Breguet Type III

Breguet Type III
	Breguet III with wings folded for transport.
Role	Experimental aircraft
Manufacturer	Breguet
Designer	Louis Breguet
First flight	1910

Last updated March 16, 2019

This article is about the Breguet aircraft of 1910-1913. For the unrelated aircraft of the same designation flown in World War I, see Breguet Bre.4 and Breguet Bre.5.

World War I 1914–1918 global war originating in Europe

World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.

This article is about an aircraft of World War I. For the pre-war design of the same designation, see Breguet Type IV.

The Breguet Bre.5 B.2 bomber and Breguet Bre.5 Ca.2 escort fighter were French biplanes of World War I which were developments of the Breguet Bre.4 bomber. The Bre.6 and Bre.12 were, in turn, developments of the Bre.5

A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage over a monoplane, it produces more drag than a similar unbraced or cantilever monoplane wing. Improved structural techniques, better materials and the quest for greater speed made the biplane configuration obsolete for most purposes by the late 1930s.

Design and development

The Breguet Type III, which first flew in April 1910, was a development of the Type II which Breguet had built and flown earlier that year. Eliminating the upper booms that had helped to carry the tail surfaces of the earlier aircraft, it had what is now seen as the conventional biplane configuration, with a fuselage containing a front-mounted engine driving a tractor propeller and control and stabilising surfaces mounted at the rear. At the time this was an unusual layout: the Goupy II which had first flown the previous year was the first aircraft of this configuration to be successful. Like Breguet's earlier aircraft, extensive use of metal was made in its construction: the structure of the rectangular-section fuselage, wing spars and interplane struts were steel, and the ribs were aluminium pressings.

The Breguet Type II was the second fixed-wing aircraft design produced by Louis Breguet. Built during late 1909, it was soon discarded in favour of his next design, the Breguet Type III

Fuselage aircraft main body which is the primary carrier of crew, passengers, and payload

The fuselage is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, and cargo. In single-engine aircraft it will usually contain an engine, as well, although in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselage, which in turn is used as a floating hull. The fuselage also serves to position control and stabilization surfaces in specific relationships to lifting surfaces, which is required for aircraft stability and maneuverability.

Tractor configuration arrangement of propellers on an aircraft to face forward

An aircraft constructed with a tractor configuration has the engine mounted with the airscrew in front of it so that the aircraft is "pulled" through the air, as opposed to the pusher configuration, in which the airscrew is behind and propels the aircraft forward. Through common usage, the word "propeller" has come to mean any airscrew, whether it actually propels or pulls the plane.

The lower wings were mounted on a short spar mounted below the lower longerons and the upper wing was supported by only four struts, two inboard supporting the centre section of the wing, and one on either side connecting the mainspars of the wings near the wingtips. The mainspars of the wing panels were connected to the centre-section spar by knuckle joints, so that the wings could easily be folded back for road or rail transport.

Four small vertical stabilisers were mounted below the upper wing, and a pair of supplementary control surfaces were mounted below the fuselage. These were intended for lateral control, and were operated in conjunction with wing-warping The rear-mounted empennage initially consisted of a fixed fin and rudder and a rectangular elevator, with no fixed horizontal surface, but this was soon replaced by a cruciform assembly combining rudder and elevator, connected to the fuselage by a universal joint. This unusual arrangement became a characteristic of the aircraft manufactured by Breguet before World War I.

The empennage, also known as the tail or tail assembly, is a structure at the rear of an aircraft that provides stability during flight, in a way similar to the feathers on an arrow. The term derives from the French language word empenner which means "to feather an arrow". Most aircraft feature an empennage incorporating vertical and horizontal stabilising surfaces which stabilise the flight dynamics of yaw and pitch, as well as housing control surfaces.

A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other conveyance that moves through a fluid medium. On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw and p-factor and is not the primary control used to turn the airplane. A rudder operates by redirecting the fluid past the hull (watercraft) or fuselage, thus imparting a turning or yawing motion to the craft. In basic form, a rudder is a flat plane or sheet of material attached with hinges to the craft's stern, tail, or after end. Often rudders are shaped so as to minimize hydrodynamic or aerodynamic drag. On simple watercraft, a tiller—essentially, a stick or pole acting as a lever arm—may be attached to the top of the rudder to allow it to be turned by a helmsman. In larger vessels, cables, pushrods, or hydraulics may be used to link rudders to steering wheels. In typical aircraft, the rudder is operated by pedals via mechanical linkages or hydraulics.

An elevator or lift is a type of vertical transportation that moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel, or other structure. Elevators are typically powered by electric motors that either drive traction cables and counterweight systems like a hoist, or pump hydraulic fluid to raise a cylindrical piston like a jack.

The prototype was powered by a 50 hp (37 kW) Gnome Omega driving a three-bladed aluminium propeller through a 2:1 reduction gear. Later aircraft were produced with other powerplants.

The Gnome 7 Omega is a French seven-cylinder, air-cooled aero engine produced by Gnome et Rhône. It was shown at the Paris Aero Salon held in December 1908 and was first flown in 1909. It was the world's first aviation rotary engine produced in quantity. Its introduction revolutionized the aviation industry and it was used by many early aircraft. It produced 50 horsepower (37 kW) from its capacity of 8 litres. A Gnome Omega engine powers the 1912 Blackburn Monoplane, owned and operated by the Shuttleworth Collection, the oldest known airworthy British-designed aeroplane worldwide. A two-row version of the same engine was also produced, known as the Gnome 14 Omega-Omega or Gnome 100 hp. The prototype Omega engine still exists, and is on display at the United States' National Air and Space Museum.

Operational history

A Type III gained fame in August 1910 by being the first aircraft to lift six people.

Operators

France

French Air Force

Specifications (example shown at 1910 Paris Aero Salon)

Data from^[1]

General characteristics

Length: 9.2 m (30 ft 2 in)
Upper wingspan: 13.2 m (43 ft 4 in)
Lower wingspan: 9.9 m (32 ft 6 in)
Wing area: 38 m² (410 sq ft)
Empty weight: 475 kg (1,047 lb)
Powerplant: 1 × R.E.P. 1910 60hp 5-cyl. 2-row semi-radial, 45 kW (60 hp)

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References

Notes

↑ "The Breguet biplane." Flight magazine, 17 December 1910.

Bibliography

L'Aérophile, 15 June 1910, pp. 273ff.
Opdycke, Leonard E. French Aeroplanes Before the Great War. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer, 1999. ISBN 0-7643-0752-5.

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[1] "The Breguet biplane." Flight magazine, 17 December 1910.

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