The Roe III Triplane was an early

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engine ...

triplane A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are. Design principles The triplane arrangement m ...

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 ...

and an open-top fuselage of triangular cross-section, but the Roe III was a two-seater, and featured

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 roll (or movement around ...

for the first time in a Roe design. The five (some sources give three) production machines differed from the prototype in having the ailerons fitted to the middle wing (the prototype's were on the upper wing) and in being powered by a

Green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combi ...

engine in place of the prototype's JAP. One example was sold to the Harvard Aeronautical Society, one was exported to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

,''Roots In The Sky - A History of British Aerospace Aircraft'', Oliver Tapper (1980), ; p. 15 and two others suffered a curious fate while ''en route'' to the 1910 Blackpool Meeting - sparks from the steam locomotive taking them to Blackpool set fire to the aircraft. Roe was able to quickly replace them with new aircraft built from spare parts.

Specifications

References

* * * {{Avro aircraft 1910s British experimental aircraft Roe III Triplane Triplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1910

Specifications

See also

References