Breguet's Aircraft Challenge #119

Varese2002 · 11 February 2007, 03:36 AM

Breguet's Aircraft Challenge #119

There has not been seaplanes / flying boats in the Challenge since #109 Pateras Guidoni Idro Torpedo Plane, so it is now high time to do one again, given the abundance of machines on floats during the time of WW1.
The recognition of the plane will bring 0.8 points, 0.2 points will go to the contestant with the best story about the machine and the surrounding people and/or events

Kees

Scoreboard at the beginning of #119:

20 Varese2002
8.7 Rbailey
8.6 Rod Filan
8.5 Dave_Kent
7.0 Breguet
6.0 Eric Goedkoop
6.0 YavorD
5.6 ercoupepilot
5.5 EdStevens
4.8 Colin A Owers
4.7 JohnMacG
4.6 joegertler
4 greenknight
3.1 bshatzer
3 Gilles
2.7 dpolglaze
2.4 Ross Moorhouse
2 Cruze
1 Peter Zambori
1 cubsfan4life
1 Berman
.6 Tom L
.4 Vilkata
.2 Paul_J._Fisher
.2 Ransom E. Olds

Past Challenges: http://www.earlyaviator.com/br.challenge/

YavorD · 11 February 2007, 05:08 AM

The hell of a choice, Kees!
I am looking for a story behind this flying boat.
Regards,
Yavor

Rbailey · 11 February 2007, 03:49 PM

This looks like a highly stylized drawing, and the I-struts don't ring a bell. The tail unit looks vaguely like an FBA boat, and an H was involved in bombiing a submarine, so maybe this could be a sketch illustrating an article on that, but that is a wild guess.

YavorD · 11 February 2007, 04:04 PM

Hi!

I do not know the designation of this machine.
It was listed as "Fliegende Boat" (Flying Boat) designed by Melli Beese, Charles Boutard and Hermann Dorner and built at Yacht-Werft Oertz in Hamburg at the end of 1913. The flying boat was supposed to participate in Warnemuende Ostseeflug in August 1914. The boat was commandeered by Marinekommandatur at Warnemuende on 1 August 1914. Melli Beese and Charles Boutard were expelled from Flugplatz Johannisthal too, and Melli Beese's highly successful Fliegerschule was closed.

I would like to read about further developments concerning this flying boat and his designers.

Regards,
Yavor

P.S. Oertz produced another flying boat in 1914.

Rod_Filan · 11 February 2007, 06:56 PM

Melli Beese's personal and patented design for an entirely feasible single-engined flying boat (Beese Flugyacht), along with the finished prototype, mysteriously disappeared from her workshop at Johannisthal after she was arrested in 1914. It has been suggested by several researchers that the similarities between the Melli Beese flying boat and the first Dornier flying boat are more than coincidental.

VBR

Varese2002 · 12 February 2007, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by YavorD

I do not know the designation of this machine.
It was listed as "Fliegende Boat" (Flying Boat) designed by Melli Beese, Charles Boutard and Hermann Dorner and built at Yacht-Werft Oertz in Hamburg at the end of 1913. The flying boat was supposed to participate in Warnemuende Ostseeflug in August 1914. The boat was commandeered by Marinekommandatur at Warnemuende on 1 August 1914. Melli Beese and Charles Boutard were expelled from Flugplatz Johannisthal too, and Melli Beese's highly successful Fliegerschule was closed.
I would like to read about further developments concerning this flying boat and his designers.

Yavor and of course Rod you are right on the mark. This is the elusive Beese-Boutard Flugboot designed by the German aviatrix Melli Beese and her husband the Frenchman Charles Boutard. Only this drawing / sketch is available for this machine.
The construction of this flying boat was unique as the hull had a special double construction (twin hull). Each part of the hull had the full capability of floating the entire Flugboot.
It is said in many articles that the machine was patented, but hours of searching have not returned any Patent of Beese-Boutard's Flugboot unfortunately. If there are people on the Forum with a Patentnumber of this Patent I would be greatly obliged.
The machine was powered by a 100 hp Mercedes engine driving a pusher propeller. Length 9,20 meter, Span 15,90 meter, Height 3,48 meter.
Owing to the boat form no stabilizers were mounted at the end of the wing. The upper wing had a distinct Taube form.

The machine was built in Warnemünde, not in Johannisthal (I have never read that it mysteriously disappeared after she was arrested in 1914).

