HM 14The Story

REVISED HM 14 PLANS
ARE AVAILABLE FROM
FLYING FLEA ARCHIVE USA
P.O. Box 892, Wooster, Ohio
44691-0892, USA

Preface	Preface for Second Edition	Introduction	Chapter I The Spell of The Air	Chapter II Wireless Aviation
Chapter III Why?	Chapter IV Aero-Technique	Chapter V How I Designed the Flying Flea	Chapter VI Experiments	Chapter VII How I Built the Flying Flea
Chapter VIII Materials	Chapter IX To Work	Chapter X Wings!Wings!	Chapter XI The Engine	Chapter XII The Air Screw
Chapter XIII Management of the Engine	Chapter XIV How to Fly the Flea	Appendix		Corrections to Fig 139, 143,144,183

    It is with much pleasure that I present to readers who prefer the English tongue a translation of Le Sport de L'Air, by Henri Mignet. M. Mignet is a remarkable man. He professes that he is no pilot; he denies that he is a trained engineer; he has not been endowed with an abundance of money. And yet he has allowed none of these obstacles to balk him of his determination to find an outlet for his enthusiasm for aviation.
    As an amateur designer he has built many kinds of plane, and many young men have followed in his foot steps in the past. Dissatisfied with the difficulties of flight he went back to first principles and produced at last a design which is, he claims, robust, simple to build, and safe to fly, and four hundred copies of his machine are being built in France at the moment that I write.
But Mignet has done more than this. He has captivated a youthful generation; he has fired them with his own enthusiasm, and he has proved that the romance and the spirit which inspired the early pioneers of flight are still with us, only waiting fox some such outlet as he has provided.
    In his book he describes in vivid and arresting language his experiences, his ideas, and the detain of his machine... I can only hope that in this translation which the Air League of the British Empire has made, the spirit of the Author will live and that very many young men who speak our language will be encouraged to follow him in this new and exciting Sport of the Air.

It is less than a month since a first edition of 6,000 copies was put on sale, and I am asked to write a note for the second edition. What can I say? Mignet's summer tour in England has convinced the skeptics that the Flea does fly; I know that the amateur, following the directions in the book, can build a Flying Flea as good as that flown by Mignet himself. But you must learn to fly like Mignet, slowly and patiently. The machine cannot be learned in an hour or a day; a week or a month must be spent in your apprenticeship, in no wind.
I repeat that we will be glad to help you, but send a stamp for the reply. And if you are grateful for Mignet and his book you might consider joining the Air League, which is proud to have introduced him and it to you.

One ambition has been my driving force during these last few years to spread abroad to a friendly audience the results obtained in following out my ideal, The Practice of Aviation.
    In 1928, following my experiments, in which I was beginning to obtain a few real results, I decided to sound public opinion in order to gauge the volume of an interest that I suspected, in a confused way, must spread.
    I wrote a few articles in the papers, and then a book in which I explained how, with only small financial means, and but a little knowledge, I had with my own hands built my small plane.
    This book, in a determined amateur way, I produced myself. Each page was written and drawn by my pen, and then photographed. These negatives, assembled on boards in a certain order, I reproduced on zinc by the lithographic process of "offset." A friendly editor loaned the printing machine and the sheets were finally bound in a colored cover of my own design.
    Incredulously my friends saw a small trial edition appear in this way. "It won't sell," they said. "To build an aeroplane oneself, without special tools, without experience; it is not possible. Even if something resembling an aeroplane were made, who would risk themselves in it?" Well, what happened?
    This edition vanished in eight days. A second edition, quite large this time, was sold out in a year, without other publicity than a small notice renewed from time to time in a single periodical. After three years, although the last copy has been gone some time, I am still receiving orders for it.
    The movement has started. The great family is everywhere. I feel myself carried on the strong shoulders of a multitude of friends.
The results obtained, the evolution of the movement, the progress made following trials in the air, the correspondence from my readers (which keeps me fully occupied) guarantee that from all this something must come. Thus, I have been working on the material for a new edition for three years.
    The volume is substantial. The old arrangement, the work of an amateur,will no longer do. This time it's a book a real book which is needed, presented in accordance with the resources of modern printing. Will it cost more? It doesn't matter. I am not a paper merchant. In order to be read, I must keep within the reach of the average reader, guided by, the very stout conviction that something must come of it.
    The theme is large. It takes many words to evolve ideas. I admit humbly that I have only a clumsy vocabulary, where the "whichs," the "whos," the"hows," and the " becauses " lead the reader a dance to the detriment of clearness of style. What would you? my eloquence is of the common type and my pen runs its little course. These few years of solitary camping have not helped to give it grace and distinction. If you follow me to the end you will manage to understand me all right. I ask for no more.
    I only wish to have your confidence. Believe what I am saying. This book is not a love romance of a naughty little girl. It is real. It has been lived. It has been suffered. You will have no need of queries. I have dotted the "I" of all which concerns myself, and my reputation may suffer. I will be accused of a swollen head but I have got it off my chest.
    The first book held between its lines some immature ideas: since then these have become realities. It is no longer necessary to guess my deepest intentions; you can read them word by word. To day I say all that I think and I give the details of what is to be built.
I shall limit myself to one single type of machine. It is no longer the moment to try things out and to experiment indefinitely. I have had the trouble. The fruits must be gathered, but they must be ripe fruits.
    Since it is necessary that the amateur should fly without difficulty, should fly without danger, I must give him precise instructions.
Readers, my correspondents, there are many of you who are of my way of thinking, you have allowed me to measure your enthusiasm. You have demanded this book of me. Here it is.
    The Flying Flea, No. 4, begun on the 6th August, 1933, took off from the ground on the 6th September. After three months of adjustment in the open, it came back to the workshop in good order after ten hours flight; not ten hours of cruising in calm weather under a blue sky, but ten hours of difficult trials, ten hours of flight in mid-winter, in bad weather, in rain and in storm. Ugly clouds have scudded. under its wheels. Fatigue and excessive cold gave me hallucinations in flight. The Flea brought me back. A short life, but a life spent in hard exercises. A proved formula.
    What have I to fear? The failure of my campaign? Oh, well, I can't help it; it has got out of hand. it is no longer I, Mignet, who speaks, it is a force which. swells, of which I am but an echo, and which is everywhere. And I proclaim this force since nobody makes:
a move, since others better instructed than I, and more qualified in science, in the art of the air, sleep in a stagnation which they call the "crisis and which I name "blindness."
    Build, my friends. Go right ahead. The question, has never been presented; let's present it; it will insist on a solution. This solution will certainly come, because it interests not only our amateurish hobbies but the actual progress of human science. No man of law, no ministerial paper scribbler, no policeman can stand up against the laws of progress

I go right ahead and listen to no one. Will my, idea succeed? How many people will think me a mad man? How many, also, will be with me? I know.
All the worse for the former, all the better for the latter. Whatever happens, what will happen is of the greatest interest.
Oh, how beautiful is our Aviation!

    The Flying Flea has passed its tests. The perfect formula? Far from it. It can certainly be improved upon. I leave it to amateurs to alter its details, to improve its flying qualities. I have brought out the model. As it stands, it's quite good enough.
To aim at perfection would have prolonged my game of promising publication of my book from quarter to quarter . . . that has been going on for many years. . . . I hardly dare believe that I have reached the last month.
    To bring out an original model, even a simple thing like this, is not done as easily " one paints a theatrical scene or improvises an illusion on the cinema screen. I am pleased this is now in the past to certify that everything set down here has been tried out, has been lived, has been felt, has been thought out, has passed through the sieve of trials, which have been at times very severe. The isolation, the living in camp the heat, the cold, the lack of funds, alas . . . the boiled potatoes and the rice cooked in water. . . . I had to stick to my road since at the end of it was the Flea. Without false shame I admit it. What does it matter to me? All that is in the past. Ahead of us life is cheerful: the machine is small but good..." It does fly."
    In my book I put all my confidence, all my faith. It is the expression of a candid man, of a wild man who is aghast at the useless rush of the century, but who loves aviation, as he loves his children, as he loves his wife, with all his heart and soul.

Why can one not, once one has been near it, free oneself from the influence of Aviation?
It is a new era which has come to us. Is there a new air record? or an air catastrophe? The papers are full of flaring headlines and a dispatch of a few lines is expanded to columns of print.
Why is this? Is it the work of journalists short of copy? Certainly not! It is done to satisfy the worldwide interest in air matters. It is not unhealthy curiosity, it is the response of our inner beings, an instinct old as man.

THE ATTRACTION OF ADVENTURE
We pursue adventure on the roads through the lure of speed. But the roads are no longer roads to romance but carry a glut of vehicles past signposts and policemen. We fret because we cannot pass a lorry; we return at night blinded by other motorists and terrified of hitting a cyclist. Any adventure we may have lead to the police courts! I have no use for the road.
But the air! there we have it! Speed, the sense of being a navigator and an explorer, the freedom of wide spaces, adventure aviation puts all of them at our disposal.

     Everyone who has flown is bitten: everyone wants to fly again. .
A flying magazine comes each week, to the house, and is devoured from cover to cover. Names of pilots, constructors and machines become familiar; monoplanes, biplanes and record breakers take recognizable shape; every aeroplane which passes overhead increases the desire.
    To fly! to live as airmen live! Like them to ride the skyways from horizon to horizon, across rivers and forests! To free oneself from the petty disputes of everyday life, to be active, to feel the blood renewed in one's veins ah! that is life.
There is one great satisfaction which the sport of aviation can bring and that is the speed with which one can become versed in it. One does not need, years of study, an engineer's tools, or a life of calculations and figures. Alone among vehicles the aeroplane may be built by the amateurs few directions, some patience, a little money, and in two months your machine is flying.
    One may, have a feeling for a motor cycle: a car is no longer a thing for which one has affection. An aeroplane, self built! that is something which one loves! You do not love a thing you buy!

