During the pioneer years before the First World War, Cedric Lee and G. Tilghman Richards in the UK built and flew a series of aircraft having a novel flat ring-shaped or annular wing. They built both

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 ...

and

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 confi ...

types, and in 1913 their first monoplane proved to be an early example of a statically stable aircraft.

History

Annular biplane

Following a series of patents on circular-wing aircraft taken out by Williband Franz Zelger and Isaac Henry Storey, the

boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central h ...

engineer John George Aulsebrook Kitchen built an annular-wing biplane but was unable to fly it. He later took out his own patent, while he and Storey also jointly patent an entirely different type of multiplane.Jarrett (1976) Kitchen subsequently sold both the patent and the machine to Cedric Lee, who would also later acquire Zelger's patent. Tilghman Richards joined Lee in 1910 and together they finished the aeroplane, fitting a

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 f ...

engine in the front. The machine is known variously as the Kitchen annular biplane and the Lee-Richards annular biplane. Flight tests in 1911 were disappointing and that Autumn the biplane was destroyed on the ground by high winds, when its hangar collapsed.Lewis (1962), pages 340-343. A non-flying replica later appeared in the 1965 film ''

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines ''Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines; Or, How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes'' is a 1965 British period comedy film that satirizes the early years of aviation. Directed and co-written by Ken Annakin, the film ...

'' and is now on display at the

Newark Air Museum Newark Air Museum is an air museum located on a former Royal Air Force station at Winthorpe, near Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, England. The museum contains a variety of aircraft. History The airfield was known as RAF Winthorpe during ...

Annular glider

Lee and Richards continued experimenting with models. They developed a form having a circular lower wing with an auxiliary plane above the front half of the main wing. A full-size manned glider proved successful.

Annular monoplanes

Model tests of a new design at the National Physics Laboratory gave promising results, suggesting that an annular monoplane would be aerodynamically stable and have benign stalling characteristics. The first full-size monoplane was taken for its maiden flight in 1913 by Gordon England. It was found to be stable in the air but was tail-heavy and crashed when the engine failed. Gordon England survived to fly the next one. A second example was built with modified tail surfaces. It was flown by Gordon England,

C. Gordon Bell Chester Gordon Bell (born August 19, 1934) is an American electrical engineer and manager. An early employee of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) 1960–1966, Bell designed several of their PDP machines and later became Vice President of Eng ...

and N. S. Percival. It too was stable and was reported to be pleasant to fly. Bell subsequently crashed it, also surviving. The third and last monoplane to fly was further modified and was also pleasant to fly. It was used regularly until the outbreak of war in 1914. Lee himself then tried to fly it but succeeded only in crashing it into a lake before swimming to the shore. Two further examples were under construction in 1914, with the intention of competing in the next planned Gordon Bennett air race, however they were never completed.

Later work

Tilghman Richards continued to promote the benefits of the annular wing, but without success. While working for

Beardmore Beardmore can refer to: *Andrew Beardmore, better known as Andy Moor, English trance DJ, producer and remixer *Bob Beardmore, British rugby league footballer *Bud Beardmore (1939–2016), American lacrosse coach *Jim Beardmore, Former All-American ...

in 1916 he patented an improved method of construction. He went on to work for the

Science Museum, London The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded ...

, where a model of a Lee-Richards annular monoplane is on display. During World War I Lee ended up with the

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a cit ...

(RNVR) and was subsequently killed in action.

The annular monoplane

The wing itself took the form of a flat ring or annulus, curved to form an

aerofoil An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbine. ...

shape in section and with upward dihedral raising it progressively towards the tips. The leading edge of the front portion was initially curved downwards to promote

vortex lift Vortex lift is that portion of lift due to the action of leading edge vortices. It is generated by wings with highly sweptback, sharp, leading edges (beyond 50 degrees of sweep) or highly-swept wing-root extensions added to a wing of moderate swe ...

over the side and rear surfaces. The annular wing was crossed by a central fuselage running between the fore and aft sections of the wing. The wing was rigged with a significant angle of incidence, the forward section being level with the top of the fuselage and the aft section with the lower fuselage. The column of air flowing through the central hole was intended to improve the wing's stability in flight. In the initial design,

elevon Elevons or tailerons are aircraft control surfaces that combine the functions of the elevator (used for pitch control) and the aileron (used for roll control), hence the name. They are frequently used on tailless aircraft such as flying wings. ...

(combined elevator and aileron) control surfaces were set into the trailing edge of the aft wing section, on either side of a vertical rudder. On the second machine the elevons were moved outwards and additional elevons placed above them, with various arrangements being tried. The third machine retained the outboard elevons behind a modified wing and discarded the upper surfaces. Provision for two crew was made and an Gnome engine located in the front, driving a tractor propeller. The undercarriage was a tricycle arrangement. The circular planform allowed the wing span to be narrower than a conventional wing, making the aircraft even more unusual for its period in being longer than it was wide."The Cedric Lee monoplane"
''Flight'', 2 May 1914, Page 468.

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

*Jarrett, P.; "Circles in the Sky", ''Aeroplane Monthly'', (Part I) September 1976 Pages 493–499, (Part II) October 1976 Pages 526–531, 553. *Lewis, P.; ''British Aircraft 1809-1914'', Putnam, 1962,