The Radley-England Waterplane was a British

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

designed and built by

James Radley James Radley (1884–1959) was one of the first English aviators, holding Royal Aero Club Aviators Certificate Number 12. As well as carrying out demonstration flights and competitions in aircraft, he also piloted a ballon in a number of ball ...

and Gordon England to take place in the 1913 Circuit of Britain race. Damaged before the start of the race, it was unable to compete and was subsequently rebuilt as the Radley-England Waterplane 2

Design and development

The Radley-England Waterplane was a twin-hulled

flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...

with a parasol-mounted biplane wing. The wing was of four-bay

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 ...

construction with

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 ...

fitted to the top wing only. A single

horizontal stabiliser 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 gyroplan ...

and

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

with twin balanced

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 ...

s mounted below it were carried on four wire-braced booms behind the wing. It was powered by three 50 hp (37 kW)

Gnome Omega The Gnome 7 Omega (commonly called the Gnome 50 hp) is a French seven-cylinder, air-cooled aero engine produced by Gnome et Rhône. It was shown at the Paris Aero Salon held in December 1908 and was first flown in 1909. It was the world's ...

rotary engine The rotary engine is an early type of internal combustion engine, usually designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial configuration. The engine's crankshaft remained stationary in operation, while the entire crankcase and i ...

s arranged in line above the wing centre section, each connected by a

roller chain Roller chain or bush roller chain is the type of chain drive most commonly used for transmission of mechanical power on many kinds of domestic, industrial and agricultural machinery, including conveyors, wire- and tube-drawing machines, printi ...

to a long shaft at the rear of which was a four-bladed propeller 9 ft 10 in (3 m) diameter. To protect the occupants from the oil thrown out, the front engine was partially enclosed by an

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

cowling A cowling is the removable covering of a vehicle's engine, most often found on automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes, and on outboard boat motors. On airplanes, cowlings are used to reduce drag and to cool the engine. On boats, cowlings are a cove ...

. A number of successful flights were made at Huntingdon in April 1913 with Gordon England at the controls, using a temporary wheeled undercarriage. It was then taken to Shoreham for further trials. During these England ran over a

buoy A buoy () is a floating device that can have many purposes. It can be anchored (stationary) or allowed to drift with ocean currents. Types Navigational buoys * Race course marker buoys are used for buoy racing, the most prevalent form of yac ...

when landing, tearing the bottom out of one of the hulls. The aircraft was subsequently rebuilt in a modified form. The flat bottomed hulls were replaced with a pair of

clinker-built Clinker built (also known as lapstrake) is a method of boat building where the edges of hull (watercraft), hull planks overlap each other. Where necessary in larger craft, shorter planks can be joined end to end, creating a longer strake or hull ...

hulls made by the South Coast Yacht Agency of Shoreham, each with a pair of tandem cockpits; the Gnome engines were replaced by a single

Sunbeam 150hp The Sunbeam Crusader, originally known as the Sunbeam 150 hp, Sunbeam 110 hp or Sunbeam 100 hp (variations on the engine may also have been referred to as Sunbeam 120 hp or Sunbeam 135 hp), was an early British, side-va ...

water-cooled engine driving a slightly smaller propeller and wing area was increased by slightly increasing the span of the upper wing.

Specifications (Waterplane 2)

Notes

References

* *{{cite journal, title=Testing the Radley-England Hydro-Aeroplane, journal=Flight, date=19 April 1913, url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1913/1913%20-%200425.html, accessdate=31 December 2012 Biplanes Single-engined pusher aircraft 1910s British aircraft Racing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1913 Rotary-engined aircraft Twin-fuselage aircraft