LIFE
    Before me is a sleeping mechanism which in a moment leaps into life as the engine starts.
The machine moves forward; the tufts of grass pass quicker and quicker until they merge into long blurred lines. Suddenly something happens! Like a car passing from a rough road to smooth macadam the machine becomes steadier and hardly touches the earth! We pull gently on the stick and the ground falls away a map in green, height without sense of giddiness.
The speed? What does it matter? The sensation is unforgettable; it is the recompense of all my efforts; the dreams have come true.
I have flown in an aeroplane made by myself.
On my aeroplane!
    Is aviation merely a matter of bounds and of aeroplane trials? I know full that it is always taking me further afield. The air road leads to everywhere. Ten miles or 1000 miles, what does it matter?
    My machine need not be envious of others: it is a real flying machine. I dream of magnificent fights. .
After a little practice perhaps I can fly across a continent And why not?
An aeroplane passes overhead. You wave to it. Do you think that the pilot sees you or laughs at the chickens which scatter over the yard? No, he is looking at his map; he is busy flying. A storm is coming up and he sees to it that his safety belt is tightened.
Aviation seen from the ground is quite a different thing what it appears in the air. Height has little meaning. You seem high at 50 feet; really high at 500; at 5,000 you seem no higher. Your air, road seems to be glued to earth! A moment later a change takes place! The wind freshens. The horizon becomes less defined. There are shadows below. A mountain barrier rears itself before us a barrier of clouds.
    Our airway no longer seems glued to the earth: there is only emptiness beneath our wheels.
The sea of clouds flows past underneath us, fleecy, in vague forms, in high and twisted peaks, which the shadow of our little machine, outlined by a circular rainbow, seems to caress as it passes. What marvelous glaciers! What gulfs! A vision of Dante, a prehistoric's world boiling as it takes form!
    The cloud masses get heavier. One can no longer see the earth. Above we have a quiet, unclouded sky; below nothing.but cotton wool. The whiteness is startling: the light is overstrong.
    We fly on for ten minutes, with no change. The world is a desert and we are alone. If the clouds or fog reach to the ground we cannot land without accident. It will be wise to turn and retrace our course; in ten minutes we shall be clear again. The wing banks over in the turn
a flock of wild duck passes below us. We watch our instruments and wait, while we listen to the engine.
    You, the driver of a car, do you know your engine? Have you felt it? Has it ever saved your life?
My engine sings its song. I listen to its cheer note. I care for nothing else. How it pulls! It does not want to lose me! My machine.is no longer something which has been made and sold, something which has been nailed, and glued, and.planed. The Man and the Thing have become one, a single whole; the wings are animated by the hand.
    My kind of private aeroplane is not an instrument for business: I do not know if it will ever be that. There is much that is unexpected in its life: the man is not completely master of the machine.
    With all one's care something unforeseen may happen a drop of water in a jet, a magneto which ceases to fire.
You have a machine carefully engineered and fully airworthy. A little bit of grit for all your care passes into the carburetor. A dozen times it threatens to block the jet while you, unheeding and happy, watch the bathers on the beach as you fly low over the sea.
    Your forced landing awaits you! '"Then it comes it will not be over those nice large fields but over some forest or vineyard. The engine is slowing ! . . . You begin to lose height! You hope it will carry you to the next open space, but all of a sudden it stops! You must make up your mind quickly what to do.
That is another adventure in your life.
The man is not sure of his machine. he has still less certainty of the weather. Today the weather is grand. At nightfall you spread out your charts trace courses, calculate times. "I shall take off at 8 o'clock."
    You take off with a fair prospect before you, thinking over all the route you will follow, where you will eat and drink, the friends you will see and your return in the evening.
    Don't be too confident! You may meet rain or storms or fog. You may not be able to go on, or you may fight your way through bumps, against a head wind, in gathering darkness, with fuel running low until you get to the end of your journey. A little tired, a little cold, you have still to make a good landing! With a sign of relief you come to rest and loosen your safety belt. To night you may wonder if it is all worth while, tomorrow you will come, keen and fresh, to live the same life again.
The air is an ocean where things; happen unseen. The squall which is visible on the sea hits you unexpectedly in the air. A hilly region may be impassable for your small machine, or even a larger one, in a storm: in fair weather it may be marvelous. But it is not always fair weather.
No! the aeroplane is not an instrument of business it is a pleasure vehicle.

A PROFESSIONAL CHANGE
    My daily life is changed. I see everything from another angle. A draught, a journey, an engine starting, a bee buzzing against a pane... all
these remind me of my aviation.
    Life is finer and simpler. My will is freer. I appreciate everything more, sunlight and shade, work, and my friends. The sky is vaster. I breathe deep gulps of the fine, clear air of the heights. I feel myself to have achieved a higher state of physical strength and a clearer brain. I am living in the third dimension!
    Is the weather fit for flying today? The thought makes me look up where ordinary mortals look down. I tap the barometer twenty times a day, and harder when it is going down in the hopes that it will go up!
    In dirty weather when I cannot go out I love to take out my maps, spread them on the dining table, put weights on tile corners and work out some more aerial voyages. Don't they look pretty with all their little villages and woods? Surely I couldn't lose myself? but I know I am a bad navigator.
    Here is a little field between a wood, a. marsh, and the railroad; I came down there with a broken petrol tap. Look at that valley! how beautiful it was in the red glow of the setting sun last summer.
    When I am walking, motoring, or in the train I look at the country only from one point of view is it good for landing or not! What a fine smooth meadow, a little small perhaps but with good approaches!
    An aerodrome is a far finer sight than the bustle of a railway station. The sheds are full of mingled wings; great names, Imperial Airways, Air France, Lufthansa, T.W.A., United, blazen their sides. The sounds of engines come down the sky and echo among the buildings. The doors open for the big long distance machines which travel to the corners of the earth.

THE HAUNTING WINGS
    My machine has just been built. Here it is on the ground. My tent is pitched and everything is in order. The wind is too strong for a trial. I am respited!! At 5 o'clock the wind falls. The flags flap lazily. We can make our first trial. Everything is ready. There is no excuse: we must make a start.
   What do test pilots think? Their placid faces show no emotion. Perhaps they are accustomed to their job but I am not. Am I skillful enough to try this new machine? How will it control? What will happen?
    My machine and I look at one another in silence. I hate these starts in cold blood. . . . I've got "the needle." . . . There is a little heavy feeling at the pit of my stomach. I don't feel very keen this evening!
Well here is this horrible propeller which can break your arm if you slip. . . . I leap at it and the engine springs to life. I climb hastily into the machine. I open up the throttle. I forget all I had to do. I grip the stick and fix my gaze ahead. The ground flows by. The song of the engine ceases; the ground rises, up in front of me. Pull for the love of mike! pull,
or you will go over on your nose. Well, how long was that? Ten minutes, no! ten seconds!

    Would I give up this torture if I could? No! I love just that! It is my obsession, myself! The thing which compels me to camp in this lost wood, to deprive myself of elementary comforts. This is how I choose to practice Aviation, to test my prototypes.
And after you have taken off ! Oh, the sweet moments when the bumping is over and the flight becomes smooth, when you have time to look around. You become yourself again, you relax! Profit by these moments to enjoy this air sport, to realize that the object of your dreams, which you have so long contemplated on paper, is a living thing which is working, and that it is you, you yourself and nobody else, who is with it at this moment, full of life. . . .
Here is something, which nothing else in the world, motor car, boat or cycle, will ever replace.
    And that is the reason why a man, who would never attempt to build a canoe, cycle, car or other vehicle, will set himself to work with unexpected energy on His AEROPLANE!!!
For him the realization will be his pleasure, a relief from his daily life, and he will one day recognize the sublime moment which precedes his first flying trial.
    Having lived through such adventures I am ready to repeat them. I look for them; I like to think there is something unexpected which may happen, and that it is not a question of a flying laboratory, without attractions or emotions. That is the reason why I could not live far from my aeroplane, above all, why I should find life horribly empty on earth without ,wings.
    The aviator is a new man, transformed by his own child, an artist, a poet who dreams dreams. The power of maneuver in three senses, distant horizons, the green sky of high altitudes, the poetry of empty space, the risk which the adventure holds these are the things which make aviation a vocation, Which serves, as nothing else can serve, human sentiment.

    Every man has in his heart a sleeping power. We all like to use our spare time in repairing our furniture, hanging bells, hammering in nails, papering the walls. We are all, in a word, amateurs.
    The wireless amateur is typical. For several years past and the movement has run through the whole world we have been absorbed by a task from which we cannot escape. Under the pretext of distracting us with music a great mass of literature is published about wireless, which is concerned with describing the details of construction, so that the amateur can make first class wireless machines of a very complicated nature..
A man who doesn't know anything about except that he has probably heard it often, and who possesses a few tools, often finds himself falling into the arms of this insidious fairy. Aided with all the drawings and writings with which those who sell wireless parts provide him, he soon has his tables filled to the great annoyance of his lady wife with a crowd of objects, masses of wire, which will become some day his own thing.
Year after year he puts together, and pulls apart, and changes and alters his apparatus; without thinking he spends, little by little, on his hobby perhaps 50 to 60.
    The man has been bitten by a microbe; he bas become a crazy amateur, and he is really not interested in using his machine; he is always experimenting, and noting and adjusting and stopping, and he maddens those around him, because he only lets them hear short bursts of music.
    Amateurs of this type are legion, and there is a large body of people who cultivate this microbe in order to keep the epidemic going, and who have founded a whole industry of great activity. . . .
Can we compare wireless with its twin sister, Aviation? The former has become commonplace, the latter is, at present, unusual. Radio amateurs can be numbered by hundreds of thousands. How many aviation amateurs have we?
    Let us say that the amateur wireless constructors",, has spent some 50 before he has really got a good home made wireless set. You do not need any more than that to build an aeroplane of first class material, in fact if one is a clever thinker, one needs much less.
Here are the expenses in detail of my machine.There are in an aeroplane two essential parts one is the airframe, and the other the engine. It doesn't require much brains to see that when one is talking about aviation, whether it is war or touring machines, or little machines like ours, without an engine you cannot fly. Even gliding requires some sort of motive power to launch the glider, and if you wish to have complete security and a certainty of doing good performances, the engine is the most important part.
    The airframe, which is the principal object of our studies, and which takes most of our efforts, is not a great expense. Here is a summary of the prices of new materials in France, without any special discounts:

2 Wheels	280 francs
25 sq. meters of fabric	200
20 liters of dope	140
Laths and strips of wood planed	200
Plywood	150
Oddments of ironmongery	300
A block of wood for the airscrew	30

A total of 1,300 francs. After this expense you will have to spend a little more to put it together, but all in all the airframe is not expensive. You could doubtless undertake it more or less at once. It requires about thirty days of work of eight hours a day to complete the machine, ready for its first flight. There is less hurry about the engine. As it is so expensive, we may have to wait for an opportunity of getting hold of one without impoverishing ourselves. A motor cycle engine of about 500 c.c. is worth about 3,000 francs new, but you can often pick one up which has been overhauled as good as new for 1,000. A good engine, specially designed for light aeroplanes, costs about 3,000 francs without gears, and 4,000 with gearing.

"Well," you will say, "if we are only going to amuse ourselves in the fields with the machine, making short hops, this ordinary reconditioned motorcycle engine will be quite enough." All I can say is that in order to fly quickly, or at least to take off, do not hesitate to spend your 4,000 francs. You will get a very fine job, and after you have spent the money you will forget about it, and you certainly will not regret it.
However, begin by building the airframe. I am sure that you will then start economizing on your domestic expenses in order to save the price of your engine. So much the worse for the cinema and your short drinks. Never mind! your brain will be all the clearer, and your 4,000 francs will be soon accumulated. That is what I did, and I did not regret it.
    The sort of tools which you want to build this machine are those which anybody who builds wireless sets will have by him; perhaps some day some shop will sell sets all ready for you. In fact I have no doubt that soon you will see in these big shops a whole lot of aviation material, with an engine enthroned in the middle surrounded by bits and pieces of all sorts and all prices, just like we see in wireless shops.
    The blood relationship of these two sisters, wireless and aviation stops here. All the same, there are two kinds of aviation, just as there are two kinds wireless there is the aviation you buy, and the aviation which you make..
Ah! no, an aeroplane is not comparable to wireless apparatus, it is better, it is larger in the true sense of the Word. It is a hobby but not a toy. It does things. The grown man continues to play as if he were still a child. He either tortures materials, or tortures people, according to his temperament, but whether he is in business, or in the Army, or in industry, he is always playing. . . .
    It is not necessary to have any technical knowledge to build an aeroplane. You are only the maker, the workman, without whom, of course, the designer would be incomplete. He has prepared the work, you have only to carry it out, following point by point the road which he has indicated in detail for you to follow.
    To build an aeroplane comes to this, to glue plywood to strips of white wood, which one joins together with bits of metal and little bolts.
Several yards of steel cable, some bits of bicycle tubing, some fabric sewn with great knots, a lick or two of dope.
If you can nail together a packing case, you can construct an aeroplane.
    Here you have your little pal, all bright and new, with which two or three friends can have some very happy and unforgettable hours. Become an active amateur! Come on, construct your aeroplane!

