L.Opdyke French Aeroplanes Before the Great War (Schiffer)
Deleted by request of (c)Schiffer Publishing
Goupy
Goupy started with 2 triplanes, and then moved on to a very successful series of biplanes. The system of lettering/numbering may have been clear and complete at the time, but much of it has since become mysterious or downright missing.
Type 1: Goupy's 2 triplanes were built by Voisin, perhaps using one of their standard fuselages, a long arched box framework. The tail was a box structure with double vertical and horizontal surfaces with a third tailplane set in between. The lower wing was set against the lower longeron, the middle wing against the upper, and the top wing supported by 4 light vertical struts. The first version showed side-curtains between the 2 middle pairs of struts, and a rectangular rudder set behind the tail. The second, Ibis, showed side-curtains a la Voisin outboard, half-curtains inboard. A third version had these taken off, and a rudder added between the aft end of the fuselage and the upper stabilizer.
(Span: 7 m; weight: 650 kg; 50 hp Antoinette)
Voisin
Goupy No 1 triplane: In May 1908, the first of the 2 1908 Voisin triplanes, described under Goupy. It was powered with a 50 hp Antoinette.
De Caters No 1 triplane: In October 1908, this was the second Voisin triplane, based on Goupy's but improved.
(Span: 7.5 m; length: 9.8 m; wing area: 44 sqm; empty weight: 475 kg; speed: 54 kmh; 50 hp Anzani, or perhaps a 60 hp Vivinus.)
A.Andrews. The Flying Machine: Its Evolution through the Ages (Putnam)
The triplane had been a feature in the mental landscape of aeronautical designers since John Stringfellow’s well known model of 1868, and this itself was based on a far more seriously designed and tested 1843 triplane of Cayley’s, which was then less familiar. Moreover, there was already a triplane flying from Issy. It was a short-span (7 1/2 m) tractor-propeller ‘three-decker’ with side curtains enclosing the mainplanes and a box-kite biplane tail with the elevator in the middle of the box and a rudder projecting behind. It had been built by the Voisin brothers to the design of Ambroise Goupy. Though the Goupy I (it was followed by an influential biplane, the Goupy II) did get off the ground for a not exactly stupendous distance, its greatest impact was that, through advance descriptions of it printed in England, it inspired the Englishman A. V. Roe to build a much more effective series of triplanes that even today, two-thirds of a century later, provide one of the immortal mascots of aeronautics; and its replica is still flying. But when the Goupy I first hopped in September 1908, no one in Britain had ever yet flown an aeroplane. On this side of the Atlantic the delivery ward was still located at Issy.
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Журнал - Flight за 1909 г.
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| Goupy Triplane, fitted with Anzani motor.
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L.Opdyke - French Aeroplanes Before the Great War /Schiffer/
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| The first Goupy design was this Voisin-built triplane, variously modified along the way.
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A.Andrews - The Flying Maschine: Its Evolution through the Ages /Putnam/
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| The Goupy I triplane, built by the Voisins to the design of Ambroise Goupy, had a wing-span of 7 1/2 m and a weight, including its eight-cylinder 50hp Renault engine, of 500kg. Its best performance under test in 1908 at Issy was a hop of 150m, but it inspired other designers.
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Журнал - Flight за 1909 г.
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| THE GOUPY TRIPLANE. - General view of the Goupy triplane from the rear, showing the longitudinal girder which carries the engine in front and the box-kite tail behind. The propeller is right in front, and the pilot sits behind the engine. The tail contains a rudder, and has small steering tips outside the curtains. The span of the main planes is 7 metres, their surface 60 square metres. The weight of the whole machine is 650 kilogs., and the engine is a 50-h.p. Antoinette.
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L.Opdyke - French Aeroplanes Before the Great War /Schiffer/
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| The de Caters No 1 triplane. Note typical contemporary French use of castings.
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