Monday 16 November 2015

Douglas DC-5

The forgotten/rare Douglas DC-5 was a 16-to-22-seat short range aircraft. It first flew on the 20th February 1939. Only 12 were built.
http://www.boeing.com/history/products/dc-5.page



Sunday 8 November 2015

Payen PA-22/PA-112

Roland Payen evolved a radical tandem-wing configuration which he dubbed the Fléchair, the short-span tapered foreplane carrying a combination of ailerons and flaps and the 67-deg aft plane carrying combined elevator-flaps, the pilot’s cockpit fairing into the vertical tail surfaces. In 1938, Payen proposed to the Ministère de l’Air a lightweight fighter version of the PA 112, a racing aircraft then being developed by the Sociêté Co-operative d’Etudes et Productions Aéronautiques (SCEPA) to the Fléchair configuration and intended to participate in the 1939 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe. The PA 112 was to be a retractable monowheel undercarriage with outrigger skids retracting into the aft plane. Weighing only 948 lb (430 kg) empty and 1,345 lb (610 kg) loaded, the PA 112 had extremely small overall dimensions which included a span of 13 ft 7¾ in (4,16 m) and a length of 22 ft 1 in (6,74 m), height being 6 ft 11 in (2,11 m), and it was rather optimistically anticipated that a maximum speed of 360 mph (580 km h) would be attainable. The projected lightweight fighter derivative, the PA112 Cl, was to have had two wing-mounted 7,5-mm machine guns and a 20-mm cannon firing through the extension shafts of the Salmson engines, and an elaborate mock-up of the proposed PA112 Cl was built, this, in fact, utilising the airframe of one of the two PA 100 Coupe Deutsch racing aircraft. Possibly as a result of the dramatically unorthodox nature of the proposed PA 112 Cl, no contract was forthcoming from the Ministère de lAir.
























Although no example of the PA 112 was completed and the 1939 Coupe Deutsch was destined never to take place, development of the Fléchair concept continued with the PA 22 which was of similar configuration to the PA 112 but had a conventional engine installation and a conventional fixed tailwheel under-carriage. The PA 22 had originally been built to test the Mèlot ramjet but was eventually to be completed in 1939 with a 180 hp Régnier R6 inverted inline air-cooled engine. After completion, it was mounted in the Chalais- Meudon wind tunnel where it was found by the German occupation forces who expressed some curiosity as to its possible flying characteristics. Accordingly, it was transferred to Villacoublay where it was flown for the first time by Jacques Charpentier in October 1942. A flight test programme was conducted, but before this could be completed, the German authorities decided that the PA 22 should be taken to Rechlin. However, on the pretext that a number of modifications were necessary, Payen succeeded in having the prototype returned to his factory at Juvisy where it was intended to make changes to the undercarriage, mount supplementary fuel tanks and fit a variable-pitch propeller. In the event, these modifications were still in process when the factory was hit during an Allied bombing raid on the Juvisy railway yard, the PA 22 being destroyed.

Engine: Régnier R6 inverted inline air-cooled, 180 hp
Empty weight: 1,221 lb (554 kg)
Loaded weight: 1,894 lb (859 kg)
Wing span: 15 ft 9 in (4,80 m)
Length: 24 ft 3.33  in (7,40 m)
Height: 7 ft 8½  in (2,25 m)
Wing area: 107.64 sq ft (10,00 sq.m)
Maximum speed: 224 mph (360 kmh)
Maximum cruise: 205 mph (330 kmh)

Landing speed: 47 mph (75 kmh)

Info from http://all-aero.com/