SPORT IN THE OPEN AIR AWAITS YOU.
Don't think that I am exceptional. I am over forty years old, a man of routine, a typical man in the street.
Foolhardy and bold? Not at all. I am giddy at the top of a ladder; I detest riding. I am a family man with children to educate. I have no wish to risk my neck. nor the necks of others.
I deny that I am exceptionally lucky or skillful. It is just because I am like everybody else, just a plain ordinary man that I defend my conception, that I write my book for normal people, that I will launch them, if they will follow me, not into danger but into the finest of sports the sport of one's dreams.
And let me repeat once more

TRUE AMATEUR AVIATION IS NOT A QUESTION OF MONEY.

I BUILT the Flying Flea because I have a passion for things of the air; because I cannot live far from wings; because I love to fly this little machine which is both docile and full of life, to live the magnificent sport which is Aviation; because I was inescapably drawn by the poetry of large spaces, of the open air, of the clouds, of the light, of color, in a single word
I am under the spell of the air.

But I also built the Flying Flea because there was no other way for me to enjoy the Sport of the Air.
Am I too old? Are my reactions slowed down? Do my faculties preclude me from having any skill? I have not the slightest idea. The fact is that the controls of an aeroplane appear to be out of tune with my "man in the street" temperament. The more I study it, the more I reason it out, the more the aeroplane frightens me.

CONFESSION
    An aeroplane frightens me because I consider it unsuitable for the uses that I ask of it, because to my idea it is defective. The Taison d'etre of an aeroplane is undoubtedly speed. In our times of rush, justifiably or not, we must go quickly.. The road has reached its maximum capacity and it is no longer enough; the air route alone allies extreme speed with security.
    But there are no halting places in the air. In the air, at the end of a journey, one has not yet arrived, . . . there remains the landing. This is usually the moment for mistakes and annoyances a wonderful opportunity for a crash.
Aeroplanes appear to be strong. Why then do they break?
Statically the aeroplane is "superabundantly indestructible," otherwise the technical authorities would refuse its permission to fly.
But the aeroplane is not called upon to fly in a laboratory tunnel with a steady flow of air. Its life is one long struggle with air turbulence, and the argument may end in blows and wounds.

AEROPLANES MUST NO LONGER CRASH!
    On commercial airlines we can insist upon multiple engines: we shall no longer need to fear engine failure.
But the private aeroplane is in the hands of unprofessional unreliable people, whose imprudence may cause an accident. How shall we intervene? Shall we treat the symptoms of the disease? No! We must go back to the root of the malady. If. you filter dirty water, you will never obtain clean water.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH AVIATION SEEN FROM BELOW?
    Thinking people agree that progress has simply changed the cause of accidents. In days gone by, the aeroplane broke through weakness and through faulty proportioning of the controls. Today it is strong and perfected; but it still falls in a spin.
The stall, the origin of the spin, is like a sword of Damocles, suspended over the head of all aviators.
Safety slots have palliated the trouble, and one can amuse oneself by flying with one's tail dragging in a position which might become dangerous if the engine stopped near the ground, they are, moreover, a weight and a complication.
    Aerodynamic cleanness, so desirable for speed, produces aeroplanes which require long runs for landing or take off: such aeroplanes require experienced pilots.
    Flaps may be used as air brakes to reduce the cleanness, but the aeroplane can still stall.
We can use the low wing type, and thus create a cushion of air below the wing when near the ground to help us to land and take off at slow speed. But we lose lift from the middle of the wing, and so we increase the span and get a trailer machine! Is this a good solution?
And if we cannot see the ground so well because of the low wing, we argue that the bonnet of the car hides the road---or that the wing is a good shock absorber in a crash! We gain on the swings what we lose on the roundabouts! I do not like these arguments.
    Speed! always speed! do we million ordinary men really want to go great distances in the twinkling of an eye? Will our materials always stand up to such folly?
The beautiful private aeroplane hides secret vices. It remains what it has always been and always will be in its present form,

A WAR MACHINE.
    Here, for instance, is a beautiful low wing type, of remarkable performance . . . it doesn't sell. Its maker has thought of everything except what the public needs.
    In the sacred cause of aerodynamic cleanness he has placed his seats in tandem! Is it a sign of the times that we can go honey mooning with the bride behind murmuring words of love to a rubber tube...?
    Seats side by side, a folding wing placed high, giving a complete view of the countryside these are the sine qua non of air touring and of air safety. The man who does not agree with this statement is lacking in all critical sense. One must distinguish between the war arm and the civil machine. A car has wheels a cannon also. Otherwise there is no resemblance. The client "WAR" has money the individual, if he has any, does not spend it without thinking twice. The business man can risk large sums, on the condition that it is worth while.
    The aeroplane is a merchandise which does not pay. It is too expensive for what it is. Designers have adopted bad habits from association with the client "WAR." Since they have turned their attention to the private buyer, they have not changed their ideas. Sales remain limited. The makers have not understood the problem.

THE TROUBLE WITH AVIATION SEEN FROM ABOVE
Take the young men, all interested in sport, full of life and strength. Assume that they have never seen an aeroplane. Pick out one of them haphazard, it doesn't matter which, and put him in an aeroplane. Say to him, "'Pedals are for steering; by moving the control column this way you re-establish your lateral balance; this way, you rise or you descend. With the throttle you regulate the power of the engine." Start the propeller and leave him to his own devices. He will not have flown 100 yards before he is in a spin. What is more, the other nine young men
will also spin.

THE TRUTH
Dear reader, I shall not go further in this book, into which I have put all my heart, without unburdening myself to my friends who read me, my friends, who have taken me for a knowledgeable pilot! Today I can face up to things. I need no longer hide anything. There is no need to lie. Nothing to be ashamed of in admitting it:
I am not a Pilot.

    Does this mean that I must keep quiet as if dead? That is another story, and I refuse to be inactive.
I had the luck, as I was making trials with the Flying Flea No. 1, to have a good pilot as my neighbor, an old War instructor, who possessed an aeroplane and did not hesitate to make use of it. Although he did not believe in it, my formula interested him: my machine had a propeller which made a draught: my wings cast a shadow on the ground: my wheels traced a rut on the wet ground. . . . I was there for the pilot of an aeroplane . . . thus an aviator . . .and thus a friend.
He offered me the hospitality of his hangar and that early Flying Flea, like a chick under the wing of the mother hen, found shelter under the half wing of the Potez 36 of that date.
    It is thus that in the machine of this good friend, of this old adviser, who did not query expense when it was a question of flying or of making people fly, I acquired during the Summer of 1932, thirty hours of flight.
    These flights were not only passenger flights, like, a bulky parcel, but navigation between intervals of dual control, repeated lessons in takeoffs and landings, of flights among the clouds by instruments, of observing and maneuvering, etc.
With him I made numbers of journeys in all directions over the North of France and Belgium, not by following natural landmarks, but by holding the nose of the plane on the straight line traced in advance on the map, that is to say under the most, difficult conditions.
    He did not allow me breathing space. He did not tolerate one minute's idleness. I flew... but I worked hard. I understood then that aviation seen from the ground did not in the least resemble that lived up a loft. My thirty hours' flight were thirty hours well spent.
Did I progress,? Read on and find out

FIRST FLIGHT: "LET'S GO"
I take the joystick and place my feet on the pedals. My left knee trembles a little. I cannot stop it. Does
My friend see it?
My lessons were a constant terror. "Hold it with your foot and feel it!" Feel the machine? I don't feel anything! The joystick is there: it is a tube with a wooden handle, just like all wooden handles.
...Speed? The engine? The altitude? Are we going up? Are we going down? I haven't the Faintest idea. I do not "feel" anything. There is no sensitiveness, no smoothness in this massive machine which hurls itself through the atmosphere in all the fury of
its 100 h.p.
A machine quite beyond me. The joystick pushed at my hand, terribly. The machine was remonstrative and objected to obeying
me. It was heavy and all my maneuvers were delayed. I tried to turn, my eyes fixed on the speedometer. A little more pressure with my foot, a little more on the joystick. - - . I banked. Too much! I pushed the joystick in the opposite direction to get right again . . . my friend grasped the controls; I was in a spin. Since then, each time that I try to turn other wise than flat and very gradually, my instinct makes me cross the controls.
Luck has so arranged oh, my guardian angel that I should pilot the Flying Flea before taking in hand seriously the control of an aeroplane. My reactions were formed by sane instinct. All the stuff learned in ten consecutive hours of flying an aeroplane vanished in 100 meters of a flight on the Flea. My natural instinct is stronger than my will. I have had too much training in manipulating logically a pencil, a file or a blowpipe, to make a movement which is opposed to sound reason. My being refuses to register a reaction opposed to the instinct of self preservation. In a plane, if I lose my head, I am done! It is quite clear: I am no good at it.
I am incapable of piloting an aeroplane.

"NO'S" AND "NOTS"
    What is it in fact, this learning to fly? To be precise it is "to learn not to fly wrong."
The aeroplane is the only machine upon which it is necessary to learn how not to put oneself in danger. In an aeroplane the danger is permanent. It forms part of the business.
To learn to become a pilot is to learn: Not to let oneself fly too slowly.
Not to let oneself turn without accelerating. Not to cross the controls.
Not to do this, and not to do that. To pilot is a negation...
And when your teacher reminds you of this with
great shouts that does not help to reassure you!
    Let us take the control column and reason out the movements.
1. The Vertical Plane: if you push the stick forward, the plane descends and gathers speed. If you pull back, it rises and slows down. The control is very sensitive, or rather, your body is very sensitive to accelerations in the vertical plane. If one exaggerates the movement a little, the passenger soon begins to feel sea sick. To the beginner, this control is most pleasing. It is a pleasure to lower or to raise the noise on the horizon. One feels that one is "getting results."
    Joy changes to dismay in rough weather. The beginner does not manage well in rough weather, because to foresee the gusts of wind is an art which one only acquires after some time.
    Why foresee? because the control stick is passive. It indicates nothing. It is not alive.
In an aeroplane, the beginner realizes that he is out of position only after It has happened. A gust comes. The aeroplane leaps upward. The human reactions only intervene afterwards. The control of an aeroplane in the Vertical Plane is

A DELAYED ACTION
In full flight, high up in the sky, this delay is of no consequence: it is quite otherwise when near the ground. This type of delayed control has caused numbers of aeroplanes to stall to fail, and to crash. This is an inherent vice.

