Breguet's Pre-1914 Challenge # 007

[Rbailey]

Kees, you will really have earned the point if you get it. The challenge is one of the machines listed, but which one? We may have to ignore Breguet's rule and go by a process of elimination, if you can determine what the other manufacturers built in 1912 - not too many canards I think. Incidentally, a development of the challenge machine was built later in 1913, but an additional builder or designer's name was added to the designation of that one.

[Varese2002]

To quote from another contemporary source (Flugsport 1913, May 28). The report was an interview with Walter Stoeffler who participated in the Military Competition. He flew a S.A.M.L. Biplane (based on the Aviatik Biplane). Foreign pilots were allowed to fly.

In most cases the machines were copies or slightly improved French machines, like the Deperdussin, Nieuport or Blériot types. Bristol had its sales representative. Of Italian origin were the Caproni machine, the Bobba monoplane and the S.A.M.L. Biplane

.

In the article no more machines are mentioned, so it is likely that 'our' Canard was entered, but did not participate at all in the Italian Military Competition of 1913.

So a few machines can be cancelled:

S.A.M.L , was a 'normal' biplane

Bobba [in Flight named Borba Cesare], this was a monoplane, of which 2 were flying

Chiribiri monoplane - Nieuport style

Gabardini monoplane - Nieuport style

Macchi probably the first machine (Parasol) - style á la Morane-Saulnier

So that leaves the choice to

- Asteria (entered 4 machines)
- T.A.Milano (entered 4 machines)
- Tonini-Bergonzi (entered 3 machines)
- Wolsit (entered 3 machines)
- S.I.T. (entered 2 machines)
- Castellani (entered 1 machine)

When we consider that the Canard machine was entered for the Competition but did not make a mark there was only one machine built which would identify the Canard as the Castellani machine.

I rest my case.

Cheers

Kees

[Rbailey]

Excellent detective work Kees, but unfortunately at least one of the manufacturers who entered more than one machine but did not participate did include at least one canard - this one. Of course, some of the entries may have been machines that were not built in time, or never completed for some reason.

I have not been able to find out anything about the Castellani, although I have something on some of the others from the same source as the challenge.

[Varese2002]

I see, the search will go on, but at least I have narrowed down till a very few manufacturers.

Probably the book of Piero Vergnano will help, which you have in your collection.

Vergnano, Piero. 1964. Origini dell'aviazione in Italia = origin of aviation in Italy: 1783-1918. Genova: Edizioni Intyprint.

or better still the book by the aviation pioneer Mario Cobianchi, written in 1943 about early aviation in Italy (400+ pages)

Cobianchi, Mario. 1943. Pionieri dell'aviazione in Italia, con rare e storiche illustrazioni. Roma: Editoriale Aeronautica.

Cheers

Kees

[Varese2002]

John H. Morrow in The great war in the air gives smething about the Italian military competition for airplanes and engines held in April 1913. The judges, amoung them Douhet, declared no winners, finding that the domestic products equaled French machines, which was not surprising given the primitive state of the Italian aviation industry.

The first Italian aircraft factory was S.I.T. (Societŕ Italiana Transaerea) was founded in 1912 to built Blériot and Farman machines under licence. SIT received the majority of the contracts for 150 planes ordered by the Italian War Ministry in 1912/1913.

I would rule out S.I.T. from the list of Canard makers, given there experise in 'solid' machines like Blériot / Farman.

Cheers

Kees

[Varese2002]

I do not want to fill this Challenge with all sorts of pieces, but I found the following interesting information about early aviation in Turin

With the industrial revolution in the 19th century, factories of every shape and size began to spring up in Turin, and in 1898 a group of young men from the city founded FIAT. Today, the city is Italy’s second industrial city after Milan, with internationally renowned excellence in numerous manufacturing areas and business services. Turin leads Italy in the field of research and innovation, with investments that are twice the national average.

So it can be no surprise that the Italian aeronautical industry was born in Turin, and that the first Italian flight took off from there.

In 1905 Italy was one of the five founders of FAI, and Aeroclub Torino was created in 1908.

In 1909 the first all-Italian aircraft was built in Turin (design, structure and engine), and in 1913 the city could boast 12 plants operating in the field of aeronautics: Fabbrica Italiana di Macchine per Volare, Miller, Chiribiri, Bobba, SIT (Societŕ Italiana Transaerea), Asteria, FIAT, LUCT, Baruffa, FIMA, Bertolotti and SPA.

In 1915 alone, 24,000 aero engines were manufactured!

