History

The Henri Farman No.1 was Henry Farman's personal Voisin biplane. He modified the aircraft extensively and broke several records in this aircraft, including many firsts in Europe. Arguably, it was the first successful European aircraft. Many of Farman's modifications would be applied to production Voisin aircraft as well.

The No.1 was a fairly standard two bay biplane of the era, with elevators forward of the wings on a short nacelle, a boxkite-like tail on long struts, and a very rudimentary cockpit positioned precariously close to the engine. Power was provided by an Antounette 8V, the first production V8 engine and a popular aircraft engine of the time.

Controls and flying

The No.1 is a very basic aircraft, but somewhat easier to fly than the variant I uploaded last time

Taking off

Set the throttle to 100%. Use the rudder to stay straight. When you reach around 38km/h, gently pitch forward and keep the tail off the ground. Once you reach 51km/h you can release the stick or pull up slightly to take off. Don't pitch up more than a few degrees

Level flight

The no.1 does not fly level like a modern aircraft. You will notice it tends to point up around 7-8° when it flies level. This is fine, in fact the whole cockpit is tilted to compensate for this. Since the wings have positive dihedral the aircraft is very stable so there's not much to worry about here

Turning

Turning can be a bit frustrating for the impatient. The easiest is to bank a few degrees (no more than 10°) and just let the plane naturally circle. For a more aggressive turn, once you've banked you can do full rudder into the turn, but you must compensate by rolling the opposite direction and pulling up simultaneously to avoid banking further into the turn

Exceeding 10° of bank can make the aircraft sideslip and rapidly lose altitude and speed. Do not try this at low altitudes

Landing

Landing is straightforward. Throttle back to 70°, get to about 1-2m above the ground flying level, and simply cut all power. The aircraft will gracefully plop down

Thank you for reading and/or downloading! I hope you enjoy this installment of my early aviation builds