It is to be noted that by this time the Royal Aircraft Factory was
building aeroplanes of the B.E. and F.E. types, but at the same time
it is also to be noted that British military interest in engines
was not sufficient to bring them up to the high level attained by
the planes, and it is notorious that even the outbreak of war found
England incapable of providing a really satisfactory aero engine. In
the 1912 Trials, the only machines which actually completed all their
tests were the Cody biplane, the French Deperdussin, the Hanriot, two
Bleriots and a Maurice Farman. The first prize of £4,000, open to all
the world, went to F. S. Cody’s British-built biplane, which complied
with all the conditions of the competition and well earned its official
acknowledgment of supremacy. The machine climbed at 280 feet per minute
and reached a height of 5,000 feet, while in the landing test, in spite
of its great weight and bulk, it pulled up on grass in 56 yards. The
total weight was 2,690 lbs. when fully loaded, and the total area of
supporting surface was 500 square feet; the motive power was supplied
by a six-cylinder 120 horse-power Austro-Daimler engine. The second
prize was taken by A. Deperdussin for the French-built Deperdussin
monoplane. Cody carried off the only prize awarded for a British-built
plane, this being the sum of £1,000, and consolation prizes of £500
each were awarded to the British Deperdussin Company and The British
and Colonial Aeroplane Company, this latter soon to become famous as
makers of the Bristol aeroplane, of which the war honours are still
fresh in men’s minds.
While these trials were in progress Audemars accomplished the first
flight between Paris and Berlin, setting out from Issy early in the
morning of August 18th, landing at Rheims to refill his tanks within
an hour and a half, and then coming into bad weather which forced him
to land successively at Mezieres, Laroche, Bochum, and finally nearly
Gersenkirchen, where, owing to a leaky petrol tank, the attempt to win
the prize offered for the first flight between the two capitals had to
be abandoned after 300 miles had been covered, as the time limit was
definitely exceeded. Audemars determined to get through to Berlin, and
set off at 5 in the morning of the 19th, only to be brought down by
fog; starting off again at 9.15 he landed at Hanover, was off again at
1.35, and reached the Johannisthal aerodrome in the suburbs of Berlin
at 6.48 that evening.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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