• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

The Ongoing Mystery Aircraft Thread Part Deux.

Hi PH :encouragement:
The P-45 Gnome by Michael Ward (G-AXEI). I think it has the distinction of being the smallest UK manned aircraft flown. The thing behind the propeller is a 10-14hp Douglas 2-cilinder motorcycle engine. G-AXEI first flew 4 Augusty 1967. Later to museum and AFAIK now in the collection of Real Aeroplane Company in E.Yorkshire.
Seems a second example was never completed and this is now in the Newark Air Museum.
 
Indeed it is, Walter. Man and machine. Over to you, sir.

It would be interesting to know exactly which Douglas motorcycle engine it had up front at its inception and the year of its manufacture. I have seen various assertions as to this. Aubrey Jackson ('British Civil Aircraft 1919 - 1972') says that it was a 1925 two cylinder horizontally opposed Douglas tuned to give 14hp whereas Brian Thornby ('Douglas Light Aero Engines from Kingswood to Cathcart') has it as a 1915 4hp 593cc Douglas side valve twin. Does anyone know otherwise?
 
Thank you PH:encouragement:
Sorry, but cannot help on engine. For what it is worth, Wiki also mentions a 1925 (14hp) engine.

I am not certain that the subject of the new mystery post was actually flown. Sorry that I donot have the other half of the picture.
Sooooo... all help is welcome and needed.
 

Attachments

  • Ohapvs.jpg
    Ohapvs.jpg
    84.5 KB · Views: 4
Thank you, Walter. However I think that wikipedia has just lifted the text of its entry from Jackson. Maybe Arthur Ord-Hume has addressed the point in 'British Private Aircraft 1946 - 1970'? Does anyone have these two volumes which they can check for me?
 
Sorry, PH - I have Ord-Hume's earlier volumes, but felt that £100 was a bit much for the two later ones, especially as I'm not much of a flivver fan.....
 
She (the aircraft) is post-war, European and the controls could give a clue on what she (the aircraft) is/was.
 
Presumably a helicopter, and presumably Eastern bloc due to (a) quality of photograph - did they not make proper cameras in Russia ? and (b) the forbidding creature at the controls !

Have searched all the rotary sources I can find but, no joy. Wish I could recognise that logo...........
 
What puzzled me is what appears to be a wing root. But then, it may instead be the structure which carries the main wheels of the undercarriage.
 
Hi PH:encouragement:. Indeed part of the undercarriage system/attachment
Sorry Mike, not Russian. Seems the bad quality of pictures at the time was often caused by the bad quality of printing paper in the immediate post-war years. One more clue: She (the aircraft) had features you also see on aircraft such as the L-049, L-749, L-1049 etc.
 
Here are two fotos showing the ........ in full
 

Attachments

  • Brondetii BGM-2 foto2.jpg
    Brondetii BGM-2 foto2.jpg
    108.5 KB · Views: 1
  • BGM-2.jpg
    BGM-2.jpg
    15.2 KB · Views: 1
Very correct Mike :encouragement:. The BGM-2 it is and also there is (a lot) of debate on the name. To make things easier I tend to believe that the BGM-2 is very closely related to the Manzolini Libellula 1 which I have also seen described as BGM-2 Libellula with registration I-MANN.
In BGM the G stands for Gianini, the M for (Count) Ettore Manzolini and the B for either Fernandino Bordoni (youtube etc. as mentioned by you) or for Frederico Brondetti (Flight around 1948-1950, Popular Mechanics 9/1950).
Two things we can be sure of. She is Italian and she is a helicopter. The rest need to be filled in.
PS: Have also seen it named as Bronchetti BGM-2 and I would not be surprised if the Manzolini Libellula 1 is in fact the BGM-1.

Open invitation to answers to solve above and for a next post


Just for into, the Manzolini Libellula 1
 

Attachments

  • Manzolini Libellula 1.jpg
    Manzolini Libellula 1.jpg
    53.4 KB · Views: 4
Well Walter I have one clue to your riddle - here is the logo on the machine- you will note it is a stylized 'M' (presumably for Manzolini) and a dragonfly motif.

The Italian for dragonfly is, I believe, 'libellula'.

I suspect BG may have all the real answers on this one !

New mystery shortly !
 

Attachments

  • drag.jpg
    drag.jpg
    32 KB · Views: 4
This one stumped them on another forum. So those that were on both should be able to get it.

Chris
 

Attachments

  • WOT-11-14-15.jpg
    WOT-11-14-15.jpg
    133.8 KB · Views: 4
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top