In 1911 the brothers Charles and Edouard de Nieuport produced the monoplane more commonly known as the Nieuport. The fuselage was a very thick body, tapering well to rear. The pilot and passenger sat close together, with only their heads and shoulders visible above the fuselage. All unnecessary obstruction was removed to reduce head resistance. The under-carriage consisted only of three V’s of steel tube, of stream-line section, connected to a single longitudinal skid, thus diminishing it to a noteworthy degree. This made a very fast machine. With only a seven-cylinder, 50 horse-power Gnome engine it travelled 70 miles an hour, and with a fourteen-cylinder, double-row, 50 horse-power Gnome, rated at 100 horse-power but actually developing 70 horse-power, it reached between 80 and 90 miles an hour. M. Weyman, in the James Gordon Bennett race in the Isle of Sheppey, made an average speed of 79.5 miles an hour, so that allowing for the corners, he must have done around 90 miles an hour on straights. The fast modern tractor biplanes show the influence of the flat stream-lined, all-inclusive body of the Nieuport. The most remarkable of the small machines of 1916 was the Nieuport biplane, with the 90 horse-power engine and later the 110 horse-power Le Rhone engine. This was similar to the German Fokker, an excellent fighting-machine, and a direct successor of the Sopwith Tabloid. It was noteworthy for the odd V formed by the struts between the wings. THE 1912 B. E. (BRITISH EXPERIMENTAL) In 1912 the British Government, realizing the importance of the aeroplane as a war-machine for scouting purposes, established the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, with Geoffrey de Havilland, one of the early British experimenters, as designer. Machines of his invention have been called D. H.’s. His 1912 aeroplane contains some of the ideas embodied in the Avro, Breguet, and the Nieuport. The machine had the lightness of a Nieuport, the stream-line of a Breguet, and the stability of an Avro. It was very light for its size and capacity, and with a 70 horse-power Renault engine it attained a speed of about 70 miles an hour, and it responded in the air and on the ground in a manner never before attained. It was the prototype of a long line of Royal Aircraft Factory designs, through all the range of B. E.’s on to the R. E. series and the S. E. series. The initials B. E. originally stood for Bleriot Experimental, as M. Bleriot was officially credited with having originated the tractor-type aeroplane. Later B. E. was understood to indicate British Experimental. The subsequent development into R. E. indicated Reconnaissance Experimental, these being large biplanes with water-cooled engines and more tank capacity, intended for long-distance flights. S. E. indicates Scouting Experimental, the idea being that fast single-seaters would be used for scouting. They were, however, only used for fighting.