2. In the Horizontal Plane: if you carry the control column to the right, the plane banks to the right, and vice versa. But at the same time as it banks to the right, it tries to turn to the left. The rudder must be moved to correct the movement.
It is necessary, in all horizontal movements of balance, to bring into use an extra control the rudder which has no connection with the primary reaction.
    When you allow the aeroplane to slow down by raising its nose, the rudder loses much of its corrective action and the movement of the aileron which, according to your reactions, should have made you lean over to the right, starts your machine rotating energetically towards the left, although remaining level: you are in a spin.
3. To Turn: the rudder is not only a corrector, as we have just seen. It is used also for turning.
In a car, on a bicycle, to turn you move the handle. bare or the steering wheel in the direction in which you wish to turn. The most imbecile learner driving a car, even a delicate woman, turns the steering wheel in the right direction at once. It is inborn. It is the natural reaction.
    For the aeroplane, somebody decided otherwise. And since to have made it a hand control would have complicated the control stick, the work has been confided to the feet.
There are intelligent feet; there are stupid feet... The feet are bucolic things from which one must not demand any skillful or accurate movement. Only dancers have skillful feet, because they have learned to walk a second time. Thus, to steer an aeroplane with the feet necessitates training. The same training given to the bands, would lead (don't you agree?) to much greater skill . . . To turn slowly, the rudder is all that is necessary. You turn. From below, your pals are making fun of you because you, a young pilot, are making a flat turn by skidding.
To turn respectably, without going to the lengths of a vertical turn, you must bank, that is to say bring into action yet another control the ailerons which have nothing whatever to do with the initial intention of turning.
    Thus, lateral control and the turn call for two combined maneuvers in one direction or another according to the circumstances, which are very different. One can turn or correct oneself with the ailerons or with the rudder, sometimes with the controls working together, sometimes with the controls in opposition, sometimes banked over, sometimes flat. . . .
    All this is naturally not very clear and continues to cost human lives even those of very good pilots. The rudder and the ailerons have a double use, can counteract each other, and are not used in accordance with our natural reactions.
To be an aviator, under these conditions, is to carry out something extraordinary, is to become superhuman, almost somebody abnormal, I nearly ,said unbalanced!
    The ordinary average man in the street, such as I am, cannot compete with such demands.
Annoyed with myself, I watched my friend fly; lie crossed the controls just as much as I, but his "air sense" as an old pilot controlled his speed and his evolutions.
How, many pilots turn correctly?
    It goes without serving, that the amateur's aeroplane is made of wood, because wood as a famous French designer has said is the "metal" about which we know most. Metal machines may suffer from resonances of the kind which break a bridge if troops do not
"break step." As yet official tests of structures at rest do not reproduce the conditions of safe use of private aeroplanes, and as a consequence the aeroplane, in its present form, is defective. It leaves in the hands of the pilot possibilities of a catastrophe.
    It is therefore not surprising that to have the right to travel in the air in a vehicle which is so imperfect, the aviator must show exceptional physical qualities, pass very severe examinations of professional aptitude, submit periodically to a compulsory medical examination, and be of perfect physiological balance.
    The organization of aviation, powerless in face of technical imperfection, can only act administratively.
It does what it can. Its activities end there. If there is a crisis.." the engineer alone is responsible.
The aeroplane is calculated to too narrow margins.   It lacks the necessary strong points. It cannot be easily inspected

It is difficult to dismantle.
It is weak and difficult to repair. It is too long in the leg.
It is deformable under stresses. It is too slow in the air.
It is too fast on the ground.
It lacks visibility, to see where one is going. Its controls are irrational. . . .
The trouble is at the root; a wrong conception.
A successful neck, breaker!
There are not enough engineers who fly.
There are not enough pilots who study engineering. That is why, for the public, and for myself The
Aeroplane is Frightening.
Aeroplanes fly! They even fly very well. In...spite of its inefficiency, the present aeroplane is a marvelous instrument.
Man's faculty for overcoming the defects of tools Which he uses is admirable. Our senses adjust themselves to the defects of our creations. Nature is always Strongest. Imagine, therefore, what might be our skill, if the instrument did not make matters so difficult or the user!

PROBLEM
Having located the trouble, let us analyze it. Many inventors search for new arrangements. The helicopter as its followers the autogiro is almost perfected. Perhaps one or the other but has the formula
the normal "aeroplane" said its last word? Has it reached the end of its feather? Can it not be modified? list it be rejected entirely? .

I think that plenty of wings will continue to glide along the aerial route.
We amateurs who wish to fly will look for the solution in the formula which are already known and which have been consecrated by use.
We want to work things out, to perfect them. We will invent, yes, but with extreme prudence. Amateur flying is a problem:
OF SECURITY!
1. Security of construction;
2. Security, by means of a margin of speed
3. Security by stability of shape;
4. Security by rational controls for flight.
There is also at the same time a problem
OF ECONOMY!
1. Economy of materials;
2. Economy of dimensions;
3. Economy of mechanism;
4. Economy of upkeep.
A primary truth is that everything which flies, must on principle

BE LIGHT
Lightness means smallness.
Smallness allows of small power. Small power means cheapness.

IS NOT THIS LOGICAL?
This golden ladder, did I not descend it? Let us
form a hypothesis. Let us say:
Weight of the engine equals weight of the airframe.
Engine plus airframe equals load. This is the formula which I wrote in "Les Ailes" of the 28th January, 1932, regarding the aeroplane
of less than 100 kilos empty weight.
It is even, I obstinately believe, possible to make a machine of the same weight as its pilot, i.e.

The Aeroplane of eighty kilos.
To fly very cheaply one must make something very small.

THE BIRDS
The flight of birds was the object of my first studies. Before seeing an aeroplane fly, even before the existence of aeroplanes about 1903, I had a fairly clear idea of the various kinds of natural flight. I looked at the vultures. I saw them gliding, extending their wings to maximum, spreading their tails, carrying their wings well forward which gave them that slow flight which was necessary for watching the ground. Sometimes, when they went a little too slow, they carried their wing tips rearwards, or gave a little flap, in order to regain the balance which had suddenly become unstable.

A PARADOX
All sorts of birds, vultures, larks, crows and sparrows, under all kinds of atmospheric conditions, appeared almost perfectly stable. In all my life I have never seen a bird make a bad landing.
On the other hand, I saw them fly continually at that very slow speed which in aero-technique we call the second regime of flight (flight beyond the stall) risking loss of speed. They fly all the time like that. For an aeroplane to fly like that is to risk imminent danger. What is safety for one, is danger, for the other. I felt compelled to seek an explanation of this paradox.

CONTRAST
Unlike the aeroplane, the bird is never suddenly lifted or dropped against its will. It is free in the air because It controls directly the amount of its lift. It is quite logical to add to one's lift when one is falling and to lessen one's lift when one is being forcibly taken up.
What the bird can do, the aeroplane cannot.
I see the explanation in the following fact that:
A bird's flight == direct and immediate control security.
An aeroplane's flight = delayed control = danger.

STABILITY
I made a test; on a bicycle I pulled behind me by a long string a scale model of an aeroplane which had flown very well with a screw and rubber motor, and then a model kite mounted on wheels and balanced so as to glide properly. The aeroplane always took the air with an up and down movement which increased; the kite took off and flew like an aeroplane steadily, and followed me correctly.
I repeated the test, but balancing both of them like the kite was balanced. The kite took off at once as usual and was stable; the aeroplane took off and immediately got into a spin turning round and round on the end of the thread. I formulated the following explanation:
The aeroplane has one single wing of great span ,which gives it a very good efficiency and great controllability, but it wants a pilot. The kite, on the other hand, has multiple wings with very large tail surfaces. That is to say, its lift is divided, which gives it a stability of form and a straight line flight. It does not need a pilot.

BALANCE
    We saw just now, when studying the lateral control of an aeroplane, that at times the use of the aileron has to be corrected with the aid of the rudder. You use the hand and the feet at the same time, but they must be used in the correct manner, of the correct amount, and sometimes against one's ordinary natural reactions; the result is a combination which is not very sound and in certain cases causes accidents.
Road vehicles, ships, dirigible balloons things which go on the land, on the sea and in the air are all stable machines with a system of directional control which allows them to go the way they want to.
    These stable vehicles do not possess any apparatus for lateral control. In the air, the parachute, the kite and the dirigible balloon are all naturally stable as a result of their ,shape. Alone among all transport machines the aeroplanes has to be supplied with lateral controls. It is the only one which is unstable and dangerous by reason of its design.
    That strikes one as an aberration of a mad enthusiast. Since the spin, resulting from crossing the controls,is a natural burden on the aeroplane, if we do away with one control we cannot cross them any more. That is logical isn't it? Let us make a choice which of them we shall suppress.
    It seemed to me that it would be extremely pleasant to be able to do away with that kind of small fan which we call a rudder, and which when one is going slow, or has lost flying speed, beats the air in vain. The lift of an aeroplane is a tender plant which grows from speed: that is the defect, a well known defect, which the autogiro escapes. The action of the rudder is a function also of this speed. That, from the point of view of security, is also a bad vice.
    But we cannot demolish everything at a single blow. On the whole, up to date, the rudder is the least defective of the aeroplane controls: we may as well keep it. Well, either the rudder or the ailerons must be done away with, and therefore if we keep the rudder it must be the ailerons which must be suppressed. The kite is perfectly stable and has not got any ailerons.
    It is quite clear that if we do away with the ailerons certain results will follow, and that if we want to gain the qualities of the kite our machine must diverge from the formula on which aeroplanes are built and ally itself to the kite formula. Under these conditions the aeroplane becomes a kite with an engine, and need only be controlled in altitude and direction.
The maneuvers are easy, independent of one another, and always the same. To follow the ordinary sense of our human reflexes:

ONE: OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO FLY WITHOUT LEARNING.
ONE OUGHT TO HAVE ABSOLUTE SECURITY.
So now we are going to study. rather carefully in the following pages our programme of innovations. That is, we shall study:
(a) the direct control of lift,
(b) the division of lift between the two surfaces,
(d) the whole control by the hand without using the feet.
(e) the suppression of the ailerons, and
That is evidently quite a new formula.

AERODYNAMICS CENTER OF PRESSURE
The pressure of the wind on a wing may be imagined as concentrated on a line along the span of the wing at approximately 1/3 of the chord behind the leading edge of the wing. As the incidence of the wing to the relative wind is changed this center of pressure is displaced. In the case of a flat plate, or a wing which has a straight center line, this displacement is in a stabilizing sense: as the. pressure grows with the increasing angle, so the center of pressure moves backwards, which tends to reduce the angle.
But with ordinary curved wings the center of pressure moves in the reverse direction, and is adverse to stability. If the aeroplane increases its incidence,. the center of pressure moves forward and tends to still further increase the incidence and vice versa.
Since the curved wing has a good "lift" or carrying power, we use it and ,we correct the instability by adding a tail plane set at a lesser angle of incidence than the wing. The variation of the efforts of the wind on the two surfaces is unequal and we can arrive in this way at stability of form.

BALANCE
An aeroplane is well balanced and stable if the center of gravity is a little ahead of the center of pressure, but to achieve this we have to set the tail at a slightly negative angle of incidence. In this case the tail plane adds nothing to the total lift, and even detracts from it: it also acts as a brake or resistance.
We call this condition having the C.P. forward. We can, however, get a better all-round efficiency without losing too much stability if we have the C.P. a little back, that is to say with the center of gravity a little aft of the center of pressure by 5 or 6 cm. (Fig. 1).

