Britain's first practical warplane is 100- and one graces UK skies. Ken Gllis reports

摘要

Sources don't mention the temperature, but it must have been cold. At Farnborough, Hampshire, on February 1,1912, Geoffrey de Havilland, designer and test pilot for the Royal Aircraft Factory, took a prototype biplane into the air. It featured wing-warping and a 60hp (44.7kW) Renault V-8 engine. Geoffrey's logbook sums it up: "BE.2 first time out at 1 lam. Flew straight to Laffan's Plain and back. Made four flights in all. Green passenger [Frederick Michael, the 'Factory's' engineer]. Gets away and climbs much faster than BE. 1. Engine revs 1,720. Speed slightly above that of BE.1."