Talk:Avro Duigan 1911

rewrite
I took a look at the Avro E article for somenow forgotten reason to do with an ENV engine & there was this very fresh edit saying that the type was the work of some wunderkind who had arrived at Brooklands, learnt to fly in five lessons and designed the aircraft when bad light stopped play. So I reverted that and popped over here andreally had to gve it a workover. This, of course, is yet another book that I don't have the Putnam manufacturers book, but the article (as said in edit note) mistakes this one off (?) single seater for the E. The aircraft actually needs a full (ie lengthy) technical description, because it incorporated several major improvements. This is one of the aircraft that defined this archtype. which of course make it describable as "a two bay tractor biplane with a long skid" ("just another biplane"), so details ar important. Article also v. sketchy (ie misleading when not wrong) about Duigan. Btw the cite I referred to in edit note shoud have been the 1912 article.TheLongTone (talk) 00:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Jackson, who has a whole article about the Duigan machine, differs on the seating from Lewis. He says "The machine [Duigan] was a two seat, dual control biplane ...". Since he has over two pages on the Duigan, there are more details than in Lewis' seven lines.  The comments about its limited passenger carrying ability ("confined to straights") also come from Jackson. I agree it's worth noting the similarity of design and construction of the Duigan and E, which Jackson mentions in his Avro E section but there was no confusion of the two.TSRL (talk) 08:13, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm off on the bike to get Jackson, so will deal with that. I was going to drop you a line about all this (and I still owe you the airship table, done bar checking & there soon if you want it) because I don't like rewriting stuff done by people who seem to be putting up good stuff. Which reminds me, do you know own anything about the Alvaston engine? Wiki has nothing, all I can find is that the built three horizontally opposed engine types & that aircraft fitted with them do not seem to have flown very well (they couldn't have failed to deliver the advertised power, could they?). The single seat thing was from the contemporary Flight magazine, so they probably got it wrong: their sketch clearly shows a transverse leaf springs carrying the wheels & the photos look like a plain axle. The aircraft might also have been fitted with a tonneau cover to confuse people?? Lewis does give it only a few lines, but as far as the airframe goes it's all covered: by his account they are clearly two aircraft built in paralell, and this is in line with te flight evidenc. Not to mention the evidence of ones own eyes. The single forward strut is the clear giveaway if a picture doesn't make the engine visible Both the E and the 500 need attention, the D especially. TheLongTone (talk) 08:35, 5 September 2011 (UTC)TheLongTone (talk) 08:37, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Flight has a couple of articles on the Alvaston:[www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/.../1911%20-%200286.html] and [www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/.../1910%20-%200335.html]. There's nothing, as you may already know, in Gunston, Lumsden or Jane's 1913.TSRL (talk) 09:29, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'd already found the Flight articles & now have Jackson to hand....TheLongTone (talk) 12:18, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

S V Setty
This has a personal interest to me, as this man is my great-great grandfather. That being said, we know officially that Avro lost a number of records in a fire in the 40s. Avro did give my grandfather a medal for his contributions, that is still in the possession of our family and has since been officiated by Avro.

I'm included a few references, but all of them have been removed as "nonsense" I'd like to know what constitutes an acceptable reference before you delete it again. Note that one of the articles is from The Times of India, a well regarded, highly circulated newspaper. Another is from SPS Aviation, which is an aviation journal focusing on the South / South-east Asian market. Pdinc (talk) 16:33, 8 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but Setty being your grandfather does not make these claims true. Setty's career inEngland is reasonable documented: he cme to England to learn to fly & certainly also learnt technical drawing & did a little work for Avro, but he was not the designer of the Duigan or the 500. I have come across this claim before, & Setty's claims to have designed the aircraft have been dismissed by Roe himself. As quoted in the cited thread at www.aviastar.org/air/england/avro_duigan.php.TheLongTone (talk) 00:15, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I will mention that the items in the cited thread are user comments with no substantiated corroboration - I'm trying to find the source for those claimed letters but have been unable to find anything as of yet. I'll do my best tto dig up more corroborating documents (which is what was used as documentation for the news articles) instead of going into a back-and-forth edit war.

We have a medal that was given to him by H.V. Roe for his work on the Duigan, as well as references that were used later when he attempted to build a copy of the Duigan in India. It's with my family back in India, but hopefully that should be enough to lay this to rest. Pdinc (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The forum that was cited contained a quote from Roe's biography. The claims simply don't stack up for Setty making any major contribution: Roe was I think employing two full time draftsmen at this time & the aircraft in question is a clear development of an earlier type.TheLongTone (talk) 08:32, 10 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The quote from Roe's biography was regarding another student at the time, S.V. Sippe (not related). SV Setty clearly had close interaction with the Duigan, as he attempted to build a similar plane in India upon his return. Pdinc (talk) 23:53, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "close interaction?". Look at the Duigan/Type 500, look at Roe's previous aircraft, bear in mind (as stated above) that Roe already had other people working for him as as draughtsmen? assistant designers. All Setty's attempts to build an aircraft in India prove is that he had seen drawings.TheLongTone (talk) 16:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)