    We now get a little lift out of the tail plane, but always a little less (because of the lesser angle) per.. square foot of surface than we get on the main plane. But now we get a reaction on the control column,. which under these conditions pushes against the hand instead of pulling on it, and this is against the natural instinct of the pilot.
    If he shuts his eyes, after a bit his arm tires and his hand yields: the aeroplane starts to climb, slows, and stalls.
An aeroplane ought always, under all conditions, to pull on the hand to pull on the hand like a horse pulls on the bridle or the reins.
The more one pulls the slower one goes. The more one "gives rein" the more is the animal or the machine freed from the restraint of the rider.
    One's hand ought not to force the thing, but to hold it back: your control is demonstrated in this way. There is no meaning in pushing.
Pushing with the hand is a sort of act of correction voluntary and tiring. Pulling is an act of association or co-operation, instinctive and easy.
The jockey pulls on the bit: the rower pulls his oar: the cyclist pulls the handle bar. Isn't it reasonable that to rise a pilot should pull on his control column?
A control column which pushes against the hand is contrary to good sense, contrary to the instinct of self preservation. It is an anomaly.
    I have not time here to denounce all the follies which have accumulated in the design of aeroplanes. After a year or two of experience the designer adds a spring to fight the stick which pushes against the hand: it is a shortsighted battle against the evil results and not against the origin of the evil. It shows a weak imagination. Well that's enough of these generalities. Let us leave aviation to the aviators let us go off on our own voyage of discovery with our guide.

    To begin with I decide to control the lift directly. The Bird : The bird, which is extra ordinarily stable, controls its lift by opening or closing its wings. It works on the principle of variation of surface. It has joints, and staggered feathers which overlap one another, and muscles, and nerves a whole heap of living threads which play in the thickness of its wing.
Nature uses materials suitable for her purpose, pliable like India rubber, but less hard. Alan has at his disposal different materials, not necessarily worse, but he must use them judiciously.
Man : Man can alter the lift of his wing by varying its incidence. That is a good way to do it, but the delay in the control is bad for as you see (Fig. 2):

1. The wing is solid with all the inertia of the mass of the machine.
2. The stabilizing tail is affected after the turbulence has struck the main wing.

There is delay in the pilot's control.
There is delay in the inertia of the mass of the aeroplane.

It is therefore perfectly logical (Fig. 3) to
1. Detach the wing from the mass of the body.
2. Join the wing directly to the control stick through a movable control.
The tail plane now can give lift and be fixed.
The wing is pivoted about an axis which is so placed that under all conditions the C.P. is behind the pivot point.
In this way the rear edge of the wing is always trying to lift, that is to say to pull on a cable which is joined to the control column.
The stick pulls on the hand like a horse's mouth pulls on the rein, establishing a feeling between the rider and himself.

The rider can feel his mount.
The pilot can feel his machine.
That, Is something which hasn't been done before.
    All is in order. I start to take off. The machine gathers speed, lifts its tail and takes up its flying position.
I pull the stick to me. The wing offers an angle to the wind and I take off.
I climb. To gain speed, I let my hand go forward. Hullo! something is not working properly! The
control column pulls against me harder and harder and I have to hold on with both hands to keep the machine up: it is trying to dive to earth. If this goes on increasing, my controls will break and that will be the end. . . .
    What is the matter? When I let my hand go forward the C.P. which was perhaps at 5 cm. in rear of the pivot point at first rushed back to perhaps 20 cm. when I diminished the incidence. Under these conditions my controls were carrying a great part of the lift, i.e. of the weight of the machine.
    In an ordinary aeroplane the pilot doesn't know when the rear spar and rear bracing is carrying all the load. The time comes when the wings break. The pilot doesn't feel anything wrong. The Flying Flea warns him! It is of first importance to stabilize the movement of the C.P. We do this by turning up the trailing edge of the wing, which gives a sort of double curve to the center line of the profile (Fig. 4). It is rather as if one had stuck a small stabilizing (i.e. negative) tail behind the wing.
    This new wing is stable of itself, like a flat plate, but it still gives a good amount of lift. We would like here to comment severely on those who have designed wings for aeroplanes or gliders of a very high curvature, and recommended them to amateurs as offering a quick get off. They have on their consciences any number of serious accidents.

Why didn't they try out their first machine themselves? they would have learned in the best school.
The new arrangement is usable. The other was not. Now we find that each increase in incidence is indicated by an increase in pull on the hand of the pilot. The pilot is in full and correct touch with his wing. His control is as good as that of a bird: he has a living wing.
The incidence of the wing is free of the mass of the machine, but is in connection with the muscular system of the pilot who has an elastic and sensitive wing. Whether I fly level, climb, or come down I handle this gentle pull which, as it passes over the turbulent air, makes me feel that my machine is alive.

LANDING
The ground, two yards below my wheels, rushes past at sixty miles an hour. I stop the engine. The ground gets nearer. I am still going too fast to land. I pull on my hand; the wing comes to a greater incidence, lifts more and keeps me up, while decreasing the speed. I am now going thirty miles an hour. I pull more and more.
Suddenly the aeroplane drops and falls like a stone. If I had been a little higher I should have smashed it.
What happened was that as I increased the incidence of the wing I passed the point where its lift is greatest and suddenly the air which had been quite ready to glide smoothly over the upper surface had torn itself away and merely left a zone of eddies which are of no use for lift.
If one could retard this "unsticking" of the air, one could land much slower.
One way of doing it is to alter the direction at which the air meets the main wing by the device of a little wing suitably disposed at its leading edge. This is the slotted wing or safety slot which we put on touring machines (Fig. 5).

With this slot the stall is no longer dangerous, and if one puts the machine voluntarily into a spin one can easily get it out, provided that the engine does not cut out. If the engine cuts out in a stall, the tail plane loses its effect.
One real argument against wings with a fixed slot is that the little wing in front of the wing may take five miles an hour off the speed. That is a lot when it is so hard to get those last few miles! When does the slotted wing do useful work? At an exaggerated angle of incidence That is not a very satisfactory attitude at ground level. Therefore, it is not of much use for landing or take off.

At a height it will help you to get out of a spin, but lots of aeroplanes can get out of spins which have no slots. Therefore the slot is employed only to a small extent. The slotted wing is not the great, beautiful or really elegant solution of the problem of safety. Really one ought to fit it to a pivoting wing. It would be more rational. In practice a lot of aeroplanes do not fly so badly without it.

WING WITH A SLOT
I thought along different lines. The air "unsticks" at the rear edge of the wing: the nose slot is in front of the wing. Here again we have an indirect action. What would happen if I took a wing from which the air was about to "unstick," and brought its rear edge close to another wing which was carrying normal lift (well away from the stalling point). (Fig. 6.) This other wing has on its forward upper surface

a very strong depression. This depression ought to draw towards it the air which is leaving the forward wing and bend it downward.
This bending downward of the air behind a wing ought to delay its breakaway from the upper surface. The leading edge slot works by pressure. My second wing works by suction. We know that in aerodynamics suctions are much more powerful than pressures.
The leading edge slot is placed far away from the zone where the air breakaway tends to take place. My second wing operates quite close to that zone.

The fixed leading edge slot slows the aeroplane by five miles an hour. My second wing adds to the total lift: it is a genuine, wing and not a drag-creating accessory. The pressure on the underside of the front wing and the depression on the upper side of the rear wing create in the gap a violent rush of air which will in addition have a sort of venturi effect and will help still further to pull down the air leaving the front wing, and delay its breakaway.
To be exact, instead of placing a slot too far away at the front of a wing, I put it in the rear in a good position. We have now a biplane, with wings of extreme stagger, almost a tandem but not quite one nor the other

CONTROL OF FLIGHT-STABILITY OF FORM
    The rear wing does not work in virgin air: this air has already worked on the front wing. It has been bent down and slowed.
The rear wing therefore lifts less than the front, but it will lift more as the front wing is taken further away, or if one wishes, higher.
The gap in my wing with slot is variable in two ways, voluntarily and automatically.
    First Case : It is variable by reason of the actual pivoting movements of the front wing.
Let us look at Fig. 7 which shows four characteristic positions of the wing.
In A the front wing is out of action and carries no load. The rear wing works in virgin air and is working at maximum efficiency. The rear wing is lifting too much and the front wing not at all: the machine falls forward and dives.
    Therefore a real stall is impossible. Under all conditions if the pilot lets his hand go forward the head of the machine falls.
In B the front wing is lifting. Its influence on the rear wing diminishes the lift of the latter. This is the normal position of flight at small angles of incidence.

    In C the front wing is lifting a great deal and the rear wing very little. The slot effect is at its maximum. This is what the :French call "the second regime of flight" very tail and nearly stalled (for landing). Between B and C are all the normal conditions of flight cruising, climb, correction of bumps, etc. In D the front ring completely masks the rear one. The air breaks away from the top of the wing, and there is turbulence under the wing.
This is flight at maximum drag
(a) for stopping the machine on the ground after landing.
(b) for slow approach when forced landing: descent is almost vertical like a parachute.
This last case is used for forced landing under difficult conditions in the country, and allows one to get into a small field without risk of over or under shooting.
    When twenty yards above the ground one lets the hand go forward to pick up speed and land tangentially.
    Second Case : If the front wing remains fixed the gap is still variable according to the relative position of the angle of incidence of the wings considered together. Everything else being unchanged (Fig. 8) at low angles of incidence the rear wing is working more in the air affected by the front wing, and its lift is less. The machine tends to drop its tail. At a greater angle, the rear wing is more freed from the influence of the front wing, and its lift increases. The machine tends to drop its nose. A position of equilibrium exists between the two positions. Stability of form thus does not depend any longer on the incidences of each wing considered separately, but on the influence of each on the other, measured by the incidence of the whole machine.
    The slot or gap effect give s the rear wing progressive independence of the front. A tail plane becomes superfluous (Fig. 9).
Our tandem biplane, which is neither thing in fact, becomes a single wing with a gap, and in accordance with the most advanced practice becomes a tailless plane.

To sum up we have:
1. Lift directly controlled the "living" wing.
2. A logical form of slot a "gap."
3. Lift divided between the surfaces.
4. A " tail" of great power.
Isn't that a good achievement for our flying kite?

AERO KINETICS (Kinetics are "the science of movement".)
FORE AND AFT BALANCE
When an aeroplane meets an up gust the following
events occur in order:
(1) It is lifted before the pilot thinks of reacting (physiological inertia).
(2) The pilot pushes on the stick. to lift the tail.
(3) The whole mass of the machine under the
influence of the elevator changes its attitude to diminish the incidence of the wing (mechanical inertia).
    At the moment when the machine has too much lift, the tail plane comes in to add more lift; at the same time it adds to the drag, and inclines the machine to lose speed under conditions where it is already heading that way.
    The pilot's perception of what is happening, the command of his tail plane, and the movement of the mass of the machine are all delayed: the aeroplane leaps like a sheep (Fig. 10).
The wing of the Flying Flea pulls on the control stick. The pilot gives to the pull by letting his hand move. The gust passes. The Flea has kept on its straight trajectory. Control has been effected without delay.
    When a descending wind tries to drop an aeroplane at the very moment when the machine lacks lift the tail has to come into action to still further lessen it. There are the same delays in the action as before, but reversed.

