OT - WW1 - Les Fr?res Voisin

[Kutscha]

Came across this while browsing, http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/voisin.html

[Wuzak]

Gabriel Voisin also went into the car business...

http://autos.msn.com/as/minishow/article.aspx?contentID=4024109&s=Pebble2006

His most famous car is this race car....

http://clubrenaultlyonnais.free.fr/images/epoqu_auto_2003/avions%20voisin%201_gf.jpg

A monocoque when separate frames were the norm.

[Montana]

Ha! I can match that:

http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/deperdussin.html

This french guy Armand Deperdussin was worth making a film about him! (Maybe someone should tell Peter Jackson about him...?)

I especially LOVE the Deperdussin Monococque Racer from 1912 - BEAUTIFULL (scroll down).

Deperdussin really had an eye for speed. "A shape of things to come" - one is tempted to say. This blunt-nosed beast went over 200 km/h in 1913 - not even a full 10 years after manned powered flight was invented! Stunning!

The aircraft was said to be beautifully crafted, too: The fuselage being a REAL monocoque, with no spars or stringers inside the slick, wooden cone, whatsoever. It must have been built as beautifully as a violine. (And - it was entirely made from WOOD, of course... :D )

Deperdussin had a very - err: colorfull career. In the end, his company went bust due to severe accusations of fraud, only to be restructured under state-ruling, to become the even more famous SPAD, soon after.

Cheers!

Montana


Picture-update: BUGGER! I wanted to upload LOADS of neat pictures of the Deperdussin Monocoque Racer here - but, for one reason or the other, uploading from Photobucket doesn't work! What's wrong? I didn't change a thing, compared to the earlier days.

I can easily upload pics to Photobucket - but I can't link them to TGplanes any more. Whenever I try it, the links break.

What's wrong?

HELP!

Montana