__NOTOC__ The Bristol Racing Biplane was a British single-seat biplane designed to combine the performance of a

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

but using the strength of the biplane. It was designed by Robert Grandseigne and Léon Versepuy, who were supervised by George Challenger for the British & Colonial Aeroplane Company of Bristol, it crashed on its first flight.

Design and development

The Racing Biplane, also known as ''The Racer'' or ''Biplane No. 33'' from its Bristol sequence number, was powered by a Gnome engine driving a four-bladed tractor propeller. It had unequal span wings each with a single steel-tube

spar SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, ...

. The rectangular fuselage was a composite structure of wood and steel tubes covered in fabric. It had a twin-skid steel-tube chassis fitted with two wheels on a rubber-sprung cross axle and also had a tail skid, the main skids were long enough to act as brakes on landing. The aircraft was displayed at Olympia in 1911 and was then taken to

Larkhill Larkhill is a garrison town in the civil parish of Durrington, Wiltshire, England. It lies about west of the centre of Durrington village and north of the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge. It is about north of Salisbury. The settlement ...

in April 1911 where it was wrecked when it overturned attempting its first flight.

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

* {{Bristol aircraft 1910s British civil aircraft Racing Biplane Single-engined tractor aircraft Rotary-engined aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1911