L.Opdyke French Aeroplanes Before the Great War (Schiffer)
Deleted by request of (c)Schiffer Publishing
Vedovelli
The 1910 Vedovelli Fantome resembled a huge alligator tangled in a forest of bent struts. Start with an alligator-shaped hull of square section, the jaw parts lined with transparent windows, and the pilot's bridge, also glazed, where the animal's eyes would be. A large rectangular rudder with rear-facing balances was hinged to the vertical bow. A wing with attractive elliptical dihedral was mounted on bent struts above the hull; a similar one, higher still, behind it, on more bent struts; another, similar, set well forward and low ahead of the nose; and yet another, set well aft and low. A tall rectangular fin rose up at the real-. These latter 2 were mounted on a pair of arches half-covered, as if to provide some rear fin area; gracefully bent skids were fixed at each end of each arch. Another much smaller rectangular wing, like an afterthought, lay on top of the hull amidships. 2 wide-set wheels forward and a nose-wheel allowed movement on the ground; 2 propellers were set into the middle of the side arches. The front rudder was painted SDA 4 SDA, but the meaning is unknown. Watching the Fantome taxiing 200 or 300 m at 3 kmh was described as "dumb-founding": trails of dust were scraped from the field at Issy by the rear skids. It crashed once, and was rebuilt with a simple 2-wheel undercarriage, wire bracing instead of steel tubing for the wings, and a reduced forward rudder. It was rebuilt again, now with the sides fully covered and a single propeller between the side-curtains; the rear rudder was gone.
The same year, taking time off from his electric-equipment factory, Vedovelli patented a motor and propellers, and a paddle-powered hovering machine.