    In the case of the Flying Flea, the wing pulls less on the hand. The pilot's hand recognizes this, and
automatically gives more incidence without any delay.
The Flea cannot be bumped down onto the ground by a gust.
The machine takes no heed of short disturbances. When the trouble is prolonged, it naturally takes up an attitude to meet it.
    Any flying machine wastes less of its power and time the smoother its trajectory, and the less the passengers are knocked about the better for their comfort. In this case we must give full marks to the Flying Flea.
    On landing, a hump on the ground throws a flying machine into the air. The sudden alteration of angle of the ordinary aeroplane pushes it up into a zoom and you need some skill to get it back to ground smoothly.
The Flea lets its wing go loose immediately. It loses all its lift and its weight presses it to the ground.. It is as if it had no wings, while its large tail keeps its attitude correct in flying position.
    The Flying Flea lands without "proposing"! That's one more good mark for it.
When taking off, there appears an obstruction after fifty yards run. The pilot of the Flea gives a momentary pull to its wing to leap the obstacle, and then carries on to gain flying speed. The long fuselage and the inertia of the mass of the ordinary aeroplane rule out this maneuver.

The pilotage of an ordinary aeroplane is as much delayed control as would be the case of a motor car steered-by the rear wheels. The general trend of the motor car is to carry its mechanism, both power plant and brakes, in front. Aviation ought to obey this law, which its speed enforces on it everything which has to act in front: everything which is carried passively behind. The Flying Flea is a step forward in this direction.

SUDDEN LOADS
    When an aeroplane is pulled out of a steep dive a prudent pilot will straighten it out gently. His own weight pressing him onto the seat gives him an idea of the extra load on his wings due to the sudden deceleration. This feeling is rather vague in the case of the ordinary pilot. A ham-fisted one by pulling out too quickly might leave his wings behind him. It is in recognition of such unavoidable errors that the factor of safety imposed by air officials is seven for ordinary touring machines, and ten or more for fighting planes, that is to say, the wings can carry up to ten times the normal load before breaking. A man would die under an acceleration of 10 g., when he would weigh 700 to 800 kilos under the effect of a sudden deceleration.
    The lift of the wings of the Flying Flea is directly controlled by the pilots hand. The center of pressure of the wing is aft of its pivot line. Under these circumstances, as I have said, the pilot always feels a pull. Since the wing is of stable form the pull is uniform, when in stable flight. You can fit if you like a balancing spring to relieve the pilot of this constant pull and allow him to let go the control. Such a spring works in the right direction for stability.
    A gust, or a pull out, or a tight turn which loads the wing more than normal is at once recognized by the hand of the pilot, just as he would know if someone doubled the weight he was holding.
If the aeroplane wings are holding a doubled load, the pull on the hand is doubled.
If you ease the hand the load is reduced; if you pull it is increased. The pilot of a machine, with the "living" wing is not such a fool as to pull like grim death on his control column when that tells him that the load is excessive.
    Even the most inexperienced, thanks to this living wing principle, knows at all times the state of his security. Ah! if only the bracing wires and rear spars of an ordinary aeroplane could cry out!
Because of this living wing the factor of safety of the Flying Flea could well be greatly below the figure necessary for ordinary aeroplanes for the same security.
In really bad weather I control on my accelerometer so that my surcharge in the most violent bumps does not exceed 1.5.
    A factor of four would give absolute safety. I have calculated the Flea to have a factor of ten. But I may have, no doubt, made a few mistakes and my amateur materials are not too good . . . but all the same my confidence is quite unshaken. Where the real aviator could break up his machine I shall never break it.

DIRECT CONTROL
The lift controlled directly by the hand gives The large rear wing, lifting and firmly secured at
a fixed angle, makes a solid tail support in the air. Under all conditions even in the stall, and when coming down like a parachute, the machine lifts solidly, from the rear, on this constant foundation.
This tail solidity gives.

LATERAL BALANCE
    In order to avoid "crossing the controls" we must do. away with one of them.
The ailerons complicate the beautifully simple wing structure! When one has made a wing in a week, it is a pity to need another week for the construction and installation of ailerons!
    Ailerons may vibrate or their controls jamb: they are the main cause of spins. What a sad invention
These ailerons annoy us! Let us get rid of them. How then shall we ensure lateral stability? How shall we make correct turns?
    Bank and turn are two evolutions which are closely related. One completed the other and their reactions are reciprocal. We will adopt the attitude in principle that, for a correct maneuver and a stable machine,
To bank is to turn. Turning involves banking.
To bank without turning, to turn without banking these are anomalies. The separation of these two maneuvers and the delay in control are the two great crimes of the aeroplane.
    Kites, parachutes, dirigibles, and the Flying Flea are all stable in form in every direction by reason of the, lowering of the center of gravity under a spread of surface of small span arranged in a dihedral angle.
    These assure that the reaction between lateral balance and turn are absolutely correct.
The kite with an engine needs only to be controlled in altitude and direction.
    These two maneuvers, i.e. the pivoting wing and the rudder are controlled by the same column. Moved fore and aft the stick releases or pulls on the wing, and that makes the aeroplane descend or climb. Moved right or left the rudder is moved so that a turn starts to right or left. All this is done by the hand, and you can stamp your feet to keep them warm you don't need them for flying.

LATERAL CONTROL
Imagine that the machine is tipped over suddenly to the left. Instinct makes us carry our hand holding the control over to the right. Under the action of the rudder the tail swings out to the left and a turn starts to the right.
By reason of its momentum the machine tends to carry on in its original line, but the lower wing meets the wind first, while the wing which is too high drags in the wind. The "dihedral" effect causes the lower wing to rise at once in a manner which is astonishingly powerful.
Lateral control is therefore caused by swigs of the tail of which the effect is to bring the machine back onto its correct course. In short, the first bump which dropped the left wing started a turn to the left. When you correct the lateral turn and bring the machine back onto a level keel, you at the same time regain the lost direction.

DEFECTS
    There is a slight delay in the response of the machine which is rather alien to the delay in the fore and aft control of an aeroplane. Here we get this delay in the form of a rolling movement: it is much less disagreeable than the jerky spasms of an aeroplane, and it is quite without bad consequences.
    It is nevertheless true that an aeroplane pilot flying the Flying Flea will be rather disturbed for the first minute after that he won't give it another thought. The Flea rolls easily on the waves of the air like all boats rolling the sea waves but unlike them without pitching or shuddering. Another fault. It is clear that only on a short span can you replace the ailerons by a dihedral. The long spars and good aspect ratios which are so good for aerodynamic efficiency seem, at first sight, to be forbidden to us.
    Without so intending I confess, we have followed the now tendency, which seems to be leading our aviation technique towards small aspect ratios. Do we not see in America and France two machines very much like one another one very probably copied from the other irreverently called coal scuttles which have their surface in the form of a semicircle where the span and length are equal?

TURNING
    In order to make the Flying Flea turn, it is enough to carry the control column gently to one side. It takes up its own bank proportional to the amount of rudder. Then the ground begins to move sideways and it turns.
To turn sharply, a movement of the rudder of a greater nature makes the machine bank to 40, 50 or 60 degrees, as one likes. One then tightens the turn by pulling on the wing: it is the same as the tight turn on ordinary aeroplanes.
Whether one turns wide or short, whether one is a new or experienced pilot, one turns correctly because one cannot turn otherwise!
    There is no question of crossing the controls, no danger of the stall, no side slip outwards or inwards, no question of over or under banking. As in a motor car, or bicycle or boat one just turns!
If learning to pilot is a matter of learning to turn, then in the case of the Flying Flea one turns without "learning," without being a pilot!
    Take ten young people, sporting by nature, strong and fit. They have never by assumption seen an aeroplane. Choose one of them, it doesn't matter which one, and put him in the Flea. Tell him "The joystick takes you where you wish to go. Off you go!" They will all fly. Not one will break the bus!
    My fourth innovation will thus be realized all the work of pilotage is entrusted to the hand.
I leave to experience the task of confirming the case of use of a machine which doesn't muddle its pilot but obeys his natural reflexes without any possibility of reversal of control.
    Its obedience to his wishes is direct and quick. Each feels the influence of the other. The pilot lives with his machine. Freed from all fear and constraints to what skill ran he not attain. The technique of flight control is that of the bird. The technique of balance that of kites with divided lift.
    On what more solid foundations, with thousands of years of evolution behind them, could we base our conception?
The Flying Flea is a kite with an auxiliary engine. Isn't that another kind of flying?
In its realization it is a novelty, of which we will now examine the general arrangement and the details.
How did I design the Flying Flea?..

    ALTHOUGH the Flying Flea is a novelty it is nevertheless made for amateurs. Because it is destined for amateurs, and is I think (not to look too far ahead) above all a machine for getting a start in Air matters, I have paid more attention to the practical possibilities of its construction than to its technical efficiency.
    The programme is to build and then to fly as quickly as possible.
The amateur is patient and skillful, but he is not a. professional. Give him a machine which is unrefined, solid, simple, easy to make without excessive skill or special tools. Let us save him the task of calculating, of seedling solutions, even of choice. Later on he can use his initiative but this is not the time.
    First comes flying: invention can follow. The amateur has only a moderate toolkit and not much room to work. He lives far from a flying ground. He must make everything with the means at his disposal.
The ideal programme is clear: to be able to construct his machine in a room of a length of 13 feet.
To fly! Yes, but first one must get acquainted with the machine and its surroundings. One must roll, do lots of rolling, often on rough ground. One ought to be able to go home at night happy, without having broken anything, without being discouraged by the prospects of the delay of a mouth to make repairs of doubtful soundness.

    After having built one's Flea, one ought to be able to stow away the larger tools in their chest in the firm hope that it will be a long time before one has to touch them. Nails and glue: they are not so bad for a time! But you don't want to have to use them all over again after each time that you go out.
    A very solid construction with a few strong points is necessary not only for the purposes of flight but with the machine is running along the ground. The previous chapter has been mainly concerned with the practice of flight: the Flying Flea has been designed with the double object of safety and ease of pilotage.
    The requirements on the ground are that it should be small, simple, solid and practical.
These are the essential aims which have been kept in view during the working out of the Flying Flea, essentials which are the result of long experience where for each incident a remedy had to be found, now on the grass of the fields, now under the clouds at some 2,000 feet of heights and at risks not suitable for a father of a family.

The Flea is clearly the grown up brother of my earlier machines such as the HM8. The technique of construction for the wings and fuselage is the same. Only the disposition of the parts and their size is changed, and the air frames differ in that the time for building has been halved and the new machine is half as light as the older one.
Both of them have gained from thought, and from the suggestions and wishes expressed in correspondence received from amateurs. The Flea is a regular parasite and has ancestors on its escutcheon: it stays in the family.

    The flying kite dirigible parachute with auxiliary engine (call it what you will) is shown as a machine of a concentrated, massive nature glued to the earth. In the Workshop it seems very small, outside in the open it is minute.
"Surely that cannot fly?" ironically enquire the lookers on. When it is 2,000 feet up you would think it Was at 5,000! When it has landed you cannot see it half a mile away! It disappears in the sky long before you lose the saw note of its roaring engine.
    Its span (see Fig. 9) is 5 meters and its length 3 meters 50. It has so little spread that its two wings can be turned lengthwise and carried between the air screw and the rudder. In flight coming towards you it is like a big butterfly. When it is going away it is a tiny gnat. In an aeroplane the pilot should be sunk into his cockpit up to his ears the professors of aerodynamics insist on this but how awkward it is.
    In the Flying Flea the pilot sits under the front wing nicely supported in the fuselage. His arms can rest on the cut away sides. By leaning over a very little way he can see vertically down. Without leaning at all he can see in front, to the sides, below and behind. When taking off and landing he can see the grass crushed by his wheels as they pass over it.
One ought to sacrifice a lot to the quality of visibility even technique and calculations. The Flea is a flying armchair.

