Truly amazing ?

[nong]

Re. page 13 of our August RAAus mag.....

 

Either Houdini had magic powers OR ....Gabriel Voisin new something about aircraft design that needs to be re-discovered!

 

or...

 

Oops.!

 

 

[shags_j]

I'm going to have to go home and look at what your talking about now!

 

 

[flying dog]

I have heard that Houdini was a pilot.

 

Actually it is strange that they say the pictures are from the Powerhouse Musuem. That is probably where I saw them when I went there recently.

 

What is the problem?

 

 

[PapaFox]

For one thing, he only made this flight 6 months ago (apparently)

 

 

[nong]

I was wondering if any of you spotted our Tech Managers absurd claim that Houdinis Voisin weighed 3,129.8 kg (6,900 lbs)!!! This is one of those times where history that is wrong gets repeated and becomes accepted truth. For example, this 'fact' is repeated on Wikipedia. I was, however, a bit stunned that this was published as truth by our TECHNICAL Manager. Anyway, we are then told that these early machines, judging by the Voisin, would be too heavy for RAAus.

 

This is not correct.

 

If the thing weighed 3,129.8 kg then its power loading with the 60 hp E.N.V. would be 52.16 kg/hp (115lbs/hp).!!!! Magic would be needed to make it fly...........or it didn't.

 

Without belaboring the point, a little research shows that Houdinis machine weighed around 550 to 580 kgs (1212 to 1279 lbs) and had about 431 square feet of wing area.

 

The power loading therefore was a much more reasonable 21 lbs/hp with a gossamer wing loading of say 2.9 lbs/sq. foot.

 

These figures are not very different to a Wheeler Scout and the performance would have been similar. Too heavy for 95.10 but definately one of ours!