Royal Aero Club
The Royal Aero Club (RAeC) is the national co-ordinating body for air sport in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1901 as the Aero Club of Great Britain, being granted the title of the "Royal Aero Club" in 1910.
History
The Aero Club was foun ...
, who chose the site (Itford Hill, on the Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
South Downs
The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the east. ...
near Lewes
Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. It is the police and judicial centre for all of Sussex and is home to Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Lewes Crown Court and HMP Lewes. The civil parish is the centre of ...
) and the date (16–21 October). This gave competitors six weeks to design, build and transport their entries.[ 13 arrived in time and one of these was the Peyret ]tandem wing QAC Quickie Q2
A tandem wing is a wing configuration in which a flying craft or animal has two or more sets of wings set one behind another. All the wings contribute to lift.
The tandem wing is distinct from the biplane in which the wings are ...
glider, competition number 2, to be flown Alex Maneyrol. This unusual aircraft was the competition winner.[
Alex Maneyrol did not fly the Peyret Tandem until the final day of the Itford competition, Saturday 21 October. F. P. Raynham's flight of 133 min, made on the Tuesday, then stood as the longest flight but at about 14:30 Maneyrol launched into brisk winds and first exceeded Raynham's time then bettered the current world record of 186 minutes. He finally landed in the dusk, with the help of assembled car headlights, after a flight lasting just over 201 minutes which won Peyret and Maneyrol the ''Daily Mail'' £1,000 prize.][
Contemporary reports of the flight remarked on the combination of flight steadiness and controllability of the Peyret in the winds, "quick on the controls and rapid in its manoeuvres"][ and capable of "short, sharp turns".][
After Itford Maneyrol increased the world glider duration record in the Peyret Tandem to 485 minutes at Vauville on 23 January 1923. He died later that year when his powered Peyret aircraft, a conventional monoplane, broke up at the ]Lympne light aircraft trials
The Lympne Light Aircraft Trials were held to encourage the development of practical light aircraft for private ownership, with a strong but not exclusive emphasis on fuel economy. They were held in 1923, 1924 and 1926. Each year saw different rest ...
.[
An additional Peyret Tandem (or perhaps the original one refurbished) was supplied to the ]Royal Aircraft Establishment
The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...
in 1923, bearing serial number J7128.[Air-Britain, 1987: Royal Air Force Aircraft J1 - J9999]
Specifications
References
Further reading
*Simons, Martin. ''Sailplanes 1920-1945''. 2nd revised edition. EQIP Werbung und Verlag G.m.b.H.. Königswinter. 2006.
External links
j2mc1 gliders
{{Peyret aircraft
Peyret aircraft
1920s French sailplanes
Tandem-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1922