Villiers IV

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Villiers IV
Villiers IV L'Aeronautique January,1926.jpg
RoleShipboard single seat reconnaissance aircraft
National origin France
Manufacturer Ateliers d'Aviation François Villiers
First flight1925
Number built2

The Villiers IV or Villiers 4 was a French two seat naval floatplane. Two were built, the first with twin floats and the second with one. The first was short-lived but the second set several world and national records; it later became the Villiers XI.

French Navy Maritime arm of the French Armed Forces

The French Navy, informally "La Royale", is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces. Dating back to 1624, the French Navy is one of the world's oldest naval forces. It has participated in conflicts around the globe and played a key part in establishing the French colonial empire.

Floatplane aircraft equipped with floats for operation from water surfaces

A floatplane is a type of seaplane, with one or more slender pontoons mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, making the vehicle an amphibious aircraft. British usage is to call "floatplanes" "seaplanes" rather than use the term "seaplane" to refer to both floatplanes and flying boats.

Contents

Design

As a shipboard aircraft the Villier IV was required to have, in addition to the normal equipment of a two-seat military machine, folding wings and tow and hoist points. It also had to be well provided with navigation, radio and visual signalling equipment. [1]

It was a single bay sesquiplane. Like most Villiers aircraft, the wingplans were strictly rectangular in plan apart from a shallow cut-out over the forward cockpit; the upper wings had three times the area of the lower. They were built around spruce box spars, fabric covered and braced together by an outward and forward leaning interplane strut on each side. The lower wings were attached to the lower fuselage longerons and braced to the upper longerons with single struts leaning inwards at about 45°. The upper wing was held over the fuselage by a fore and aft pair of W-form struts, one to each of its two spars. Wing folding was achieved with hinges on the rear longerons, immediately outside of the centre section to fuselage struts. There were full span ailerons, fitted only on the upper wing. A pair of upper wing hoisting points enabled the Villier IV to be lifted back on board its ship by a crane. [1]

Cockpit area, usually near the front of an aircraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft

A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft.

Spruce genus of plants

A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea, a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. Spruces are large trees, from about 20–60 m tall when mature, and have whorled branches and conical form. They can be distinguished from other members of the pine family by their needles (leaves), which are four-sided and attached singly to small persistent peg-like structures on the branches, and by their cones, which hang downwards after they are pollinated. The needles are shed when 4–10 years old, leaving the branches rough with the retained pegs. In other similar genera, the branches are fairly smooth.

Aircraft fabric covering

Aircraft fabric covering is a term used for both the material used and the process of covering aircraft open structures. It is also used for reinforcing closed plywood structures, the de Havilland Mosquito being an example of this technique, and on the pioneering all-wood monocoque fuselages of certain World War I German aircraft like the LFG Roland C.II, in its wrapped Wickelrumpf plywood strip and fabric covering.

The fuselage of the Type IV was built around six spruce longerons with stringers, formers and poplar plywood skinning but no internal cross-bracing producing a semi-monocoque structure. Its engine was a 450 hp (340 kW) Lorraine-Dietrich water-cooled W-12 with a Lamblin radiator mounted transversely under it. Aft, the pilot's cockpit was largely under the wing despite the trailing edge cut-out to improve the field of fire from the gunner's cockpit behind him. The gunner had a pair of Lewis guns on a flexible mount and the pilot controlled a fixed pair of synchronised Vickers machine guns firing through the propeller arc. At the rear both fin and tailplane were triangular; the later, placed at the top of the fuselage could be adjusted on the ground. The rudder was curved, broad and reached down to the keel. The elevators were balanced, curved edged and had a cut-out for rudder movement. [1]

A former is an object, such as a template, gauge or cutting die, which is used to form something such as a boat's hull. Typically, a former gives shape to a structure that may have complex curvature.

<i>Populus</i> genus of plants

Populus is a genus of 25–35 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar, aspen, and cottonwood.

Plywood manufactured wood panel made from thin sheets of wood veneer

Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards which includes medium-density fibreboard (MDF) and particle board (chipboard).