SIMPLICITY
    The surface plan of an ordinary monoplane consists of 2 wings, a center section, 2 ailerons, 2 fixed auxiliary surfaces, 2 slots, 1 elevator and 1 rudder that is 11 pieces in all. The surfaces of the Flea are composed of 1 rudder and 2 wings, i.e. 3 pieces in all. This layout offers solidity by its simplicity and efficiency. All three elements are active; there are no neutral surfaces, no negative (drag creating) pieces, no parts working at reduced efficiency or detracting from the lift.
The rudder directs the machine and takes care of lateral control. Both wings take their full share of the work.

    No slots, no ailerons, no elevators, no complicated movements, no hidden cables, or lovers, or mechanisms, metal work, etc. No gaps between moving parts: the Flea is not a corridor for air currents. The single spar wing is of a single piece. It is made of wood and covered with varnished fabric.
    If you open up the wing you will see one box spar, some ribs (nearly all alike), a leading and a trailing edge, and a reinforcing lath and that is all.
Not a screw, or a bolt, or a steel wire.
Thanks to the single spar wing one can make the two wings and the rudder in eight days. Having no ailerons the wing will not flutter in the air. The two wings are alike except for a slight difference in span. The same spars, same details, and same fastening points.
    Of a span convenient to an amateur they can be built and the whole Flea can be built in the room of an ordinary flat 3 meters x 4 meters (the minimum possible for a span of 4 meters). Put your work bench on rubber blocks so that your neighbor do not complain of constant tapping. With a normal spread of 5 meters a depth of 1m. 40 and pointed tips the surface of the Flea is 11 sq. meters. The double curvature of the front wing, and the work of the back wing in air affected by the front, these reduce the effective surface to about 9 sq. meters, which will serve for performance calculations. The aspect ratio (span divided by chord) is less than three. That of high efficiency gliders is twenty! And then what! Do they fly so well or not? I am bored with aspect ratio! Our little bus is handsome in its ugliness. Its appearance is striking it is indeed a Flying Flea.

LIGHTNESS
    The simplicity of conception of its wings extends also to the fuselage. This leaving out the control column and the axle of the wheels is an empty box. The three flight surfaces, the empty box, five mechanical bits, an engine, two wheels and some cables we have here a total of 100 kilos not more. The five mechanical bits are the axle, the rudder axis, the control column, the wing and the engine supports.
A hand grip at the end of the fuselage enables one to maneuver this novel little bus on the ground.
A draw bar can be fastened under the fuselage so that the machine can be towed along the road behind any sort of vehicle. The tool chest and camp kit are quite useful to add weight to it and make it hold the road.

ACCESSIBILITY
    Except for the lower portion of the control stick all the mechanism is exterior: the cables regulating the incidence of the wing, the rudder cables, the pivot and bracing of the wings: the engine also is installed in the open.
There are two poisonous things in an ordinary machine, the ailerons and the cowling of the engine: I have cut them both out. No more sheet metal which flies off or rattles. No more cowling. No more of the sight of an over heated engine!
    And what heavy work, it is this of hammering and fitting! That's the way to save time! Ailerons and engine cowls represent weeks of labor and are never very successful. When the engine is open to the air it cools quite well and your spanner can test every nut in a good light. The up keep and inspection of a machine like this are therefore very easy. If we only put on transparent covering for the wings, we should surely get full marks from the Air worthiness Department.

SECURITY OF CONSTRUCTION
Because it is simple, and formed of a very few pieces it has been possible to make the Flea so strong that only a real crash could smash it to pieces. The story of my trials shows that it cannot be destroyed. I defy any ordinary aeroplane to undergo, without breaking into little bits, the astounding trials unexpected trials which I have put mine to. At the side of the table where I write this rests my Flea a bit battered by three months of winter storms in the open but sound and ready to fly again. And that will be soon!
    Is the fuselage too solid? Yes, but it has not a swelling anywhere. Its sides look as if they were fastened on yesterday. The wing has kept its shape: the fabric has hardly slackened.
The Flea is a sturdy insect, a young rascal of the streets with a gay eye and dirty hands, ready to meet with a jest the happenings of the day. Perhaps its paint work is a little knocked about! What does it matter: it has done its job! This is not a show piece and then my brush is not tired and Ripolin still has colors in stock.
The Flying Flea does not age!

MATERIALS
Amateurs who know something about old furniture do not like white wood. Spruce is a white wood. It is an amateur's wood: with wood you are always certain. In order to simplify your passing the order on to your supplier, I have adopted only three sections of material, the small strips, the main lathe and planks.
    There are just a few little blocks and spare pieces which you can get from some neighboring shop as you need them. The large surfaces are in plywood, which is very easy to find in two thicknesses. Our metal is just the ordinary mild steel of the ironmonger in sheet, in screwed rod, in drawn rod, in bicycle tubing, bolts, etc.
These are all materials which can be bent, or drilled, or filed without special treatment which is difficult for the amateur.
without arguing the point, I refuse to use the ordinary aviation metals such as alloy of aluminum and magnesium. In my opinion these are treacherous metals. Metal aeroplanes from the best suppliers sometimes break in the air. Constructions which have been closely worked out come to pieces. I have even had breakages in metal fittings of a simple nature and over size. Machines which go about on the surface of the ground can break, often without serious consequences, but an aeroplane must not break in the air, because the material consequences are too serious. In the case of the Flying Flea these are still more serious, because there would be bad moral consequences in addition.
    For the same reason its designer has refused to use wings of a cantilever pattern, although they are so attractive. He has braced his wings with enormous cables with bolts "as large as that." Doubting perhaps still his professional experience, because quite a small article under the wheels will smash to smithereens all precise professional calculations, he stretched out his arm in full flight to test the main bracing wires. He found them scarcely taut!!! His mind was at rest.

SECURITY OF BALANCE
    From my experience of amateurs who built HM-8's it is quite clear to me that the good balance of their machine is the thing to which they pay the least attention. It ought to be their particular care. In spite of the fact that I laid stress upon this, and gave very simple rules to them to work out the balance, very few took the trouble to follow them. So long as the aeroplane looked pretty in a photograph, they were quite happy. That was quite enough for them.
The varnish shines brightly, the motor is turning over, and airscrew is blowing. Hurrah! long live aviation. Off they go, and they make some sort of flight by pushing their hand hard forward in order to avoid the stall.
    Correct balance, that is nothing which we can see, but it exists all the same. In an aeroplane balance too far back is a crime. The Flea does not need exact balance. It is so heavily loaded at the rear that it is not necessary, as on ordinary aeroplanes, to determine its center of gravity more or less to a cm. A rather heavier airscrew, a tank out of balance, a thin pilot or a fat fellow, none of these change its balance to any great extent. The waist measurement of the pilot only affects to some degree the height to which he can go, which is so much the worse for the stout one!!!

THE AIRSCREW REACTION
As the airscrew turns very close to the wing, and sends on to it an oblique current of air, it makes the side which originally inclines to lower itself lift more. The torque reaction is therefore (this is still my luck) exactly compensated, which enables us to have a pair of wings precisely symmetrical. We fly equally well with or without the engine. The landing gear is, proportionately to the rest of the machine, the heaviest bit of the Flying Flea. At the cost of bending a certain amount of axles, and having to reinforce them, I have attained a useful maximum of solidity and of weight. An elegant solution to the free axle has been found. This part, the guardian of the machine and of the pilot, is beyond criticism.
    The wheels are within reach of the hand. That is very convenient to take off, when one is blocked behind a bump or stuck in the soft sand of a seaside resort. Thanks. to the low build of the fuselage, thanks to the fact that the heavy masses are concentrated as low, its possible, the center of gravity is at 75 cm above the ground. In addition the machine carries a lot of weight on the tail over eighty pounds so that it is more or less uncapsizeable, when you allow for the case with which you can brake it by the front wing, and its enormous tail. This landing gear with its enclosed axle permits you to land in high grass in ordinary fields.
    There is one refinement, which is very important, and which I advise you to adopt. That is that of the rudder, fitted with little wheels, in order to ensure that steering on the ground is as accurate and easy as steering in flight, and carried out by the same action. The Flea, which is a sort of secret machine, has to be used on all sorts of grounds. France is much cut, up, it is like a vast allotment. You can only rarely find large bits of ground in complete squares; most grounds are longer than they are wide. For a long time my own aerodrome was a strip of old lucerne grass; it was 350 yards long, and 20 yards (Yes! I said 20) broad. The main roads of France, the most beautiful, and best roads in the world, are also excellent carpets for the feet of our animal.
    With the rudder connected to wheels, the Flea steers beautifully straight, and can come and go without thought of the wind, and it does not care two pence for a take off cross wind. In 1934 must one ask why all aeroplanes are not fitted with wheels, controlled by the rudder?

SECURITY OF FLIGHT
    I have explained the power given by the wing when it is disconnected from the mass of the machine, a power which is seen at the taking-off, in flight, in landing and for braking.
    In flight, there is the impossibility of stalling; turns which are necessarily correct; the control column which pulls on the hand, and which, when it controls the direction, can be seen without being looked at. All this permits, so to speak, of blind flight (flight without visibility), without any instruments except a compass and an airspeed indicator. The machine is very good in bad weather conditions; in short, under all circumstances I can say that the formula of the Flying Flea does away with the risks of flight, and considerably diminishes the risks of the air.

PERFORMANCE
    The Flea, at the moment when I am writing this book, has only achieved ten hours of flight. I have told you under what conditions these have been done. Carrying 5 lbs. to the square foot, and 22lbs to the h.p., it has climbed to 1,600 feet in eight minutes by stop watch. Its cruising speed at normal power (15 h.p.) is 65 miles an hour.
    When climbing, or when flying slowly, the speed is fifty miles per hour. Under these conditions the power is 10 h.p. It takes off under conditions of no wind in 300 feet, it ranks in 175 feet without any brakes on its wheels. If it had brakes or tail skid, it would roll half as far. What is its ceiling? I have not been able to try it; it has been too cold. We can see that at ground level the throttle lever is only a little more than half open, and this allows us to fly slowly at less than three-fifths of the total h.p. That means a ceiling of perhaps 13,000 feet. Call it 10,000 if you wish. It is quite enough to fly over a lot of clouds. The same reason makes us estimate its L/D as somewhere about eight. I tell you that this ratio has not been one of my deepest cares; I have been preoccupied with other things.
    Because I have been seeking a design suitable for the amateur, I have had to simplify each element, assembling them in an easy manner, and reducing the cares of manufacture. The efficiency ratio has just come by itself, and is satisfactory another piece of luck. The whole machine is short and compact, the landing gear has been reduced to two wheels and a few feet of axle tubing; the wings are solid, the bracing limited. The principal resistance is caused by the engine dashboard pilot. That is a resistance which could have been lessened, but still it practically represents the whole thing, and it is concentrated on a short length.
    To sum up, heavy as it seems to be, and in spite of the extraordinary visibility from its cockpit, the Flea need not blush at its flying qualities. It is far from being perfect in every way, but I let it go at this; it would take an honorable position in any sporting competition. I leave to amateurs the business of perfecting it, and cleaning up the details. My role is finished for the moment. I have done everything on this machine except aerobatics, which in principle are of no interest either to the air liner or to the private owners' machine. If you wish to arm this machine with machine-guns and start off chasing men, well! that is up to you. It is nothing to do with me if you wish to go and break your own head or someone else's.
    Gliders of the Zogling type require launching tackle or a tow-rope. We who are of the school of the kite, have dared to cut the rope! It was a German who launched the Zogling, why should not Mignet launch his own kite? This animal is evidently something; you and I cannot pass it by indifferently. It will excite much unfavorable comment, but it will. also make a multitude of firm friends. The Flying Flea is worth more than the Zogling, I am sure of that!!! It is the most simple aeroplane in the world, and it is also the smallest aeroplane in the world.

