Flying Flea of the future

[Pittsextra]

Not the killing and subsequent grounding bit, but amazing to think how this machine captivated peoples imagination in the 1930's.


Has there been anything close to gaining such interest in such short timescale since?

[9 lives]

The Piper Cub captivated people's attention in the '30's, and holds it to this day....

If I recall, the Flying Flea was borne of aerodynamic thinking, which had yet to mature.

[gaxan]

There was a "flying flea" microlight some years ago called Balerit. Dont know what became of the type.

[creweite]

It has been a long time since I attended an RSA rassemblement, but I recall that there were quite a few aircraft following the Mignet formula. Toute Terrain with a four wheel undercarriage was one.

[Jan Olieslagers]

The last couple of years, there were few or none. Sad.

[Mark 1]

The Croses Criquet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croses_Criquet) sorted out several, but not all, of the issues and was reasonably successful.

[xrayalpha]

Pittsextra asked: Has there been anything close to gaining such interest in such short timescale since?

Yes. Microlights. Especially weightshift ones.

[Stanwell]

.
The contemporary attraction to Henri Mignet's 'Pou de Ciel' was, ISTR, that it could be homebuilt and was affordable, easy to fly and 'safe' (Ahem!).

The homebuilt Evans 'Volksplane' is perhaps a worthy successor to that concept, IMHO.

[Silvaire1]

The mention of the Evans VPs reminds me of another possibility, maybe a good analog to the Pou du Ciel in terms of mass appeal, gaining interest in a short time scale, 'easy to fly' and 'safety'....

The Bensen Gyrocopter :}

http://www.vortechonline.com/bensen/grfx/B8M-over%20water.jpg

PS I met Bud Evans once, he struck me as a good guy. One of the guys who worked at Convair and did other things on the side... Pazmany (PL1 and 2) and Björn Andreasson were others. Andreasson was the originator of the SAAB/Bölkow mid-wing thingy.

[Pittsextra]

ha - yes I suppose microlights have filled the gap, especially the SSDR version sold out of Sywell. I think they have sold triple digit units which is fantastic.


Gyroplanes, yes I am surprised given the UK weather these aren't more popular. Obviously the 70/80's was a PR disaster but with modern materials, knowledge I'm surprised a single seater isn't revisited.

I found this on youtube... happy days


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYuHR1Eet3w

[Fergus Kavanagh]

Two-seat factory-built machines are selling like hot cakes these days.
The economics of factory built single-seaters are different. Lower profit margins and high certification costs have effectively killed that market, in the UK, at least.

Very well-designed Factory-built, Kit-built, and Home-built single-seaters are available in other countries, with excellent safety records, but UK BcarSection-T
certification costs are prohibitive, against the likely UK market for them.

This is a great shame, as the single-seaters are so much more fun to fly.

[rotorfossil]

I flew a flight test of the Balerit for a flying mag years ago. It was the nearest thing to a foolproof aircraft (if there is such a thing) that I ever met. Stick back in your gut, boot in the pedal (no ailerons) and it just went round the turn nodding gently but impossible to stall, and I tried! Anybody trained on it would have been lethal on anything else.
It's only problem was crosswind landings. Couldn't yaw it straight as it immediately rolled away from the wind. Couldn't use wing down technique as no ailerons, so just had to put it down and let the undercarriage take the strain, which to be fair, it did. It was just a microlight with tandem wings and therefore lots of drag with all the struts etc.

[Pittsextra]

That's interesting - how was it received all that time later? Not well I guess?

And not entirely impossible to stall!


http://www.bea-fr.org/docspa/2000/34-n000528/htm/34-n000528.html


"circumstances


Take-off, a few meters from the ground, the ULM tilts to the right and take a sharp nose-up attitude. The driver explained that at that time he thought the victim of a turbulence that caused the rupture of a wing. He decides to ask and reduces engine power. The aircraft stalled and crashed into the ground to the right of line 33.


During the accident, the mass of the ULM was less than fifteen kilograms at maximum take-off weight.