The first Type IV had a pair of floats, about 7.8 m (25 ft 7 in) and 3.1 m (10 ft 2 in) apart, single stepped, round topped in cross-section and with hard chine but almost flat bottoms. These were mounted on an axle just forward of the wing leading edge, supported at its centre by a V-strut from the lower fuselage longerons and at its extremities by struts at about 45° to the same points. Under the trailing edge a W-form strut linked the longerons and floats, allowing passage for bombs released from the central fuselage underside. Vertical legs transmitted landing forces to the lower wing just inboard of the folding line. The floats were made of spruce and ply covered; on the planing bottoms the ply was 8 mm (0.31 in) thick. [1] A second example, the IVbis, had a single central main float, suitable for catapult launching, and a small, stabilizing float under each wing. [2]

Chine steep-sided river valley

A chine is a steep-sided coastal gorge where a river flows to the sea through, typically, soft eroding cliffs of sandstone or clays. The word is still in use in central Southern England—notably in East Devon, Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight—to describe such topographical features. The term 'bunny' is sometimes used to describe a chine in Hampshire. The term chine is also used in some Vancouver suburbs in Canada to describe similar features.

Aircraft catapult device used to launch aircraft from ships

An aircraft catapult is a device used to launch aircraft from ships, most commonly used on aircraft carriers, as a form of assisted take off. It consists of a track built into the flight deck, below which is a large piston or shuttle that is attached through the track to the nose gear of the aircraft, or in some cases a wire rope, called a catapult bridle, is attached to the aircraft and the catapult shuttle. Different means have been used to propel the catapult, such as weight and derrick, gunpowder, flywheel, air pressure, hydraulic, and steam power. The U.S. Navy is developing the use of Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems with the construction of the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers. Catapulted aircraft land like conventional aircraft, sometimes with the help of arresting gear.

Development

The date of the Type IV's first flight is not known but it was flying before August 1925. [2] The second Type IV, usually known in the French journals as the 4bis, flew in 1926. [2] Before the spring of 1927 it had been modified into the very similar [1] [2] [3] Villiers Type XI which had a single, 7.5 m (24 ft 7 in), 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) wide, single-stepped central float mounted on two pairs of lateral struts to the lower fuselage. Two small stabilizing floats were attached with pairs of outward leaning struts from the lower wing below the interplane struts. [1] The Viliers IX [2] and Type X [2] [4] were similar Type IV developments.

Operational history

In the late summer of 1925 the first Type IV and its crew were lost during the grand prix for seaplanes held at Saint-Raphaël, Var. [2]

Early in 1926 the single float IVbis, flown by Louis Demougeot, [5] set world and national seaplane records. The world record was for speed over 100 km (62 mi) with a 500 kg (1,100 lb) load, set at 203.275 km/h (126.309 mph) on 13 May, [6] which was still standing a year later. [5] The French record was set on 27 April, when he took the Villiers to 4,881 m (16,014 ft) carrying the same load. [7]

Variants

Type IV
first example with twin floats, second (IVbis) with a single, central float. [1]
Type IX
Twin float. [2]
Type X
Twin floats. [2] [4]
Type XI
IVbis modified, single float. [1]

Specifications (Type IV)

Villiers IV 3-view drawing from L'Aerophile March,1927 Villiers IV 3-view L'Aerophile March,1927.png
Villiers IV 3-view drawing from L'Aérophile March,1927

Data from L'Aérophile March 1927 [1]

General characteristics

Performance

  • Maximum speed: 202 km/h (126 mph; 109 kn)
  • Minimum control speed: 95 km/h (59 mph; 51 kn)
  • Range: 640 km (398 mi; 346 nmi) [8]
  • Endurance: 4 hr
  • Service ceiling: 5,800 m (19,000 ft)
  • Time to altitude: 40 min to 4,500 m (14,800 ft)

Armament

  • fixed pair of 7.7 mm (0.303 in) synchronised Vickers machine guns firing through the propeller arc
  • pair of 7.7 mm (0.303 in) Lewis guns on flexible mounting in rear cockpit

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Les Hydravions de Bord Villiers Type IV et XI". L'Aérophile. 35 (5-6): 87–9. 1–15 March 1927.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Gaillard, Pierre (1996). Aeronautique Navale de chez nous. Paris: Éditions MDM. ISBN   2 909313 30 1.
  3. ↑ "Hydravions à flotteurs". L'Aéronautique (106): 94. March 1928.
  4. 1 2 Serryer, J. (1 October 1925). "L'hydravion Villiers Type 10". Les Ailes (224): 2–3.
  5. 1 2 "Louis Demougeot". L'Aérophile. 35 (13-14): 194. 1–15 July 1927.
  6. ↑ "Records avec charge marchande". L'Aérophile-Salon: 89. 1926.
  7. ↑ "Commission Sportive". L'Aérophile. 34 (11-12). 1–15 July 1927.
  8. 1 2 Bruno Parmentier (13 April 1999). "Villiers 4" . Retrieved 20 September 2015.
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