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On the 9th September, 1912, Vedrines, flying a Deperdussin monoplane at Chicago, attained a speed of 105 miles an hour. On August 12th, G. de Havilland took a passenger to a height of 10,560 feet over Salisbury Plain, flying a B.E. biplane with a 70 horse-power Renault engine.
Beaumont made the distance in a flying time of 22 hours 28 minutes 19 seconds, and Vedrines covered the journey in a little over 23 1/2 hours. Valentine came third on a Deperdussin monoplane and S. F. Cody on his Cathedral biplane was fourth.
Cody carried off the only prize awarded for a British-built plane, this being the sum of L1,000, and consolation prizes of L500 each were awarded to the British Deperdussin Company and The British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, this latter soon to become famous as makers of the Bristol aeroplane, of which the war honours are still fresh in men's minds.
These units are kept up to strength, wastage being made up from reserves, so as to maintain the requisite homogeneity. But ere the war had been in progress many weeks an official order was issued forbidding the employment of the Bleriot, Deperdussin, Nieuport, and R.E.P. monoplanes.
In the last connection it is interesting to note that the French Deperdussin firm produced a fabric wing-covering with extra strong threads run at right-angles through the fabric at intervals in order to limit the tearing to a defined area.
These consisted of Farman, Caudron, and Short biplanes, together with Bleriot, Deperdussin and Nieuport monoplanes, certain R.A.F. types, and other machines of which even the name barely survives the resourceful Yankee entitles them 'orphans. It is on record that the work of providing spares might have been rather complicated but for the fact that there were none.
The second prize was taken by A. Deperdussin for the French-built Deperdussin monoplane.
This was in competition with no less than twenty-five other machines, among which were the since-famous Deperdussin, Bristol, Flanders, and Avro types, as well as the Maurice Farman and Bleriot makes of machine. Cody's remarkable speed range was demonstrated in these trials, the speeds of his machine varying between 72.4 and 48.5 miles per hour.
The Gordon-Bennett race of September, 1913, was again won by a Deperdussin machine, somewhat similar to that of the previous year, but with exceedingly small wings, only 107 square feet in area. The shape of these wings was instructive as showing how what, from the general utility point of view, may be disadvantageous can, for a special purpose, be turned to account.
Machines and engines before the war were chiefly French. It is interesting to note those with which No. 3 Squadron, one of the first to be formed, commenced its career in May, 1912. They consisted of one 50 horse-power Gnome Nieuport, one Deperdussin, which by the way was privately owned, one Gnome Bristol, two Gnome Bleriot monoplanes, one Avro and one Bristol box-kite biplane.
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