In addition to the damage resulting from impact with the ground, it was found that no structural abnormality on the wings."

[rotorfossil]

The point about this type, and as far as I know all flying flea types, the front wing can and does stall, but all that happens is the nose drops and it installs itself. The rear wing stays unstalled. I'm not sure in the accident it actually stalled. I tried cutting the power with the nose high and the stick back. The nose did drop sharply and we lost a bit of height but it did sort itself out without intervention. It only proves I suppose that somewhere sometime somebody will be a bit of a clot!
I did wonder at the time whether a severe roll upset might be a problem close to the ground as you can only right it by lots of rudder and the subsequent response to the skid.
I'd rather have ailerons!

[Silvaire1]

I flew a flight test of the Balerit for a flying mag years ago. It was the nearest thing to a foolproof aircraft (if there is such a thing) that I ever met. Stick back in your gut, boot in the pedal (no ailerons) and it just went round the turn nodding gently but impossible to stall, and I tried! Anybody trained on it would have been lethal on anything else. It's only problem was crosswind landings. Couldn't yaw it straight as it immediately rolled away from the wind. Couldn't use wing down technique as no ailerons, so just had to put it down and let the undercarriage take the strain, which to be fair, it did. It was just a microlight with tandem wings and therefore lots of drag with all the struts etc. Both characteristics are shared with some other non-Mignet designs. Sequential stalling and unstalling of the front wing is also how more recent canard aircraft work, e.g. Rutan designs and similar.

Ercoupes have the same characteristic in a crosswind landing as a result of having interconnected ailerons/rudder and no pedals other than one for the brakes. In that circumstance the Ercoupe is designed to be flown on in a nose high crab, something quite easy to do, with the main gear built heavily to take the side loads. A while ago I was surprised to read a test on the Ercoupe which didn't understand this procedure and said crosswinds were a problem in the type! The trick is let the tricycle gear do its thing and crab it on with controls neutral. The plane will yaw itself into line after the main gear touches down. If the pilot instead attempts to straighten the yaw himself, the nose wheel may be turned when it touches, possibly resulting in a wheelbarrow-style ground loop. Also as noted the wrong wing is raised. I imagine the same technique might work on a rudder + dihedral controlled Mignet plane, assuming it has tricycle gear and assuming its built for the job.

[Kasper]

Flying a flea is really easy to understand as a pilot in terms of control input response ...

They are configured as a canard ie forward wing controls pitch and it more highly loaded than the rear wing... its just that they are the reverse of a 'traditional' or modern canard in that the forward wing is a lot bigger than the rear BUT for a flea to be safe to fly the CofG position is such that the wing load for the forward wing remains higher than the rear requiring that the AoA of that wing remains higher and of course stalls first.

That's a bit of a simplification there as the close coupled front wing screws up your effective AoA on the rear wing due to down wash ... with some flea combinations it is actually easier to think of them as a flying wing on the front with a stabilizer on the free hanging fuselage ... regardless of how you mentally think of them they operate as a canard with respect to control inputs.

So Fleas at the stall (normal stall) do the classic 'nodding' and are very resistant of pilot mishandling errors ... but if you pitch up aggressively just after takeoff and cut the power it doesn't matter if its a flea or a piper cub, the result is not going to be gentle.

BUT with Fleas (or any mignet type tandem wing) you have some quirks to be aware of that come from using the secondary effect of rudder as your roll control ... it is POSSIBLE with very aggressive and out of phase use of rudder to stall both front and rear wings on one side at the same time while the other side is still flying ... you roll and rotate SPECTACULARLY ... but that's not usual ... that's what you test during flight test of the the buggers ;-)

[Silvaire1]

with Fleas (or any mignet type tandem wing) you have some quirks to be aware of that come from using the secondary effect of rudder as your roll control ... it is POSSIBLE with very aggressive and out of phase use of rudder to stall both front and rear wings on one side at the same time while the other side is still flying ... you roll and rotate SPECTACULARLY ... but that's not usual ... that's what you test during flight test of the the buggers ;-)

That's really very interesting, thanks for the post.