Cheers

Kees

[paolomiana]

Hi all,
I'm just back from holidays. Fortunatley Kees send me the link of this challenge...... this seems to me the TBN (Tonini Bergonzi Negri) Italia 2.
Some characteristics
wingspan: 6m
weight: 340 Kg
engine power: 35 Hp

Italia 1 was designed for the Italian 1913 trial but was underpowered and badly damaged by Alessandro Tonini during landing. So for the trial was developed Italia 2; according to the son of Tonini, this aircraft never fly......
Later Tonini became chief designer of Macchi-Nieuport were was responsible of the M8 M9 M12 M17 M18 M19 and M24 hidroplanes and M16 &M20 airplanes.

source V. Tonini "un aereo in cortile" 2003 Macchione editore - Varese

For who is interested in early aviation and WWI Macchione Editore has a list of interesting titles.... unfortunately only in italian

best regards

Paolo Miana

[Rbailey]

Paolo - glad to have your knowledge of Italian aircraft. We need it.

Time to end this challenge. My source for it was Cobianchi's book (which I do not have, but have some exerpts from). He identifies the challenge machine as the Tonini-Bergonzi canard monoplane tested in May 1912, He gives the Tonini-Bergonzi-Negri as tested in August 1913. It is a more elegant machine - see below. He also identifies a totally different 1913 machine as "Italia", so there remain some uncertainties about the exact designation. This may not be unusual for some of these early machines. Paolo's photos look like the challenge and so would be the T-B machine of the challenge (unless there was a second version of it, and overall 3 machines, which would be consistent with 3 entries in the trials - idle speculation on my part). Cobianchi gives a lot of information about early Italian aviation, but very little about the machines themselves, and I have no way of judging his accuracy.

Anyhow, I am going to give Paolo the point and next challenge post, but arbitrarily give Kees half a point for narrowing down the possibilities in what turned out to be a challenge indeed.

The score at the finish of round #007 is:

2.00 Airarticles
1.50 Varese2002
1.00 joegertler
1.00 matte_kudasai
1.00 RBailey
1.00 paolomiana[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[paolomiana]

Hi RBailey, unfortunately Cobianchi sometimes made a little confusion. I don't know if this is the case, but the book quoted in the previous post was written by the son of Tonini using the father archive as source..... I trust him.
Next time I'll go back home I'll try to copy the whole Cobianchi book. Unfortunately right now we can't solve the doubt.....

V. Tonini also explain that in late 1913 Negri was out of the company (and the name canceled from company name) because he lose all his money at a blackjack table

best regards

Paolo

ps please be patient, I had to dig a bit for next challenge

[Varese2002]

Thanks RBailey for choosing this unusually interesting plane, resting somewhere in the dust of archives unknown to most of us . Many thanks also to Paolo for bringing this Challenge to a conclusion. One thing is quite clear, my book collection is too limited regarding early Italian aviation.

I think the pre-1914 ID Challenge is doing a good service in spreading information about aviation development in those early days, sothat interest in this era of development is heightened.

As we have already seven rounds under our belt, it is high time to drop the 'preliminary' from the rules. I added one extra stipulation, which prevents any use of flying object which exist only as paper.

Cheers

Kees

The rules:

•The thread title must be "Bréguet's pre-1914 ID challenge #......"
•The score board, link and rules must be copied to the beginning and end of each thread so that we know where we are.
•The flying object must have been dreamt up before 1914 (no limit backwards in time ....)
•There are no limits to the flying object for the pre-1914 series. There is no ruling that it must be flown, or completely built
•Machines which exist only as 'paper', that is absolutely no material has been cut to construct it, are excluded from this ID Challenge
•The picture / drawing must show as much of the flying object as possible, but views showing the machine 'incomplete' are possible (with discretion)
•Challenges which depict a machine already earlier presented are disqualified
•If there is any doubt as to the eligibility of a flying object for the challenge details should be PM'd to Breguet BEFORE the object is submitted.
•Once someone has got 5 correct answers under their belt they belong to the ROYALTY. Once they belong to the ROYALTY they must wait 12hrs after the posting of the new challenge before they can post an answer.
•To be eligible for correct ID an answer must include at least one characteristic of the aircraft that helped in its identification.
•The first person to ID the challenge correctly gets to post the next challenge. If this can not be done for any reason Breguet himself will post the next challenge.
•If a ROYALTY gives the correct answer too early, the challenge is over, he gets no point but has to post the next one. In lieu of the fact that the "novices" have in effect been "cheated" of their "exclusive" time that next post should be a relatively easy one. Anyone repeating the correct answer at the right time gets neither a point nor the right to post the next challenge.
•The final arbitor in relation to questions about the rules will be Breguet.