The Paulhan-Tatin Aéro-Torpille No.1, (also known as Paulhan-Tatin Aero Torpedo), was a French experimental aircraft built in 1911 as a collaboration between the famous pilot

Louis Paulhan Isidore Auguste Marie Louis Paulhan (; 19 July 1883 – 10 February 1963), was a French aviator. He is known for winning the first ''Daily Mail'' aviation prize for the first flight between London and Manchester in 1910. Biography Paulhan was b ...

and Victor Tatin, a scientist who had experimented with various types of flying models and in 1879 had made the first model aircraft to take off under its own power.

Design and development

The Aéro-Torpille No.1 created great interest during the 1911 Salon de l’Aéronautique at the Grand Palais in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

due to its novel design and streamlined appearance. Great care had been taken in the design to eliminate drag, and the design had been tested on

Gustave Eiffel Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (born Bonickhausen dit Eiffel; ; ; 15 December 1832 – 27 December 1923) was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway ...

wind tunnel Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...

. The aircraft had a streamlined circular section

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 aircraf ...

which entirely enclosed the Gnome rotary engine, which drove a pusher configuration propeller mounted at the back of the fuselage, connected to the engine by a long driveshaft. The structure of the fuselage was a conventional square-section wire-braced wood structure, outside which were circular formers bearing a series of

stringer Stringer may refer to: Structural elements * Stringer (aircraft), or longeron, a strip of wood or metal to which the skin of an aircraft is fastened * Stringer (slag), an inclusion, possibly leading to a defect, in cast metal * Stringer (stairs), ...

s to support the fabric covering. Initially a universal joint was fitted at the engine end of the driveshaft, but in tests the girder construction of the fuselage proved rigid enough for this not to be necessary, and the long tube forming the driveshaft was simply held by six ballraces attached to the structure by wires, to eliminate whip. The section of the fuselage containing the engine was covered by louvred

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 ...

panels, removable for maintenance of the engine. The wings had curved leading and

trailing edge The trailing edge of an aerodynamic surface such as a wing is its rear edge, where the airflow separated by the leading edge meets.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 521. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 199 ...

s, were tapered in planform and were curved upwards at the

wing tip A wing tip (or wingtip) is the part of the wing that is most distant from the fuselage of a fixed-wing aircraft. Because the wing tip shape influences the size and drag of the wingtip vortices, tip design has produced a diversity of sha ...

s. Flight loads were transmitted to the bottom of the fuselage by a pair of steel ribbons on either side. The rearmost of these also operated the

wing warping Wing warping was an early system for lateral (roll) control of a fixed-wing aircraft. The technique, used and patented by the Wright brothers, consisted of a system of pulleys and cables to twist the trailing edges of the wings in opposite direc ...

for lateral control. The pilot sat immediately in front of the leading edge of the wing. Even the undercarriage was of novel design, consisting of a pair of semi-circular lengths of hickory, hinged at the front and attached to the fuselage by

bungee cord Bungee cords equipped with metal hooks A bungee cord (sometimes spelled bungle; also known as a shock cord) is an elastic cord composed of one or more elastic strands forming a core, usually covered in a woven cotton or polypropylene sheath. The ...

s and bearing a pair of wheels whose spokes were covered. Tail surfaces consisted of a fixed

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 gyropla ...

with trailing-edge

elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They a ...

s and a small rectangular balanced rudder. The aircraft was flown during October 1911 and in February achieved a measured speed of . In March it was sold to the Italian aviator Signor Bosse.A Paulhan Torpedo for Italy

Flight magazine ''Flight International'' is a monthly magazine focused on aerospace. Published in the United Kingdom and founded in 1909 as "A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport", it is the world's oldes ...

16 March 1912

Specifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paulhan-Tatin Aero-Torpille No.1 Aero-Torpille 001 Single-engined pusher aircraft Rotary-engined aircraft Mid-engined aircraft 1910s French experimental aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1911