Fuselage

“ Float: That portion of the landing gear of an aircraft which provides buoyancy when it is resting on the surface of the water.
Fuselage: The elongated structure to which are attached the landing gear, wings and tail. A fuselage is rarely used with pushers; and in general it is designed to hold the passengers. ”

“ FUSELAGE CONSTRUCTION. The body, or fuselage as it is generally described, constitutes the nucleus of the completed machine, and at the same time offers the most interesting examples of constructional detail. It may be as well to point out that the term “fuselage” is ordinarily applicable to a body of a machine of the tractor type; the short body of the average “pusher” or propeller aeroplane is termed the “nacelle.” ”

“ If block and tackle are used to raise the fuselage, pass a line under the engine-bed supports or sills just to the rear of the radiator. To this line attach hook of block. To avoid damaging or crushing some part do not attach lifting device to any other point. With the fuselage now resting on its attached tail skid, lift the front end until the lower longeron clips clear the landing gear. When the clips on the longerons line up with the clips on the ends of the struts of the landing gear the bolts are passed down through the holes thus aligned. ”

“ When your drums are empty or your gun has jammed, then this wary old Boche comes down from a small cloud where he has been hiding at twelve thousand feet, and comes hurtling down through space at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, spraying your fuselage from end to end with his machine gun. ”

“ The main planes, which are very strongly built over main spars of solid spruce of I section, are slightly staggered, and are also set at a dihedral angle in order to give the machine a certain amount of lateral stability. From a point just behind the pilot’s seat back to the rudder-post the fuselage is covered in with fabric, whilst the front portion is covered with aluminium, forming on top of the nose of the fuselage a very neat and cleanly designed cover over the motor.... ”

“ These are inclined slightly upward toward the direction of travel, and their rapid motion through the air, due to the pull of the propeller driven by the motor, causes them to rise from the earth, carrying the fuselage or body of the airplane. In the fuselage are carried the pilot, observer, and any other load. Wheels below the fuselage forming the under-carriage or landing gear serve to support the body when running along the ground in taking off or landing. ”

“ The American-built Handley Page shown at the Garden was similar to the British, except that Liberty “12” 400 horse-power engines are employed in the former, and the Rolls-Royce, or Sunbeam, in the latter. Accommodations are made for one pilot and two or three gunners, and an observer, who operates the bomb-dropping device. Two guns are located at the top of the fuselage, and a third is arranged to fire through an opening in the under side of the fuselage, and a pair of flexible Lewis machine-guns is operated at the forward end of the fuselage. ”

“ But in they went, plunging squarely into the heart of the aero-subs' leading formation, which formation consisted of three aero-subs, flying a wing and wing formation.
The young American signaled with upraised hand, and the American pilots made their first move. Every plane started rolling, at dazzling speed, on the axis of its fuselage, while bullets spewed from the guns that fired through the propellers. ”

“ The planes or sections of a machine of the straight-wing type, as distinct from a machine possessing arrow-shaped or retreating wings, should, when erected on the fuselage, form a straight line from tip to tip. This feature is dependent upon (1) the trueness of the planes, and (2) the alignment of the attachments on the fuselage, the latter being considered under the fuselage heading. ”

“ However, the apparatus for opening it was evidently within the hull, so they had to burn a hole in the door before they could enter.
What a sight there was for these men of Earth. The low rumble of the idling engines was barely audible as they descended the long ladder.
There was no resemblance whatever to the interior of a flying machine; rather, it suggested some great power house, where the energies of half a nation were generated. They entered directly into a vast hall that extended for a quarter of a mile back through the great hull, and completely across the fuselage. ”

“ This biplane with the Aviatik is remarkable for the amount of space provided for pilot and observer. The fuselage is protected in front with aluminium. The upper plane is not made to join in the centre, as in most German machines; instead, there is a short immovable central plane, which is permanently attached to the fuselage by four tubes ”

“ Before the crashed machine was in, the first lot out began to home to the 'drome. One by one they swept in, curved, slid down, and slanted smoothly on to the ground, and rolled over to the hangars. There was hardly one without a bullet-hole somewhere in her; there were some with scores. Planes were riddled, bracing and control wires cut, fuselage fabric and frames ripped and holed and cracked, propellers cleanly shot through. ”

“ Now the wings and fuselage of our airplane are ready, and the rudder, the elevating surfaces and the ailerons are in course of production. They are made in the same manner as the wings, with a wooden framework over which fabric is stretched and “doped.” We begin to think our big bird is almost ready to be put together, but we have forgotten two important items: the engine and the propeller.
The airplane manufacturer usually does not attempt to build his own engines or propellers. ”

“ An exceedingly strong two-membered tractor fuselage of the fusiform or cigar-shaped type is that shown by Fig. 29, the bearing, which is bracketed and cut from brass, being shown in detail at I. In this instance the greatest width of the top spar should be disposed [Pg 26] horizontally, the bottom member, with the two cross members, providing rigidity and a girder-like form of construction. The bottom member need be only one-half the weight of the top one, as it will be in tension and so acting as a tie. Silver spruce should be used throughout. ”

“ Notes.—Petrol for 5 hours (higher endurances can be fitted) . Specially designed for military work—all steel construction. All parts unwelded to admit of rapid displacement. Clear observation provided for.
Fuselage.—The fuselage is V shaped and constructed of weldless steel tubing in the form of a lattice girder. The main longitudinals are of round section; cross members, oval section. Connections are not welded but made with strong steel clips so that should any member become damaged a new one can be readily arranged. ”