    I had made my machine, my little machine which had not yet been baptized the Flying Flea. A last coat of varnish, and the little bus was ready to take the air. But where? Official grounds were closed to me. Some friends came to my rescue, and this most difficult question was solved. I would camp. The whole of France is nothing more or less than a vast aerodrome for the amateur camper. I was converted to the idea of camping; it is a good and fruitful way to live.
    To camp in the winter, under the snow, with fifteen degrees of cold, that is all right for a few days to prove one's sporting qualities, but two weeks of that life makes one dream of the Sahara; two months of it gives one the irresistible desire to grill in the sun and to finish with camping, whatever it may cost.
    Polar explorers stay months or years in tents shaken by a blizzard; lion hunters do as much, but under conditions of extreme heat. From where does their energy come this power to face up to the hardest possible conditions of existence? These people have an aim, that is their secret. A single flea can drive me mad, when I have got time to scratch myself, but if suddenly you bear the noise of some accident in the street you rush to the window and gape at it, and forget about all the fleas on earth.
I have camped for 450 nights in three years, through baking summers and the coldest of winters, but I had an object and I did not think about fleas. To camp without an object, when it is too hot or too cold even for that matter when the weather is temperate I really could not do it myself.
    I fixed my small machine behind my motorcycle, my wife took her place in the sidecar, and allowed herself to be covered unfortunate one with all sorts of parcels and tents and other things, and there we were on the road. We had some trouble in climbing the hills on this warm day in second gear. I knew something about sleeping out during the war, and at first I was not very anxious to do it again, but now that we have these beautiful small tents, with double roofs which do not drip on you, and ground sheets to keep the damp from your bones, it is another story.
    The Flying Flea in its coat of varnish, and with its engine covered up, camped out also, tied down with string, and we enjoyed ourselves. We breathed great gulps of fresh air. If storms came on we were comfortable in our tent; the sun beat down on us and made us healthy; the poisons which accumulate in the town were got rid of with the stars for our roof under the wings!

    Camp like me, my friends, when you make your first attempt; you will never find a better method. You will save a lot of time, and you will become better pilots, after having lived holidays so well spent. I need not give you details. Everyone will have friends who will tell them about tents and blankets and cooking pots and shoes, what you should take, and what you should not take. Go and talk to them. You will spend a little money, but it will be much less than you would spend on a holiday taken in any other way.
    I will only give you a few hints; if you are alone, cook once a day, in the evening, so as, not to lose time, and eat your food cold next morning. Do not forget to tip any keepers who are about; you will make them friends for life instead of enemies.
Be patient with everybody, particularly with children; do not hesitate to answer their questions. Never say on what day you are going to fly. Keep your camp in order; do not leave paper about. Always ask the permission of the owner of the land before you camp, and show him a photo, if you like, of one of your other camps. He will not refuse you. Do not camp close to a main road but camp near a side road, so that motor cars will not drive across the fields to see you. Clear up before you go, and Nature will do the rest.
    The next day I started my tests, and they began badly. My engine seemed stiff: my reduction gear and my propeller were well suited; a great stub of wood burst through the bottom of the fuselage. I made a second propeller and overhauled the engine. I left the ground in a zoom, fell on one side, damaged one side of the fuselage, bounded into the air again, fell on one wing, damaged the other side, and found myself stopped at last somewhat shaken.

If I had been at an aerodrome, I should have been greeted with the siren which denotes an accident,, the ambulance would have come, and the aerodrome chief would have tackled me what a horror!
At least here in my field, I can break my machine and damage myself if I like in complete liberty.
I returned to my garage. With the aid of plywood, glue and nails, a new fuselage took shape, with new hope. In a month everything was ready again, but the weather was bad. At last a good day arrived. Looking out well for any high ridges, and choosing a good path, I opened the throttle, started to move forward, pulled the control stick towards me quite gently. . . . In a moment I was lying on my back. The petrol was glug-glugging out of the cap of the tank. I loosened my safety belt, and fell on one wing, with my legs in the air.

After a thousand attempts my old engine gave me at least two minutes of full power before it heated up and stopped.
I used to make many flights in straight lines of 1,000 yards each, and accumulated a few half hours. These experiences were made with my old type of machine, and I never seemed to be able to get it to fly very well. One day I made a nice flight of 800 yards and was getting ready to land. I throttled back, I touched the ground and bounded up to 30 feet, with the engine up in the sky. Remembering that I had done this before, and that somebody had told me what was the remedy open throttle again I did this. The engine picked up for a moment, and here I was safely down. I did not break it that time. But a few days later I smashed it up in a superb head-over-heels tumble, after diving from thirty feet of height.
On the 10th August, 1933, I put the first nail in the first real Flying Flea. On the 10th September of the same year it took off. Of course, I had several bits and pieces over from the other machines which I had smashed, and I worked ten hours a day. As a matter of fact I lost five days, owing to some difficulty with wing tips, and I consider that I did construct my Flying Flea in one month. The rest is told in my diary:

    14th September: my machine is flying very badly, I cannot understand it. There does not seem to be any stability in any direction. The sun has been in my face all day, the grass is long and the wind is blowing crossways. I have been terribly thirsty. My spirit is failing me; I would have been better off in Paris in my cool flat. It is too warm here.
I did two straight flights by leaps and bounds; I flew badly and landed badly. I came back to my camp fed up with everything. My friends! save me from my friends! One old gentleman who waited here, said to me "not bad, not bad, congratulations!." and then went into the details of the kites he had made with bamboo and newspaper. After this somebody else told me about the bicycle race round France. "It is very nice, your little machine," said a little brunette. "Isn't it pretty," and so on, and so on. . . .
    15th September: I took off the fabric from the middle of the back wing, cut out three feet of the main spar, joined it together, recovered it, and revarnished it. It works better.
    16th September: I tried, again in the evening; the wind had fallen. A friend came to see me from Lille, and in order to photograph My flying 1500 feet above the ground!!!
    When I throttle back in order to land, there is a tendency for the tail to drop; the front wing is too high, and there is a tendency to stall. I seemed to glide down very well, but I misjudged my landing, and landed in the road.
I got off today with 1,400 revs. instead of 1,600. That is good.
17th September: It is very warm; there is no wind, no air. I work in a bathing dress. You could not wear anything else.
    I lowered the wing by four inches by cutting the tubes which supported it. It glides better now, but I always throttle back too late, and I find myself: landing on the rough ground. I tried its control by pushing my hand to right and to left, which gave me the most extraordinary curves. Landing I let my hand go too soon, and dived into the ground from twenty feet up. The fuselage actually struck the ground as the wheels came up to the full length of the shock absorber, and made a groove. in the ground: both tips of the propeller were broken. I got back to earth after bouncing to thirty feet somehow! The engine was vibrating; I stopped it.

The sun is setting as I pull out my spanner to take off the hub, bringing the screw back to camp. I return with a little spare aircrew; too small as a matter of fact. I bolt it on again, and start the screw going. Night is falling, but I get back with full throttle, searing a flight of partridges. Honor is saved. What then? Well, everything is going quite well, except for this beastly turning. The balance fore and aft seems to be perfectly correct; the lateral control seems to be too strong, but even then the machine doesn't seem to want to turn; it is too stable.
19th September: I think over my accident of yesterday. It was the same story as last year when I broke my old machine. This time the machine is stronger and has stood up to it. I think out the matter. Each time I had moved my hand too abruptly. I must be gentler with the controls. The days pass by. Sometimes I fly, sometimes I fail, but I accumulate time, and I gain experience. We come to the story of the 8th November. On this day I telegraphed to my wife, "I made my first circuit of twenty minutes at a height of 1,300 feet quite safely. Hurrah!" The day is warm, the wind comes from the east. I wait for the evening. "It is time I went home, I cannot stay here for ever. The cold is coming, it will chase me out. .I must risk, something. The machine climbs, turns, it is stable." I was thinking like this all day. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon I started the engine. Shall I make a test flight? I take off towards the cast correctly, and pull upon the joystick. Here I am at fifty feet. I can stop if I wish, there is still time. No, I am going on. Without pulling too hard on the stick, I let the machine take its course. Here is the road, the power lines, the canal, the river, some marshes. I cannot get down in that sort of country. With one eye on my airspeed indicator and rev. counter, and listening to the noise of the engine, I do not worry much about the ground. I climb up out of the valley, and come up level with the plateau on either side. The banks fall away below me, and the contours seem to flatten out. I feel myself surrounded with clear green air; the sun is low. I am surely high enough to turn? Let's try it. Stick to the left a little, push a little harder, and suddenly I see ,the ground apparently straight below me. This startles me a little. I see the village grouped around the clock tower, surrounded by little gardens just below me. "Do not think about empty space you fool." The country moves past me transversely all right. One wing on the horizon, the other high the sky, a turn in a semi-circle and following along the road towards the west, brings me with in sight of Soissons. I feel quite calm. "How strange that I am alone in the machine; no jokes now!"

I suddenly get a little panicky, push on the stick a little, pull it and move it from side to side. My Flying Flea does exactly what I want it to do, and I feel reassured. By how high am I? My altimeter is in the pocket of my shirt; I wonder if I can get it out with my left hand, without moving my right? Gently! Ah! it is done. I am 1,300 feet up! I would not have believed it. I lean out over the empty space. Height in an aeroplane, in a real aeroplane, does not seem anything like height in my little Flying Flea.
My own plain is behind me; the dark square that is my own wood the white spot is my tent. I am up above, with the noise of the engine, and the speed of the wind of my travel. My camp looks very near and far! it seems to me that to come down fill be a very complicated affair. I turn again on one wing like a master pilot! It is quite a smart turn! Hello! Too much hand to the left. The Flying Flea comes back on a level keel easily. My wood comes before me, two miles away under my engine. I reduce my speed. I sink under the level of the plateau and seem to be sinking into shadows. Good-bye, bright sky. Although the valley is large, it seems to be in the shade, like a corridor. The last little brown leaves of the poplars are trembling in the light air of the evening; perhaps they are applauding me! The glide goes on. I keep a little engine, because I am still rather short. I give a little more throttle. I come down a little too fast. I throttle off, and settle gently on the ground, almost touching my little wood. Solo for the first time! I have thoroughly deserved it. Until night falls I walk around my little bus, thinking of my joy, reliving the least details of my flight! The first time in

HM 14 The Story