Farman F.121
| Farman F.121 | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Type: | Airliner |
| Design country: | |
| Manufacturer: | |
| First flight: |
1923 |
The Farman F.121 Jabiru was a four-engine passenger aircraft that was designed and built in France in the 1920s.
history
The Farman F.121, the prototype of which was called the Farman F.3X, was designed for the 1923 Grand Prix des Aviations Transports. The aircraft was powered by four Hispano-Suiza 8 Ac engines, which were housed in tandem gondolas on stub wings .
In 1925 the three-engine variant F.4X appeared, which was powered by three uncovered Salmson AZ.9 radial engines . The engines, each with an output of 224 kW, were mounted in the upper fuselage bow and on stub wings. The pilot sat in an open cockpit behind the center engine. In contrast to the Farman F.3X, which was designed for 9 passengers, the Farman F.4X could only carry 6 passengers.
In the period from 1924 to 1926 seven F.3X passenger aircraft were built, which were now called the Farman F.121 Jabiru. The prototype received a modified cooling system and the designation F.121a. Two other machines were built under license in Denmark.
Based on the concept of the Farman F.121, the Farman F.123 was created as a prototype of a bomber plane . But only two Hispano-Suiza engines with an output of 450 HP (336 kW) each were installed as drive . The armament consisted of an internal bomb bay and machine gun stands in the bow and in the rear. The machine remained a one-off.
Another prototype was built as the Farman F.124 . The aircraft was similar to the Farman F.123. Two engines of the Gnome-Rhône Jupiter type, each with 420 hp (313 kW), served as drive . This aircraft did not get beyond the testing stage either.
construction
The fuselage was built in a mixed construction of wood and metal. There were two passenger seats and a single seat behind them in the fuselage bow. This was followed by a cabin with six seats. The open cockpit was in the area of the wing on the fuselage.
The aircraft was designed as a braced high- wing aircraft . The wings were made of wood and had a great depth and a maximum thickness of 0.76 m. On the underside of the fuselage there were two wing stubs that received the engine and landing gear. The tail unit was made of wood and had a normal construction. The aircraft had a rigid landing gear with a tail spur.
commitment
The four F.4X began service in the first few months of 1925. One of them opened the Lignes Farman route from Paris to Zurich. However, the performance was insufficient and after two losses, the two remaining machines were taken out of service in 1925.
A Farman F.121 was handed over to the Section Technique de l'Aeronautique (STAe) for test purposes. The machine was later sold. Farman himself used four machines on the Paris-Brussels and Paris-Amsterdam routes. The two remaining machines went to Det Danske Luftfartselskab (DDL) and were used together with the two licensed machines on the Copenhagen-Hamburg and Copenhagen-Cologne routes. The last machines were scrapped in 1931.
Technical specifications
| Parameter | Data from the Farman F.121 |
|---|---|
| length | 13.68 m |
| span | 19.00 m |
| height | 4.48 m |
| Wing area | 81.00 m² |
| drive | four eight-cylinder V-engines Hispano-Suiza 8Ac, each 134 kW (approx. 180 PS) |
| Top speed | 225 km / h |
| Cruising speed | 175 km / h |
| normal range | 650 km |
| Service ceiling | 4,000 m |
| Preparation mass | 3,000 kg |
| maximum take-off mass | 5,000 kg |
Airlines
-
France Lignes-Farman -
Denmark Det Danske Luftfartselskab
literature
- AERO. Issue 76, p. 2118.
- Wilfried Copenhagen , Rolf Neustädt: The large aircraft type book. Transpress Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-344-00559-6 .
