José Weiss

José Weiss (* 1859 in Paris ; † 1919 ) was a British aviation pioneer , landscape painter and pacifist of French origin.

Life

In 1894 he married an Englishwoman and from then on lived in Amberley / Sussex . He was a successful landscape painter. He soon discovered his interest in aeronautics and began building and testing bird-like models. The models got bigger and heavier, and he built a launch pad in Bury Hill near Amberley to get them into the air. In total, it should have been around 200 models. In 1908 the model tests had reached dimensions that made a person-carrying variant possible. In 1909 the glider "Olive" was created, which, like its other designs, was named after one of his daughters. On June 27, 1909, 17-year-old Eric Gordon England managed a glide flight of 3 km and a duration of 58 seconds in a slope updraft . The "olive" had a wingspan of about 9 m and the fuselage had the cross-section of an inverted triangle and ended at the rear end into a flat skid . This flight is considered to be one of the first glider flights .

The success with the "Olive" encouraged Weiss to bring out a motorized version called the "Madge". This was equipped with an Anzani three-cylinder in a fan arrangement with 12 hp. This powered two pressure screws via bicycle chains. Although the "Madge" did not fly successfully, she was exhibited in the Handley Page booth at the Aero & Motorboat Exhibition in London in 1909 .

In 1910 Weiss built the motorized aircraft "Elsie", which had an engine with a pull propeller . The "Elsie" had inner wing flaps that could be individually operated directly from the pilot's seat.

In 1911 the "Sylvia" model with a conventional tail unit was created . The first Handley Page type (Type A) are also based on the collaboration with Weiss.

Weiss' last sailor, known as the "Joker", flew in 1911. After that, in collaboration with his colleague Alexander Keith, another runable glider , the "Aviette" , was created in 1912 . With the "Aviette" some gliding flights are possible. As a convinced pacifist Weiss was bitter about the development, the aircraft in World War I took. He died in 1919 at the age of 60.

Models

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  "Olive", 1908

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  "Madge", 1909

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  "Elsie", 1910

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  "Aviette", 1912

literature

• Rudolf Storck: Flying Wings . The historical development of the world's tailless and flying wing aircraft. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-7637-6242-6 .
• Bernard Weiss J .: Gliding and Soaring Flight Sampson Low Marston , 1923
• CH Barnes: Handley Page Aircraft since 1907 . Putnam. London 1976. ISBN 0-370-00030-7 .
• Aeronautical Progress Royal United Services Institution Journal , March 1913
• EC Gordon: Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society , 1966
• Harald Penrose: British Aviation: The Pioneer Years . Putnam 1967

Web links

• Detailed biography with photos (PDF; English)