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As the catapult's force was spent automatic trips upon the undercarriage actuated the propelling rockets and mile after mile, with rapidly mounting velocity, the plane sped through the tube.
Again the plane bounded, and this time came down with a shock that left McGee amazed with the realization that the undercarriage was intact and that he still had a chance to keep her off her nose if only he could get the high-riding tail down. Crash! Crack! The tail was down now ... and broken to splinters, like as not.
This year also saw a great increase in the number of seaplanes, although the 'flying boat' type had only appeared at intervals and the vast majority were of the ordinary aeroplane type fitted with floats in place of the land undercarriage; which type was at that time commonly called 'hydro-aeroplane. The usual horse power was 50 that of the smallest Gnome engine although engines of 100 to 140 horse-power were also fitted occasionally.
"Came a few minutes after you took off, but when I refused him a ship he got mad as a hornet, bawled out the light crew and and me, and then jumped back in his car and rode off. Rather tempestuous fellow." "If he had stayed here," McGee said, regretfully, "my Camel wouldn't now be standing over yonder on its nose with its undercarriage wiped off. He'd at least think of landing lights."
One wheel only was fixed under the body where the undercarriage exists on a normal design, but light wheels were fixed, one at the extremity of each wing, and there was also a wheel under the tail portion of the machine. A single lever actuated all the controls for steering.
The offending car was a Jeep, jacked up on all fours with tires big enough to dwarf a road-grader, and had struts and shock absorbers and what-not sticking out all over the undercarriage a real useful piece of machinery for navigating the treacherous Silicon Valley freeways: when you see a car you don't like, you just roll right over it.
At the same time, in the early part of 1913 a tendency manifested itself towards the four-wheeled undercarriage, a pair of smaller wheels being added in front of the main wheels to prevent overturning while running on the ground; and several designs of oleo-pneumatic and steel-spring undercarriages were produced in place of the rubber shock-absorber type which had up till then been almost universal.
Henry Farman, who began his flying career with a Voisin machine, evolved from it the aeroplane which bore his name, following the main lines of the Voisin type fairly closely, but making alterations in the controls, and in the design of the undercarriage, which was somewhat elaborated, even to the inclusion of shock absorbers.
This machine ran on three wheels before leaving the ground, a central undercarriage wheel being fitted in front, with two more in line with a right angle line drawn through the centre of the engine crank at the rear end of the crank-case. The engine was a 35 horsepower Vee design, water cooled, with overhead inlet and exhaust valves, and Bosch high-tension magneto ignition.
The whole of the machine is lifted about a hundred feet by the compression from a shell that has exploded a few yards beneath our undercarriage. I begin to wonder whether all our troubles have been swept away by a direct hit; but an examination of the machine shows no damage beyond a couple of rents in the fabric of the fuselage. That finishes my observation work for the moment.
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