Taris

   A graduate of the Polytechnique, Taris contributed to the design of at least 3 aeroplanes in 1909 and 1910, and also taught aeronautics at the Ligue Nationale Aerienne. The first machine on which he is known to have worked was the Taris-Bucheron biplane, tested by an infantry officer between September 1909 and August 1910 at Juvisy and Moulins. Descriptions of the machine are not clear, and extant photographs very poor. Even at the time it seems to have been difficult to describe, for a writer for La Vie au Grand Air wrote: "It partakes of all existing styles of aeroplanes."
   It stood high above 2 skids and 2 pairs of wheels, its long narrow rectangular wings joined by a forest of 22 struts. The pilot sat in a frame hung out ahead of the lower wing. The 50 hp Gnome was set on the trailing edge of the lower wing and drove a geared 4-bladed Taris propeller. The tiny cruciform tail was supported by booms, with 2 large rudders between the wings near the tips. The working of the control system is not clear; it may have been reworked several times. One photograph shows the pilot holding a horizontal lever with his left hand and a vertical one with his right. The machine was built at Espinosa's SCAA where Taris may have met Robert de Lesseps.
   Later in 1910 Taris worked on the design of a monoplane known sometimes as the de Lesseps, sometimes as the Taris. De Lesseps had ordered it as "an aeroplane for speed." The triangular-section fuselage was covered aft of the straight wing; the uncovered nose protruded far ahead of the leading edge. The pilot's seat was let into a triangular swelling in the fuselage, leaving a curious triangular floor outside the aeroplane. The 2-wheel one-skid undercarriage resembled that of the Antoinette; a tailwheel on a complicated structure brought up the rear. The propeller was another Taris, this time 4-bladed and (some said) ground-adjustable. The aeroplane was expected to be fast, but it was not; it crashed early in 1911.

   (Span: 8.5 m; length: 7.5 m; wing area: 14 sqm; gross weight: 350 kg)