“ It is built throughout of steel and aluminum, and the entire fusillage is clothed with steel plating which assures protection to the two occupants from either upward or lateral fire. The sides of the body are carried up so that only the heads of the aviators are visible. But to accomplish this measure of protection for the pilot and the gunner who operates the machine gun from a seat forward of the pilot, the weight of the craft is so greatly increased that it is but little esteemed for any save the most sluggish manœuvre. ”

“ All at once there is a mighty swoop through the air like the drop of a bird of prey, and in no time the black flyer is immediately over the Englishman and the air is filled with the furious crackling of a machine gun, followed by the rapid ta-ta-ta of two or three more, all operated at the highest speed just as during a charge. ”

“ Employment of Aircraft in Large Bodies. Air Tactics. In some of the previous Chapters (Chapter VII., et seq.) the question of aircraft fighting—i.e., aeroplane versus aeroplane—has been considered, and matters such as armament have been fully discussed. We shall now deal with the employment of the armed machine in its fighting capacity, not as a single unit, but as part of a force whose function is the destruction of the armed air fleet of the enemy, and the crippling of his reconnaissance service. ”

“ A gun firing a twenty-pound shrapnel shell is not pointed on an object with the celerity with which a practised revolver shot can throw his weapon into position. The gunner on the ground seeing an airplane flying five thousand feet above him—almost a mile up in the air—hurries to get his piece into position for a shot. But while he is aiming the flyer, if a high-speed machine, will be changing its position at a rate of perhaps 120 miles an hour. ”

“ We would commit Chance Vought to a new single-seat fighter, one with such blazing speed and such fire power and such maneuverability that it could blast any enemy from the skies, even though handicapped with all the rigging that goes on a carrier fighter. We would build into it such rugged strength that it could carry heavy bombs in a dive, and still withstand the clumsiness of any horny-handed pilot who might try to pull its tail off. ”

“ A German Aerial Gun.
We turned home and then the engine sulked again. I could see Nap was in trouble. It was was just as well that the roar of the engine and the hum of the propeller compelled the use of speaking-tube communication, for when a man uses bad language he isn't cool enough to pour his sentiments through a pipe. But we were coming down, gliding down on a long angle, with the engine giving a spasmodic kick. Down, down towards a light fog that the breeze had brought down from the north-west; down, down till we could see below us trench lines that were not our own! ”

“ Instead of the trim, grim, steel-clad, steam-driven modern battle-ship, with its revolving turret, and great frowning, breech-loading guns, sending their balls through miles of air, those were bluff-bowed, ungainly hulks, with bellying sides towering like black walls above the sea as if to make the largest mark possible for hostile shot, with a great show of muzzle-loading guns of small range, while overhead rose lofty spars and spreading sails. ”

“ Indeed just as aircraft, as a factor in war, have come to be more like the cavalry in the army, or the destroyers and scout cruisers in the navy, so the tendency has been to discard everything in their design that might by any possibility interfere with their speed and their ability to turn and twist, and change direction and elevation with the utmost celerity under the most difficult of conditions. ”

“ The maximum of guns and armour and the minimum of speed are to be found in the first-class battle-ship, which is simply a floating fortress, so constructed that she need never run away, but can stand up and fight as long as her gun turrets revolve. The general plan of construction in a battle-ship is to surround the engines, boilers, and magazines with a wall of Harveyized steel armour eighteen inches or so thick, and seven or eight feet high, which extends about four feet below the water-line and three feet above it. ”

“ You may call the battle cruiser a cross between the battleship and the cruiser; she has the big guns of the former and the speed of the latter. She gains this speed by having a less weight of armour, and, as a rule, a smaller number of guns.
The most powerful weapon used in our Navy is the 15-inch gun, with which the latest of our battleships, the Queen Elizabeth (launched 1915) , is armed. This gun, which weighs ninety tons, throws a shot weighing five-sixths of a ton at a velocity of more than a mile a second for a range of 10,000 yards, or roughly six miles. ”

“ Battleship, battle cruiser, light cruiser, destroyer, sloop, trawler, and all the other kinds and classes of patrol craft—each has its own distinctive smudge of smoke, its own peculiar way of revealing its identity by a blurred foretop, funnel, or superstructure long before its hull has lifted its amorphous mass above the sky-line. ”

“ Every country is now engaged in forming its aerial fleets. How far the naval and military branches will coalesce, or how far they will differentiate remains to be seen. The probabilities, at present, all point in the latter direction, and that just as an army is made up of cavalry, infantry, artillery, etc., and a navy of battleships, cruisers, torpedo craft and submarines, so the sky fleets seem destined to consist of groups of different types of machines, each type designed for some special purpose. ”

“ They are perhaps the most wonderful pieces of mechanism in the ship, for when the first shot has been fired they will go on firing themselves at the marvellous rate of six hundred shots per minute so long as you keep them supplied with cartridges. Then I have also provided an ample supply of ordinary guns and rifles, swords, pikes, pistols, and in fact everything we are likely to require for the purposes of sport or defence. These small knobs afford the means of lighting the electric lamp in the lantern on the top of the pilot-house and those in the bow and stern of the ship. ”

“ Will the battleship of the future, then, be an immense cylindrical-backed hull, with one mast or none, innocent of funnels, leaving no trace of smoke behind her, and rushing at a speed of a railway train as she belches forth with almost unerring precision [Pg 330] terrible explosives at a similar enemy so far distant as to be barely discernible on the horizon? ”

“ Special guns have been built which will point into the air, can be sighted quickly, and will fire a shell to a great height. If an aircraft comes within range of them, and the gunner has time to aim correctly, a bursting shell may bring the machine to ground. ”