L.Opdyke French Aeroplanes Before the Great War (Schiffer)
Deleted by request of (c)Schiffer Publishing
Jacquelin
Like many former bicycle racers, the world champion Edmond Jacquelin turned his attention to aviation: his imagination in this new field, however, brought him little success. His first heavier-than-air design was nicknamed "les cinq doigts de la main" (the 5 fingers), and "le pied de nez" (a rude gesture); it was probably the monoplane built in 1908 or 1909 at Trignac, near St Nazaire, and sponsored by the Societe Geographique de St Nazaire. In 1909 he had a man named Moles in Montieres-les-Amiens, in northern France, build an ornithopter with several pairs of wings, apparently capable of hovering; but by June 1910 it was not yet completed.
Also in 1910, Jacquelin purchased the one-off Voisin tractor biplane and modified it: he took off the wing curtains and converted the biplane tail cell to monoplane form, set directly on top of the end of the fuselage frame; 2 lozenge-shaped fins were set on the tailplane. He added 2 pairs of flaps, one on each side of the fuselage: in each pair, the upper apparently moved only down and the lower up, to work both as spoilers and as rudders. Steering was done with a massive wheel nearly 1 meter in diameter; a passenger sat behind the pilot in the uncovered fuselage, and in front a 3-cylinder air-cooled Anzani drove a 2-blade tractor propeller. The fate of this machine is not known, but in 1911 Jacquelin was appointed a mechanic at Bleriot, and shortly after, invented a tricycle street-sweeper.