As said, the famous Hermann Dorner [1882 - 1963 ] helped out with the design of the machine. Beese had already designed a Taube like machine in 1912. I think it will never be known how much Beese - Boutard - Dorner each did with the design, but I think that Dorner had a consulting part in it as he already had his own Dorner Flugzeug GmbH, which folded in 1912. At the end of 1915 Dorner was chief designer of the Riesenflugzeugabteilung of the Deutschen Flugzeug-Werke (DFW) in Leipzig-Lindenthal. From 1916 till the end of WW1 he was chief constructor of engine development (Flugmotorenentwicklung) in the Hannover Waggonfabrik, Abteilung Flugzeugbau, in Hannover-Linden (Hawa). A great career.
His remaining archive is held in the Deutsches Museum. Possibly it has a shred of information about this Flugboot.

As said Beese and Boutard were interned as foreign citizens in the beginning of august 1914. According to sources the Flugboot rottet away in Warnemünde, the place where it was built by the Jachtwerft Oertz.

Allegedly this is Melli Beese drawing on the Flugboot

By the way I do not see much similarity with the early Dornier giant flying boats.

Thinking a full day about it I think it will be right to allot the full poiunt to Yavor, who was the first with the machine and details of the surrounding story.

An interesting flying boat (Flugboot) appearing in tragic circumstances in need of further study. Perhaps there is someone around with the Patentnumber

Kees

Scoreboard at the end of #119:

20 Varese2002
8.7 Rbailey
8.6 Rod Filan
8.5 Dave_Kent
7.0 Breguet
7.0 YavorD
6.0 Eric Goedkoop
5.6 ercoupepilot
5.5 EdStevens
4.8 Colin A Owers
4.7 JohnMacG
4.6 joegertler
4 greenknight
3.1 bshatzer
3 Gilles
2.7 dpolglaze
2.4 Ross Moorhouse
2 Cruze
1 Peter Zambori
1 cubsfan4life
1 Berman
.6 Tom L
.4 Vilkata
.2 Paul_J._Fisher
.2 Ransom E. Olds

Past Challenges: http://www.earlyaviator.com/br.challenge/

Varese2002 · 12 February 2007, 09:15 PM

Having spent again some time searching for the patent of the flying boat of Melli Beese I found German Patent 290072 describing the Wasserflugzeug. The patent is from 27 August 1913.

Will have a look at it tonight.

The difficulty with this one was that it cannot be found with keywords (no title is searchable) and can be found only by classification.

Kees

Varese2002 · 13 February 2007, 12:41 PM

Description of Patent 290072 Beese-Boutard Wasserflugzeug (Flying boat)

The patent describes the special double-boat construction of this flying boat.

Essentially it is a construction with one hull (No.1) and another hull (No.2), where hull No.2 is fitted inside the first hull. The second hull hinges within the outer hull on a beam (No.3). Both hulls displace enough water sothat the flying boat will float. In hull No.2 is placed the engine (No.4) inclusive ancillary equipment and the pilot.

The wings (No.5 and 6) are fastened to the beam No.3.

Each wing has 3 parellel wooden beams (No.7and 8), where each wing is connected via a metal pressed piece (No. 9 and 10) connected via a wooden strut (No.11). That strut is the only connection between the wings. [These struts and wing connection are clearly seen on the artist impression of the flying Beese Wasserflugzeug]. In the text of this Patent it is said that because of this strut construction not only the weight was low, but also the streamlining was high.

The translation of the German text to English was quite difficult.

Kees

YavorD · 13 February 2007, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Varese2002

Description of Patent 290072 Beese-Boutard Wasserflugzeug (Flying boat)

Thank you, Kees!

Varese2002 · 18 February 2007, 04:45 AM

About the Beese-Boutard Flugboot I found some passages in the book of

Eileen F. Lebow. Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation, 2002. ISBN 1-57488-482-4

On pages 79-82 there is some information about the Flugboot which was co-designed by Hermann Dorner. As always it is not known what was the real contribution of the three designers (Beese - Boutard - Dorner).
Hermann Dorner had great expertise on computing (possibly stress analysis). Beese is credited for the technical expertise.

The machine was definitely built and entered for the Ostsee-Wasserflug-Wettbewerb in Warnemünde from 1 August 1914 till 10 August 1914, which eventually was called off during the day of 1 August 1914. Twenty-six (26) machines (almost all floatplanes) were entered for this competition, presumably all German (given the patriotic times ...). There were two other flying boats entered, specifically from Rumpler and AEG.

Beese and Boutard were imprisoned during 1 August 1914, because both were French citizens. It is said in the book:

Quote:

The authorities seized and destroyed everything the couple owned - workshop, tools, materials, aeroplanes, the automobile, even their home.

Almost certainly the Flugboot was also destroyed or at least made unflyable. The possibility of finding photographs of the Flugboot is dim. Although a competition was a public affair with much press around, the nearing war certainly made reporting and photographing very difficult.

There remains in the archives a drawing of the Flugboot made by Hermann Dorner. Will see if I can get to that one.

Kees